Atsuko Asano (Japanese: あさの あつこ, Hepburn: Asano Atsuko, born 1954 in Okayama Prefecture) is a Japanese writer. She wrote the children's novel series Telepathy Shōjo Ran and the manga series The Manzai Comics. She started writing children's novels when she was in college. She graduated from Aoyama Gakuin University with the Bachelor of Letters degree. After that, she worked as a temporary teacher of the elementary school in Okayama for two years. She published Hotarukan monogatari as her first novel in 1991. She is married to a dentist and they have two sons and a daughter.