Mariko Minoguchi was born in Munich in 1988 to a German mother and a Japanese father. At the age of 16, she completed an internship in editing and at the age of 18 she made her first short film - completely independently and without official support. The 23-minute long "Maybe" (2007) described the ordinary experiences of a group of young friends during one night; the leading roles were played by Janina Stopper and Sidney Gersina (daughter of director Peter Gersina).    

In the following years Minoguchi was an intern and assistant to various film productions. She was 2nd assistant director to Gregor Schnitzler for "Resturlaub" (2010) and "Spieltrieb" ("Gaming Instinct", 2012). She did not attend a film school. Instead, as an autodidact, she made other short films and was a member of the team of the Munich production company Trimaphilm until 2015, where she produced Eva Trobisch's award-winning short film "Wie du küsst" ("The Way You Kiss", 2012), among others.    

Trimaphilm (since 2017 named Trimafilm) also produced Minoguchi's short film relationship drama "Karlstod" (2012), about a woman with incurable cancer (Juliane Köhler) taking leave of her husband (Matthias Brandt). This film was shown at the Hofer Filmtage and the film festival Max Ophüls Preis. Minoguchi also produced commercials and trailers for the Munich City Museum (2012) and the DOK.fest Munich (2013).  

In spring 2018 Minoguchi began shooting her feature film debut, the love story "Mein Ende. Dein Anfang" ("Relativity"). The premiere took place at the Munich Film Festival 2019; at the Biberach Film Festival "Mein Ende. Dein Anfang" won the Audience Award. The film was released in cinemas in November 2019.