Kyoko Mizuki (水木 杏子) is one of the pen names of Keiko Nagita (名木田 恵子, Nagita Keiko). She is a Japanese writer who is best-known for being the author of the manga and anime series Candy Candy. Kyoko Mizuki won Kodansha Manga Award for Best Shōjo Manga for Candy Candy in 1977 with Yumiko Igarashi. Keiko Nagita won Japan Juvenile Writers Association Prize for Rainette, Kin Iro no Ringo (Rainette - The Golden Apples) in 2007. Her short story Akai Mi Haziketa is printed in Japanese Primary School Textbook for 6th grade (Mitsumura Tosho Publishing Co.,Ltd.). Her picture books Shampoo Ōji series (art by Makoto Kubota) was adapted into anime television series in October 2007. When she was 12 years old, her father died. Then she created "imaginary family Andrews" to relieve her loneliness and wrote their stories on a notebook. Mizuki said "I feel Andrews family have watched me affectionately. They are the origin of my story writing". She spent a few years as an actress of Shiki Theatre Company in her late teens, and some of her works reflect this. In eleventh-grade, she won a prize short story contest for young girls' magazine Jogakusei no Tomo. After selling her short story Yomigaeri, Soshite Natsu wa to the magazine when she was 19 years old, she decided to become a full-time writer. In those days she was a frequent contributor of poems to Koukou Bungei magazine, famous poet Katsumi Sugawara appreciated her talent and she joined his poetry club. When she was 20, she published a collection of poems Kaeru privately. 5 years later, her Poetical Works Omoide wa Utawanai was published by Sanrio Company, Ltd. She wrote short stories and love stories for young girls' magazines, and Kodansha commissioned her to write stories for their shōjo manga magazine Shōjo Friend. In the 1970s, she wrote many shōjo manga stories as Ayako Kazu, Akane Kouda, Kyoko Mizuki and Keiko Nagita. In 1975, she wrote the story of freckled hearty girl, Candy Candy for monthly Nakayoshi. She said "I lost my mother when I was 21, then I was all alone in the world. To write the story healed my sorrow". The manga was adapted into anime television series in 1976 by Toei Animation. Since then Candy Candy have made her one of the more successful female manga writer. The last episode of Candy Candy was written at Domaine De Beauvois, a chateau-hotel in France. Mizuki said "I wanted to say good-bye to Candice in beautiful place. If possible, I wanted to go to the U.K. When I was into the room, tears welled up in my eyes because a picture of fox hunting was hung on the wall. Fox hunting—it took Anthony’s life. When I remember Candice, autumn days at the beautiful hotel came to my mind. The hotel was like the villa of Ardray family." Since 1980, she is mainly writing juveniles and love stories for young girls as Keiko Nagita. Her Fūko to Yūrei series is especially popular. Music for Fūko to Yūrei series was composed by Toru Okada (岡田 徹, Okada Toru?, born April 23, 1949 in Tokyo) who is a member of Japanese famous rock group Moonriders, the album called Siriau Maekara Zutto Suki 知りあう前からずっと好き was released in 1995. In 2001, she returned to publishing with the concluding part of Fūko to Yūrei. She won Japan Juvenile Writers Association Prize 2007 for Rainette, Kin Iro no Ringo, a love story of a Japanese girl and a Belarusian boy who was exposed to radiation of Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. May 2008, she wrote a story for Shōjo manga after an interval of 18 years. The manga Loreley was drawn by Kaya Tachibana. She has a husband and a daughter, they enjoy vacation at their cottage in Prince Edward Island every summer. Terry Kamikawa, a student of Anne of Green Gables and hostess of Blue Winds Tea Room in P.E.I, is her best friend. She has a collection of heart shaped objects, a part of her collection is shown on Aoitori Bunko official site

Yumiko Igarashi (いがらしゆみこ) is a resident of Sapporo, Hokkaido. She is also the cousin of fellow mangaka Satsuki Igarashi; a member of Clamp. In 1968, as a third-year high school student at the Asahi Gaoka High School in Sapporo, Hokkaidō, she made her debut in Shueisha's Ribon manga magazine with Shiroi Same no iru Shima. She won the 1st Kodansha Manga Award in 1977 as the artist of Candy Candy. In the late 1990s, Igarashi became involved in a number of legal battles related to her intellectual property rights as an illustrator. Igarashi claimed that in series for which she was the illustrator, she should hold sole intellectual property rights to the portrayals of the characters, and not need the consent of her authors to license merchandise based on their likenesses. In a dispute over the Candy Candy character designs in 1999, the court ruled against Igarashi, stating that both she and writer Kyoko Mizuki held equal rights to the characters, and awarded Mizuki reparations equal to 3% royalties on all the merchandise that had been created without her consent. This legal battle paralyzed the franchise for several years, interfering with Toei's production of a Candy Candy anime, and making the creation of new merchandise difficult due to the court's order that all merchandise be approved by both Igarashi and Mizuki, but a trickle of new merchandise was produced in 2004, suggesting some agreement had been reached.