Sunday September 27, 2009
Farewell, Yoshito Usui
THE death of Yoshito Usui has left many mourning his loss as tributes poured in for the renowned Japanese cartoonist. The announcement of his passing came following confirmation that the bruised body of a man found on a mountain was that of the creator of the popular Crayon Shin-chan manga and anime series.
Usui, 51, went missing on Sept 11 after he went hiking on his own on a mountain range straddling Gunma and Nagano prefectures, north of Tokyo. A body was found on Sept 19 by a fellow hiker, and Usui’s family confirmed the next day that it was Usui, a recluse married with two daughters.
The indications are he fell and there was no suggestion of suicide, police and reports said.
The Nohara family of Yoshito Usui’s Crayon Shin-chan (from left): mother Misae, sister Himawari, Shinnosuke, Shiro, and father Hiroshi. No official photo of the reclusive mangaka is available. – AFP His death dampened celebration for the Respect for the Aged holiday on Monday in Kasukabe, a suburban city outside Tokyo, which has become well-known in Japan as the place where the cartoonist lived and set the Crayon Shin-chan story.
“I’m deeply distressed to hear the unfortunate news. I pray that his soul will rest in peace with citizens here,” Kasukabe Mayor Ryozo Ishikawa said.
“I saw many sorrowful citizens today as Shin-chan is definitely a Kasukabe kid. We hope ‘Shin-chan’, a byword for cheerfulness, will keep staying here with his family,” he added.
Usui made his debut as a manga author in 1987 and sprang to prominence in the 1990s with Crayon Shin-chan, which features the daily life of Shinnosuke, a mischievous five-year-old boy. The series ran regularly in a magazine and was later made into a book and anime.
“We had been praying for Usui’s safety with his family but now feel the utmost regret over how things have turned out. We are in a big shock,” Futabasha, the publishing house of Crayon Shin-chan, said in a statement.
A Futabasha official said the last picture on the broken digital camera found near Usui’s body was one peering down a steep cliff.
“As he was full of curiosity, we think he fell off at the moment he took the picture,” the official told reporters.
The manga, which has sold 50 million copies in Japan alone, has been translated in 14 countries, while the anime has been aired in 30 countries.
Shinnosuke embarrasses his parents and kindergarten teachers as he often pulls down his trousers and shakes his hips while cracking indecent jokes.
The behaviour prompted parent-teacher associations in Japan to list the anime as a production they wanted to keep out of children’s view.
But the character has more recently been used in educational materials. – AFP
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