The lifeless body of mangaka Azuki Takahashi, who created the hit manga series
Yu-Gi-Oh!
, was discovered on Wednesday morning according to several Japanese media.
According to public television NHK, the 60-year-old man was found in a diving suit off Nago, near Okinawa.
"He was wearing a t-shirt, a (diving) mask, a snorkel and flippers,"
a member of the city's coast guard told AFP.
Discovered early Wednesday, July 6, he was identified a day later.
Azuki Takahashi had no visible injuries and his vehicle was parked about ten kilometers away, suggesting that the body would have drifted for a long time.
The authorities are investigating the causes of his death, the theses of
The manga
Yu-Gi-Oh!
, originally published in the Japanese magazine
Weekly Shonen Jump
between 1996 and 2004, features Yugi, a teenager who receives a puzzle containing the spirit of a pharaoh as a gift, which takes over the body of the young man.
Divided into 38 volumes, we follow the adventures of characters who face off during card duels representing monsters.
A real phenomenon at the end of the 90s, with more than 40 million copies sold worldwide, the manga
Yu-Gi-Oh!
has become a cult license, available in anime, films, card games or even video games.
Azuki Takahashi had also created various anime derived from the main saga.
In recent years, he had reduced his activities, delivering a few one-shots like
The Comiq
in 2018.