"Any card—so long as it exists—has a power that is needed."

xiranjayzhao:

The creator of Yugioh, Mr. Kazuki Takahashi, has passed away at age 60. He was found on the shore of Nago, Okinawa in scuba diving gear, though the circumstances of his death are still under investigation.

Rest in peace, legend. Thank you for giving me so much, more than you ever could’ve known.

ngl, I’ve had the browser tab in which I saw this under the #yugioh tag open since the news broke, mainly because I was so busy with work and work on my finalized subs that I couldn’t post, but also I suppose in a way because I had to process this for a bit.  I actually found out while waking up an hour before my alarm on Thursday, seeing a notification from a friend DM’ing me about it before I went back to sleep, and I spent most of the day seeing all the condolences and bittersweet/warm thoughts about it on Twitter, the NAC Discord, and elsewhere.

Letting it sink in sometime after some coffee on Thursday, it really is tragic, for one–just given his impact on the broader YGO fandom and culture in general–but also just hard to really imagine, especially with it being an accident as it seems to be.  It’s true that people we like in media or culture being gone at any moment is bound to happen with life being as short as it is (people like Betty White come to mind), but there’s no underselling how much of an impact Takahashi’s work and story/art have had on millions of people.

I know I definitely wouldn’t be who I am or–being the shy kid I was for most of junior and high school not unlike Yugi–have had the friendships I’ve had if I didn’t have the anime/card game based on his manga to grow up with and come of age with, or have the spinoffs it inspired to draw lessons from and get just as attached to in their own ways.  We’ll still have his art and everything to look back to, which is the silver lining here (especially since I still have the rest of the Battle City finals and onwards to read in the manga), though I did always love popping onto his IG to see new art he’d drop or learning about what influence he’d had on the spinoffs as they went on.  It’s comforting to know that he was able to have a major hand in producing DSOD and giving his original story closure, and his cut of Yugi setting up his Duel Disk vs Kaiba will continue to look so good.

Rest in power, king. 👍🏽 And thanks for giving us everything–that which we can see and yet not see.  All our stories end in light–but they’re also all just beginning.

Also, Konami, pls don’t pull a Nickelodeon/Stephen Hillenberg with DM going forward thx (unless it’s reanimating the manga in full or even adapting YGO R ofc)