Erica Sakurazawa was born on July 8, 1963, in Tokyo, Japan. She began her professional career as a manga artist at the age of nineteen in 1983, initially drawing a four-panel yonkoma manga for a men's erotic magazine. Her early work in publications such as Manga Burikko is considered pioneering for its direct depiction of young women's sexuality, a departure from the norms of traditional shōjo manga. She is sometimes grouped with other female artists of that era as an onna no ko H mangaka, or a female creator of hentai (erotic) manga. By the late 1980s, Sakurazawa had shifted her focus to young ladies manga magazines, including Young You and particularly Feel Young, where she would publish many of her most notable works. She is also a regular contributor to the josei magazine Office You.

Sakurazawa has produced a large body of short manga series and standalone volumes. One of her early major works was Makin Happy, serialized from 1991 to 1993, which helped establish her reputation. Other key titles include the English-translated works The Rules of Love, Nothing But Loving You, Between the Sheets, and The Aromatic Bitters. She also created the long-running autobiographical series Shippo ga Tomodachi about her life with her cats and Kyō mo Otenki, which chronicles her experiences with marriage, motherhood, and having a stay-at-home husband.

In the context of anime and film adaptation, Sakurazawa is credited as the original creator of the manga Angel (Tenshi). This manga was adapted into a live-action film released in 2006, starring actress Kyōko Fukada. The Angel series, which ran from 1999 to 2006, has also been published in English by Tokyopop.

Her artistic identity is defined by a focus on contemporary romance and the psychology of modern women, often targeting an adult female readership that has outgrown younger-skewing manga. Her drawing style is noted for being spare, loose, and almost scratchy, deliberately avoiding the common tropes of flowers, bubbles, and hearts to create a more realistic portrait of adult relationships. Her storytelling frequently explores themes of love, friendship, and sexuality, including the complexities of LGBTQ relationships, which she has stated she approaches as a normal and familiar subject rather than as something extraordinary. She is also known for her autobiographical manga essays that blend personal life with commentary on style, beauty, and family.

Erica Sakurazawa holds significance in the manga industry as a prolific and enduring voice in josei manga, a category aimed at adult women. Her career, spanning from the early 1980s, helped pave the way for more direct and realistic depictions of female desire and experience in the medium. Her work has been translated and published internationally, including in North America by Tokyopop, and she has been invited as a guest to international events, such as a lecture at the University of Calgary in 2018 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Canada.