Manga creator Sanpei Shirato is seen on Jan. 19, 2018, in Futtsu, Chiba Prefecture. (Mainichi/Daisuke Wada)

       TOKYO -- Sanpei Shirato, creator of "The Legend of Kamui" manga, passed away from aspiration pneumonia on Oct. 8. He was 89.

       Shirato, whose real name was Noboru Okamoto, was born in Tokyo. His father was Toki Okamoto, a painter of the proletarian art movement. Noboru, too, wanted to be a painter, but to support his family after World War II he left secondary school and became a writer of "kamishibai" stories, or picture-boards used in public storytelling.

       In 1957, he began writing and illustrating manga books for rental libraries, and rose to fame in 1959 with "Ninja bugei cho (or "the book of ninja martial arts"), tales of ninja adventures.

       A funeral was held for Shirato and attended by close relatives. (Mainichi)

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