Shogakukan’s Big Comic editorial department announced today that renowned manga artist Sanpei Shirato passed away due to aspiration pneumonia on October 8 at the age of 89 and that his younger brother Tetsuji Okamoto, who had supported Shirato’s drawings for many years, also died of interstitial pneumonia four days later, October 12.
We would like to express our sincere condolences to Sanpei Shirato, who has been writing for Big Comic since its first issue, and his younger brother, Tetsuji Okamoto, who was in charge of drawing.
After working as an assistant of shoujo manga artist Kazuma Maki, he made his debut as a manga artist in 1957 with Kogarashi Kenji.