Blood type: A

Hometown: Tokachi, Hokkaido, Japan

Arakawa broke into manga with a one-shot called STRAY DOG, but she's best known for creating Fullmetal Alchemist, the series that earned her the Shogakukan Manga Award, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Award for New Artist, and the Shinsei Prize. Before that breakthrough, she worked as an assistant to Etou Hiroyuki on Mahoujin Guruguru.

She's close friends with Takahashi Yashichirou, who created Shakugan no Shana, as well as Segami Akira. She had a son in 2007.

A few artists have worked under her—Aiya Kyu was one of her assistants, and Inariya Fusanosuke possibly was too before transitioning to BL manga in 2002.

In interviews and online spaces, fans note her distinctive self-portrait: a bespectacled cow. That quirk comes from her background—she grew up on a dairy farm in Tokachi with three older sisters and a younger brother, and actually worked as a farmer for eight years before relocating to Tokyo to pursue manga full-time.