Akiko Hatsu

is a Japanese manga artist born on December 16, 1959, in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.

Career From the time she was in high school, she assisted her older sister, professional manga artist Yukiko Kai. After graduating high school, she began working for a printing company in Kanazawa City, but she soon quit in order to become a full-time assistant to her sister.

Throughout this period, Hatsu was creating self-published manga with her friend Yasuko Sakata (who also went on to become a prominent professional manga artist), and sometime around 1980, the two of them coined the term yaoi. In 1980, Yukiko Kai died of stomach cancer at the age of 26. The following year, Hatsu made her professional debut in the magazine ALLAN with the short story .

Her work has been published in numerous magazines, including DUO (published by Asahi Sonorama), (published by Shinshokan), Petit Flower (published by Shogakukan, later retitled flowers), (published by the Asahi Shimbun Corporation, later retitled ).

(July 1992, Asahi Sonorama, bunko edition September 2000, new edition October 2007); published in English in 2000 by ComicsOne.

(November 1992, Asahi Sonorama; bunko edition 2001 (Hakusensha), new edition October 2007. A collection of short love stories; the title story is about a young man involved with his brother's widow. Published in English by ComicsOne.

(November 1993, bunko edition June 2003, new edition October 2007)

(June 1994)

(July 1995, new edition October 2007)

(November 1995, bunko edition June 2000, new edition October 2007)

(May 1996)

(September 1997, new edition October 2007)

(September 1997)

(March 1999)

(Published in from 2000 to 2007.) A series of short stories with an element of fantasy set in Victorian England and centering on Cornelius Everdeanne, a young, handsome heir to an earldom. Currently available in a wide-ban edition from Shogakukan.