The Life and legacy of Kazuki Takahashi

     Kazuo (Kazuki) Takahashi was a Japanese mangaka (manga artist) and writer. Takahashi is most well-known for the manga/anime series Yu-Gi-Oh. Yu-Gi-Oh not only became a very successful manga/anime series but also spawned a number of sequels and a hugely popular trading card game. Kazuki Takahashi sadly passed away on July 4th, 2022 at the age of 60 years old. In this post, I want to talk about the life and legacy of one of the all-time manga/anime legends, Kazuki Takahashi.

        Kazuo Takahashi was born in Tokyo on October 4th, 1961. As a young child, Takahashi suffered from poor health, and as a result, he used drawing as his outlet. Throughout his childhood and teenage years, Takahashi would draw a lot of stuff from his favorite manga series. During this time he also liked to create gag manga with his cousin that featured characters from Kamen Rider. Takahashi didn't care very much about school and even once had a junior high teacher that criticized him by saying "Poop machine that knows nothing except eating, sleeping, and pooping." This was said in front of many other students and made Takahashi want to prove his teacher wrong by becoming a successful mangaka and writer. While in high school, Takahashi decided that he also wanted to become an animator. He made up his mind that if he passed the recruitment exam to become an animator he would drop out of high school to pursue animation as a full-time gig. He ended up failing the exam and was harsh on himself even going as far as to say that his skill as a manga artist was still not good enough. Sadly, Takahashi decided to leave his animation dreams behind and became a designer of corporate logos. He still hadn't put his dreams completely aside though. Takahashi continued his dream of becoming a mangaka and writer by submitting his works to multiple publishers.

    After high school in 1981, at the age of 20, Takahashi made a one-shot manga titled Love Ball. Love Ball was written and illustrated under the pen name of Hajime Miyabi and it won the Shogakukan New Comic award. Love Ball was also published in the Weekly Shōnen Sunday in the same year. Five years later in 1986, Takahashi had his serial debut with Go-Q-Choji Ikkiman, this manga was an adaptation of a sports anime of the same name. This manga was then published in the Weekly Shōnen Magazine. During this time, Takahashi started to experience extreme poverty. He had stated himself that he had a more than "comfortable life", but it came with the absence of electricity. Takahashi started to realize that his current manga releases were not very profitable and he even went as far as to say that they were a "total flop." In the '90s, Takahashi decided to take being a mangaka and writer a lot more seriously and released works like Tokio no Taka (one-shot) and Tennenshoku Danji Buray (full manga) which were both published in the Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine.

    1996 was the year that Takahashi's manga career really took off. This was the year that he launched his biggest and most successful manga of his entire career: Yu-Gi-Oh!, under his new professional name, Kazuki Takahashi. Not only has the series sold more than 40 million copies but it also spawned many anime series and a trading card game developed by Konami. The Yu-Gi-Oh trading card game holds a Guinness World Record for selling more than 25 billion cards as of 2011. Yu-Gi-Oh as an anime continued to get more sequels with the likes of Yu-Gi-Oh GX, Yu-Gi-Oh 5D's, etc.

    Takahashi continued to work in the manga space and in 2015, he received the Inkpot Award from Comic-Con International for his exceptional contributions to comics.

    On July 6th, 2022, Takahashi was found in the water 300 meters (980 ft) off the shore of Nago, Okinawa by Japan Coast Guard officers. Later it was reported that Takahashi had passed away on July 4th while helping to save three other people who were caught in a rip current. Yu-Gi-Oh is known as the "King of Games", but I will always remember Kazuki Takahashi as the "King of Manga."