Kazuki Takahashi, the creator behind the blockbuster manga series and trading-card game Yu-Gi-Oh!, was found dead off the coast of Nago City, Okinawa Prefecture in Japan, the country’s coast guard confirmed on the morning of July 7. Local firefighters responded to reports of a body floating about 300 meters off the coast of Awa in Nago City around 10:30 a.m. local time and later identified the man as Takahashi. According to reports from the Japanese public broadcaster NHK, he was apparently traveling alone to the popular vacation destination and had been snorkeling when he died. The coast guard is actively investigating the cause of his death. He was 60.
Born Kazuo Takahashi in Tokyo in 1961, Takahashi began his career as a manga artist in 1982, although his early works didn’t launch him into the international spotlight. Instead, he became a world-renowned artist in 1996, when he created the smash hit Yu-Gi-Oh!, a manga series that follows a clever boy who challenges his enemies to magical puzzles and card-game duels. The original manga was serialized in Japan’s Weekly Shonen Jump, while the English version appeared on shelves in 2002. Yu-Gi-Oh! birthed a highly successful media franchise of trading-card and video games, spinoff TV and anime series, and multiple animated films. While all of the Yu-Gi-Oh! products have been a certified marketing coup, it was the trading-card game that entered the Guinness World Records in 2011 for the top-selling trading-card game in history, with 25.2 billion cards sold at the time. Takahashi’s latest work was an original story for the Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Dark Side of Dimensions anime film, released in 2017. Takahasi’s death was met with an outpouring of grief from fans around the world.
