Akiko Baba (1928–) is a Japanese tanka poet and literary critic. She joined the poetry journal Mahiruno in 1947 and studied under the poet Shoichiro Kubota. While teaching at junior and senior high schools, she pursued both tanka and Noh, and in 1978 founded the tanka journal Karin. Her poetry collections include “Budo Karakusa,” which received the Choku Prize, and “Ako Chichi,” winner of the Yomiuri Prize for Literature. She has also received the Asahi Prize and the Japan Art Academy Prize, and was named a Person of Cultural Merit in 2019. In “Oni no Kenkyu,” she examines depictions of demons in ancient and medieval tales, literature, and Noh, tracing how social exclusion and emotions such as jealousy and resentment shaped the figure of the oni in Japanese culture.