He was born on March 8, 1922 in the village of Kohama, near Osaka, although he spent his childhood in Sakaiminato, a small fishing village in Tottori prefecture. Shigeru Mizuki, whose real name is Shigeru Mura, was one of the manga authors best known in Japan and with a long career behind him. At the age of twenty he is enrolled in the Japanese army and sent to the jungle of New Guinea, where he will experience a real nightmare: he contracts malaria, attends the death of most of his companions and loses his left arm in a bombing. In 1957, after a life already too rich in memories and injuries, he began his career as a manga author and became one of the great storytellers of his country. Throughout his work, Mizuki did not fail to show his deep understanding of the human soul and the empathy he always felt for all forms of life. Shigeru Mizuki won the prize for the best album at the Angoulême International Comic Fair 2007 by NonNonBa, and the "essential heritage" prize at the Angoulême 2009 show, by Operation Death. In 2010 he received the title of "person of cultural merit", an official recognition granted annually to all those who have made significant contributions to Japanese culture. He died in Tokyo on November 30, 2015, at age 93.