Shogakukan introduced on Wednesday that Golgo 13 manga creator Takao Saito handed away on September 24 from pancreatic most cancers. He was 84.

Saito was born in Wakayama in November 1936. He debuted with the Kūki Danshaku manga in 1955. He additionally revealed the Sagashiya hage Taka Tōjō!! manga in 1968 earlier than launching Golgo 13 later that very same yr.

Golgo 13 received the twenty first Shogakukan Manga Award, a Japan Cartoonists Affiliation Grand Prize award, and the particular choose’s award on the fiftieth Shogakukan Manga Awards. Saito was awarded the Medal of Honor With Purple Ribbon in 2003, and the Order of Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays With Rosette in 2010. Golgo 13 celebrated its fiftieth yr of serialization in 2018, and Saito celebrated his sixty fifth yr as a manga creator in 2020.

Shogakukan introduced that Saito had mentioned earlier than his dying that he wished the manga to proceed on with out him, and the Saito Manufacturing group of artists will proceed on the work with the help of the editorial division of Shogakukan‘s Large Comedian journal and a further scriptwriting employees. Saito Manufacturing launched the first-ever spinoff manga for the franchise on July 17.

Golgo 13, centering on the titular legendary hitman, is the oldest manga nonetheless in publication.

The manga lately tied with Osamu Akimoto‘s Kochira Katsushika-ku Kamearikouen-mae Hashutsujo (“Kochikame“) police comedy manga for the Guinness World Report for “most volumes revealed for a single manga sequence,” each with 200 volumes as of April 5. Nonetheless, Golgo 13 has since surpassed the file, publishing a 201st quantity on July 5 and a 202nd quantity on September 6.

Viz Media revealed 13 volumes of the manga in North America between 2006 and 2008. The story impressed two live-action movies in 1973 and 1977, a 1983 anime movie, a 1998 Golgo 13: Queen Bee authentic video anime, and a 2008-2009 tv anime sequence.

Sources: Shogakukan, Oricon