Kodama was born on September 26 in Sasebo, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.[1] She made her debut as a manga artist in 2000, with her series Zakuro (柘榴) published in Cutie Comic, a manga magazine published by Takarajimasha.[2] Kodama would go on to publish several short-form works in Cutie Comic and Vanilla, a manga magazine published by Kodansha, in the early- to mid-2000s.[3]
Kodama is best known for her manga series Kids on the Slope, which was serialized in the manga magazine Monthly Flowers from 2007 to 2012.[4] The series, which Kodama based on her own experience growing up in Sasebo, was the top-ranked manga for women in the 2009 edition of Takarajimasha's annual Kono Manga ga Sugoi! rankings[5] and won the 57th Shogakukan Manga Award in 2012 for general manga.[6] In 2012, Kids on the Slope was adapted into a television anime series by director Shinichirō Watanabe.[4]
Following Kids on the Slope, Kodama's wrote the manga series Tsukikage Baby, a drama focused on events in a traditional Japanese town from the perspectives of several different families. The series, which was published from 2013 to 2017 in Monthly Flowers;[7][8] was one of the top ranked manga for women in the 2014 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! rankings.[9] Her next series Chiisako no Niwa, also published in Monthly Flowers, ran from 2017 to 2018,[10][11] and placed eighth in the 2019 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! rankings.[12] Her most recent work, Ao no Hana, Utsuwa no Mori, has been published in Monthly Flowers since 2018.[13]
