Japan’s beloved one-armed manga creator, social critic and war veteran Shigeru Mizuki dies at a Tokyo hospital on November 30.
The animated TV series ‘Spooky Kitarō’ was produced by Toei Animation.
Japan’s beloved one-armed cartoonist, social critic, and war veteran Shigeru Mizuki, died November 30 of multiple organ failure at a Tokyo hospital, according to a BBC report. He was 93.
Mizuki was most known for his Japanese horror comic books about GeGeGe no Kitarō (Spooky Kitarō), which helped bring global recognition to Anime. The series, about a young boy fighting monsters based on Japanese folklore, was made into an animated TV series which was produced by Toei Animation and ran for several years.
The famed artist also tackled a slew of taboo subjects in his comics, making him difficult to categorize as a simple cartoonist. As Jake Adelstein writes in his tribute to Mizuki on The Daily Beast, “Imagine if Walt Disney had been a wounded war veteran, who after creating Mickey Mouse later became a social critic of the Vietnam War, atomic energy, and the treatment of Southeast Asian prostitutes by U.S. troops. You would have, essentially, an American version of Shigeru Mizuki.”
Born in 1922, Mizuki fought in New Guinea during World War II, during which time he contracted malaria, suffered heavy wounds and eventually lost his left arm in a U.S. airstrike. He went on to write manga based on his experiences during the war. His work covered U.S. wartime bombing, the abuse he suffered under commanders, and a biography of Adolf Hitler. Mizuki was named a Person of Cultural Merit by the Japanese government in 2010.
Read more about Mizuki and his remarkable career here.
Formerly Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network, Jennifer Wolfe has worked in the Media & Entertainment industry as a writer and PR professional since 2003.
