Akiko Higashimura is a Japanese manga artist born on October 15, 1975, in Miyazaki Prefecture. Before beginning her career in manga, she studied oil painting at the Kanazawa College of Art. She made her professional debut in 1999 with the short story Fruits Koumori, published in the now-defunct magazine Bouquet Deluxe. Her first serialized work was Kisekae Yuka-chan, which began in 2001 in the shōjo magazine Cookie.

Higashimura is the creator behind several notable series that have seen adaptation into other media. Princess Jellyfish, serialized in Kodansha’s Kiss magazine from 2008 to 2017, stands as one of her most acclaimed works. The story, which follows a group of otaku women living in a Tokyo apartment building and their encounter with a fashionable cross-dressing man, received a 11-episode anime television adaptation produced by Brain’s Base that aired in 2010. It was also adapted into a live-action film in 2014 and a live-action television drama in 2018. Her series Tokyo Tarareba Girls, which ran from 2014 to 2017, was adapted into a live-action television drama in 2017. Another major work, the autobiographical Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey, was serialized from 2011 to 2015 and has been announced for a live-action film adaptation.

Recurring themes in her work often blend humor with understated romance, frequently focusing on the lives of women navigating personal ambitions and societal expectations. Her autobiographical works, such as Mama wa Tenparist about her experiences with child-rearing and Blank Canvas about her path to becoming a manga artist, are known for their candid and humorous self-reflection. Her art style is characterized by expressive character work, and she is noted for her ability to balance comedic and dramatic elements within a single narrative.

Higashimura has received significant industry recognition. She won the Kodansha Manga Award for Best Shōjo Manga in 2010 for Princess Jellyfish. In 2015, she received the Manga Taishō award and the Grand Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival for Blank Canvas. More recently, Tokyo Tarareba Girls earned an Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia in 2019. She is known for maintaining a high level of productivity, often managing multiple serializations concurrently with the support of a large team of assistants. Her younger brother, Takuma Morishige, is also a manga artist, known for creating My Neighbor Seki.