Body found in mountain may be missing 'Crayon Shinchan' cartoonist+

MAEBASHI, Japan, Sept. 19 Kyodo -
A climber found a body, which may be that of Yoshito Usui, cartoonist of the
popular ''Crayon Shinchan'' series adapted for TV and film, in a mountain
straddling Gunma and Nagano prefectures on Saturday morning, police said.

The body will be recovered from the bottom of a steep cliff on Mt. Arafune on
Sunday to verify whether it is indeed Usui, 51, who has been missing since
Sept. 11, the police said.
Before he left home in Kasukabe, Saitama Prefecture, on the morning of Sept.
11, Usui had told his family that he was going hiking on Mt. Arafune and would
return by the evening, according to the police.
His family reported him missing the next day and the Saitama prefectural police
have been searching for him in cooperation with the police in Gunma and Nagano
prefectures.
Usui started drawing ''Crayon Shinchan,'' the story of a feisty kindergarten
boy Shinnosuke Nohara living in Kasukabe with his family, in a comic book
published by Futabasha Publishers Ltd. in 1990.
The city of Kasukabe issued a special residence card for the Nohara family in
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the municipality and has also been
using Shinchan since April as the city's mascot for its childrearing support
campaign.
==Kyodo