TOKYO — Kazuki Takahashi, the author of the global damage hit manga and buying and selling card recreation Yu-Gi-Oh!, was once discovered useless in southern Japan, the rustic’s Coast Guard stated Thursday.

His frame was once found out on Wednesday floating off the coast of Nago in Okinawa Prefecture. Mr. Takahashi was once touring by myself in Nago, a well-liked holiday vacation spot, and had it appears been snorkeling when he died from unknown reasons, a Coast Guard spokesman stated. He was once 60.

Mr. Takahashi, whose actual title was once Kazuo, started operating as a manga artist within the early Eighties, nevertheless it wasn’t till 1996 that he started his upward push to global popularity with the tale of a spiky-haired boy who demanding situations his enemies to duels involving magical video games.

The tale began as a one-off however ended up operating for almost 8 years within the pages of the preferred Eastern boys comedian mag Weekly Shonen Bounce. Alongside the best way, it impressed films, TV presentations, video video games and a collectible buying and selling card recreation, which rivaled Pokemon as one in every of Japan’s maximum recognizable cultural exports.

The collection and its spinoffs changed into a advertising and marketing goliath that bought itself: Films and TV presentations featured the characters enjoying a card recreation similar to the only fanatics may just acquire of their community passion retail outlets. New playing cards had been launched regularly since, proceeding to replace even after the manga and anime completed.

Yu-Gi-Oh! manga have made common appearances on best-seller lists, and the buying and selling card recreation has generated billions of bucks in income for its writer, Konami. A brand new online game model, launched in January, was once downloaded 30 million instances in its first 3 months.

Native firefighters found out Mr. Takashi’s frame at 11:27 a.m. Wednesday, following a document from native vacationers, the Coast Guard stated, including that it’s investigating the reason for his dying.

Information of Mr. Takahashi’s dying broke within the past due afternoon in Japan and was once met with an outpouring of grief on social media each in his house nation and all over the world.