Kazuki Takahashi, the creator and mangaka of the popular Yu-Gi-Oh! series, was found dead at sea. According to The Japan Times, Takahashi was found off the coast of Okinawa on Wednesday. It was reported that he was wearing “a T-shirt and an underwater mask, snorkel, and fins” during an apparent snorkeling trip in Okinawa Prefecture.
The search for the mangaka began when the car rental company he was using for the trip contacted the police on Wednesday and said they couldn’t reach him. That caused the coast guard to begin its search, and he was found around “300 meters,” or approximately 984 feet, offshore. Takahashi was traveling alone. Right now there has been no indication that this is anything other than an accident, but the Japan Coast Guard is conducting an investigation into the incident.
Kazuki Takahashi was best known for creating the manga series Yu-Gi-Oh!, which ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1996 to 2004 and spawned one of the biggest media franchises of all time, including a card game, multiple anime series (beginning with an adaptation in 1998 and then another that ran for several years from 2000–2004), and video games and remains popular today.
I grew up watching Yu-Gi-Oh! as part of my Saturday morning cartoon lineup. It was one of the first anime I actively followed in English and Japanese. I played the card game, I owned a duel disk, and I obsessed over the female characters. This is heartbreaking news.
(via The Japan Times, featured image: TV Tokyo)
