Writer Osamu Soda passed away on April 8 at a Nagoya hospital because of pneumonia. He was 95 years old, Soda’s family shared that his health got worse quickly after he went to the hospital for a cold on April 4.
Kadokawa, a company that printed lots of Soda’s books, also shared a message about his passing on Tuesday. They said that from the time Soda started writing in 1979, he kept on creating new stories even after he turned 90.
The people who edit books at Kadokawa praised Soda for making kids happy with his stories for 45 years. They also mentioned how he stood against war, which came from things he went through in his own life.
Soda was born on May 8, 1928, in Tokyo. After finishing college, he started off as a writer for movies and a magazine editor.
Then, in 1979, he became a novelist with his book called Unknown Seas, which got nominated for the Naoki Prize.
In April 1985, Kadokawa Shoten released Soda’s book Seven Days War or Our Seven-Day War. It became really popular and was turned into a movie in 1988, starring actress Rie Miyazawa.
The book also led to more stories being written, with over 20 million copies sold. They’ve even brought out new books as recently as last month.
The book Seven Days War was turned into an anime movie in 2019. This movie was part of the Features category in the 2020 Annecy International Animation Film Festival.
In that same year, it won the award for Best Animated Feature Film at the 53rd Sitges International Fantastic Film Festival in Spain.
