This. This is the worst thing to happen to me all day since my discovery of Jersey Shore.
You want to know why? In Kinokuniya, about a year ago, I picked up a manga called With the Light on a recommendation of a blogger now forgotten, because it was one of the few manga that dealt with autism in a meaningful way available in English.
Keiko Tobe, at the time, I was unaware you were even a woman. I thought you were a dude with one of those gender confused Japanese names, like Tatsuhiko (as in Takimoto). But your manga above all manga I read that year which wasn’t made by Osamu Tezuka… it touched my heart because you dared to take a stand on an issue that directly affected me as a person, even though you never knew me at all.
I had no idea you were sick and I thought you were still working on With the Light… I tried my best to buy your manga volumes as they came out, even if you only got royalties for the one volume I picked up out of curiosity. Now… I want to hear the rest of the story you planned out, even if it doesn’t have a “real” ending.
Because most lives, they don’t end like they do in manga. They end so suddenly and it hurts you when it happens.
Rest in Peace, mangaka-sama.
UPDATE: MangaBlog has covered, if briefly, this tragedy.
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Text Copyright © Jacob Martin 2010. All Rights Reserved. Image taken from here.
2 comments ↓
[...] many of you saw my article I posted when Keiko Tobe died, but many more saw this article by Schoolgirl Milky [...]
I just found this out.
I am so sad.
Her manga was one of the best things I’ve read about autism.
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