The renowned manga artist Jiro Taniguchi died on Saturday at the age of 69, his Belgium-based publisher, Caserman, announced. The cause of death was not revealed.
In a genre often featuring violent and pornographic content, Taniguchi differentiated himself in his decades-long career by highlighting the pleasures of the little things in life.
According to the BBC, his works such as “The Walking Man,” “The Summit of the Gods,” and “The Magic Mountain,” are characterized by highly detailed and unerringly accurate line drawings of landscapes that the artist drew steadfastly by hand.
“I do not use a computer because I do not know how, I don’t have the skill,” he admitted in an interview with AFP in 2012.
Jiro Taniguchi, who won a decoration of the L’ Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (The Order of Arts and Letters), draws at his studio in Tokyo. Courtesy of KARYN POUPEE/AFP/Getty Images.
Describing Taniguchi as a “extraordinarily kind and gentle” man, Casterman praised the manga icon for his contributions to the genre. “The humanism that imbued his work is familiar to his readers, but the man himself was much less well-known, naturally reserved in character and more inclined to let his work speak on his behalf.”
Taniguchi was born in Tottori in 1947. Publishing his first cartoon in 1970, the artist earned a cult following among manga enthusiasts at home and abroad.
Throughout his life, the artist enjoyed an international following that extended beyond the borders of his native Japan to western Europe, and especially France. The artist credited his popularity in the West to his exposure to European comics.
“I don’t know why I am also known outside of Japan,” he said. “Perhaps it is because my work is similar to Western comics, which I’ve followed for 30 years and they have influenced my subconscious.”