"Yu-Gi-Oh!" Creator Kazuki Takahashi Found Dead

Tokyo, July 7 (Jiji Press)--Japanese manga artist Kazuki Takahashi, the creator of popular manga series "Yu-Gi-Oh!" has been found dead in the southernmost Japan prefecture of Okinawa, Japan Coast Guard sources said Thursday. He was 60. The body of Takahashi, whose real name was Kazuo Takahashi, was found floating in waters off the city of Nago in Okinawa on Wednesday morning, according to a local JCG station. There was an emergency call around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday (1:30 a.m. GMT) reporting that a body was seen floating in the waters, according to sources including the coast guard's 11th regional headquarters in the Okinawa capital of Naha. About one hour later, the body was found at a point some 300 meters off Nago. Takahashi was wearing a T-shirt, a dive mask and a snorkel. A car he rented was found parked near a popular diving spot in the village of Onna, a Nago neighbor, on Thursday. Born in Tokyo, Takahashi made his debut as a manga artist in the 1980s and started the "Yu-Gi-Oh!" series on Japanese publisher Shueisha Inc.'s Shukan Shonen Jump weekly magazine in 1996, which later became animated television series and game software. The series has been published in 38 volumes in a regular comic book format and 22 volumes in a pocket book edition, with their total circulation exceeding 40 million copies. END