Astro Boy, Lyricist for Howl's Moving Castle Shuntarō Tanigawa Dies at 92

Image via X/Twitter by Shuntarō Tanigawa

Kyodo News reported on Tuesday that famous writer Shuntarō Tanigawa has passed away at the age of 92. The writer died on November 13, and his relatives held a private funeral officiated by his eldest son Kensaku. main funeral.

Tanigawa was born in Tokyo, and his father was the Japanese philosopher Tetsuzō Tanikawa. Shuntarō Tanigawa began writing poetry in his teens and published his first poetry collection, Nijū Oku Kōnen no Kodoku (Two Billion Light Years of Solitude), when he was 20 years old in 1952.

Tanigawa wrote the lyrics for this poem. the theme songs to three of Osamu Tezuka's anime classics — Tetsuwan Atom (Mighty Atom or Astro Boy), Big X and Phoenix — as well as Hayao Miyazaki and Ghibli's Howl's Moving Castle Film Studio. He also wrote the script for the movie The Phoenix: Chapter of Dawn.

This writer is famous for his poems, translations and essays. His poetry collection Float the River in Melancholy won the 1989 American Book Award. He has written more than 60 books of poetry and is also known for his translations of Charles Schulz's comic strip Peanuts and the Mother Goose nursery rhymes into Japanese. .

His numerous awards include awards at the 75th NHK Broadcasting Cultural Awards, the Zhongkun International Poetry Prize, and the Noma Children's Literature Award.

Source: Kyodo News via Hachima Kikō