Atsuko Asano (born 1954) is a Japanese novelist and children’s author from Okayama Prefecture. She made her literary debut in 1991 with "Hotarukan Monogatari" and has since written across a wide range of genres, from children’s literature to historical fiction and mystery. Her best-known work, "Battery," is a six-volume series set in a provincial town in Okayama and centered on Takumi Harada, a gifted young pitcher with fierce confidence in his abilities, and Go Nagakura, the catcher determined to form a battery with him. Through baseball, the series portrays the boys’ clashing personalities, friendship, relationships with their families, and passage through adolescence.