Kanoko Okamoto (岡本 かの子, Okamoto Kanoko, 1 March 1889 – 18 February 1939), born Kano Ōnuki (大貫 カノ, Ōnuki Kano), was the pen-name of a Japanese author, tanka poet, and Buddhist scholar active during the Taishō and early Shōwa periods of Japan.

Her father suffered from lung disease, and Kanoko was sent to the Ōnuki family estate in Futako Tamagawa, Kawasaki, Kanagawa, where she was raised by a governess.

Her tutor encouraged her affinity for music, calligraphy and traditional dance, and introduced her to Japanese classical literature, especially the Tale of Genji and Kokin Wakashū.

Okamoto was influenced greatly by her older brother, Shosen, and his classmate Jun'ichirō Tanizaki who studied at the First Higher School and Tokyo Imperial University.

While still a student at the Atami Gakuen girls' high school, Kanoko called on the poet, Yosano Akiko, and this encounter prompted her to start contributing tanka to the poetry magazine Myōjō ("Bright Star").

Along with Yosano, she joined Hiratsuka Raichō, Tamura Toshiko, and others, to be one of the initial contributors to the influential Bluestocking (Seitō) journal, helping to set the course for women writers and feminist ideas, in 1911.

After returning home, Okamoto continued her researches into Buddhism, but also found time to a novelette called Tsuru wa yamiki ("The Dying Crane"), describing the last days of writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, while staying at an inn near Kamakura Station in the summer of 1923.

After that, she published many more works in quick succession, including Boshi jojō ("The Relationship between Mother and Child"), Kingyo ryōran ("A Riot of Goldfish"), and Rōgishō ("Portrait of an Old Geisha").