Akiko Higashimura

Akiko Higashimura (Japanese: 東村 アキコ, Hepburn: Higashimura Akiko, born October 15, 1975) is a Japanese manga artist from Kushima in Miyazaki Prefecture. She debuted in the now-defunct manga magazine Bouquet Deluxe in 1999 with Fruits Kōmori (フルーツコウモリ) and later gained notability for her manga Kisekae Yuka-chan, which debuted in Cookie magazine in 2001. Higashimura was nominated for the Manga Taishō in 2008 for Himawari: Kenichi Legend, in 2009 for Mama wa Tenparist, in 2010 for Princess Jellyfish, in 2011 for Omo ni Naitemasu, and in 2016 and 2017 for Tokyo Tarareba Girls. In 2010, she won the 34th Kodansha Manga Award for Best Shōjo Manga for Princess Jellyfish. In 2015, she won both the 8th Manga Taishō and the Grand Prize at the 19th Japan Media Arts Festival for Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist's Journey. In 2019, she won the Eisner Award for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia for Tokyo Tarareba Girls. Higashimura's younger brother, Takuma Morishige, is the author of the manga My Neighbor Seki.