Manga artist Takao Yaguchi passed away.

I think it was 2004 when I first met Dr. Yaguchi. He was introduced to me by Mr. Masaru Uchida (deceased), who was an advisor to the company I was managing at the time. I think I visited him at his office in Jiyugaoka.

At the time, there were no smartphones and only 3.5-inch mobile phones existed, but when KDDI started a flat-rate monthly fee system, the main feature of the system was the introduction of e-comics (a service that allows you to read the text frame by frame) and ringtones (ringtones that were previously only melodies are now real ringtones). (a song) was expected to be used for the first time.
I wanted the digital rights to as many of the masters’ comic works as possible before the service started.

However, the contracts between authors and publishers of works written long ago do not mention the rights of the future electronic world. The publishers were concerned that authors would use their old hardships as a shield to freely sell their digitization rights (automatic public transmission rights) to IT businesses like mine for secondary sales, and they kept tinkering with it.

As a challenger, I had directly approached Mizuki Shigeru, Umezu Kazuo, Fujiko Fujio A, Matsumoto Leiji, and Tsuge Yoshiharu, and received favorable feedback. It was during this time that I also met Mr. Yaguchi. Of course, I was banned from major publishers because I did such an extreme thing.
Dr. Yaguchi was a former banker, so he immediately understood about the digitization of paper works.

He also mentioned “Gekito Magnitude 7.7” (激濤 Magnitude 7.7) as a particular favorite.
It was serialized in Shogakukan’s “Big Comic” from 1989 to 1990, but it has already gone out of print and there is no way to read it except second-hand books. I could not find it.

This film is about the main character, Makoto Sugimura, a newspaper reporter who was swallowed by a tsunami while sea fishing during the Central Sea of Japan Earthquake that occurred around noon on May 26, 1983, and narrowly survived. The story is based on the experiences of a young man who was born and raised in Japan.
The storytelling is realistic, as if foreseeing the subsequent Great East Japan Earthquake (2011).

Mr. Yaguchi was really happy that his works were being distributed electronically so that young readers could once again read them. I promised to digitize all of his works, not just his best-known ones, and I did it. The total number of pages was 1,090,000.

I don’t think I will ever forget that kind smile at that moment.
Enjoy your favorite fishing in heaven.
We pray from the bottom of our hearts that he will rest in peace.

◆ Reference
Death of Takao Yaguchi, cartoonist of “Tsurikichi Sanpei
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/…/20201125/k10012730031000.html