Japanese news agency Jiji Press reports influential manga creator Yoshiharu Tsuge died on March 3, after being hospitalized for aspiration pneumonia. He was 88 years old. Tsuge was part of the gekiga (English: dramatic pictures) movement of darker and more realistic adult-aimed manga in the 1960s, and frequently explored themes like loneliness and the surreal. He also wrote essays and manga about travel and hot springs.
Tsuge was born in Tokyo on October 30, 1937, and initially worked at a metal plating factory, something that inspired the early 1970s series Oba Electroplating Factory. He made his professional manga debut with 1955’s Hakumenyasha, and joined the alternative manga magazine Garo as a contributor after its founding in 1964. His famous work, Nejishiki (Screw Style), debuted in its pages in 1968.
He left the magazine in 1970, after which he struggled with the increasingly editorially-driven direction of the manga industry. His final work, The Man Without Talent, was published from 1985 to 1986. In addition to his own work, Tsuge served as the assistant to GeGeGe no Kitarō creator Shigeru Mizuki during the 1960s.
Tsuge was honored during his lifetime with the Japan Cartoonists Association’s Grand Award for The World of Dreams and Travels in 2017, and a Special Honor Award from the Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2020. His work was adapted into several films, including 1998’s Nejishiki adaptation Screwed (starring a young Tadanobu Asano), and 2025’s Locarno Film Festival winner Two Seasons, Two Strangers.
He was married to the actress and children’s book illustrator Maki Fujiwara (My Picture Diary) from 1975, until her death from cancer in 1999. He is survived by their son, Shosuke Tsuge, and his younger brother Tadao Tsuge, who is also a cartoonist. News of his death comes shortly before the release of He Rolled Me Up Like a Grilled Squid, the penultimate entry in Drawn & Quarterly’s seven-volume collection of his complete works, on Tuesday, March 31.
You can read more about Tsuge’s life and legacy in a commemorative post by D&Q’s creative director Tom Devlin on the publisher’s official website.
