Yoshiko Shikimura is a Japanese novelist and essayist known for being the original creator of the novel Ganbatte Ikimasshoi. Born in 1961 in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, Japan, she wrote the novel which was first published by Magazine House in July 1996. The work later received a paperback edition from Gentosha under their Gentosha Bunko imprint in June 2005. The novel won the first prize at the Bocchan Literary Prize award in 1995, prior to its initial publication.

Shikimura's novel has served as the source material for multiple adaptations across different media. A live-action film adaptation was released in 1998, followed by a television drama series in 2005. Most recently, an anime film adaptation premiered in Japan on October 25, 2024. This animated version was produced by the studios Studio Moe and Reirs, with direction and screenplay by Yūhei Sakuragi. As the original author of Ganbatte Ikimasshoi, Shikimura holds the foundational credit for this story of a high school rowing club, which has been reinterpreted in film, television, and anime over the course of more than two decades. Her body of work includes writing novels and essays, with Ganbatte Ikimasshoi standing as her most prominent work in terms of its successive adaptations.