{"id":8578,"date":"2009-09-22T13:02:33","date_gmt":"2009-09-22T17:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/?p=8578"},"modified":"2009-09-22T13:16:28","modified_gmt":"2009-09-22T17:16:28","slug":"crayon-shinchan-creator-yoshito-usui-dies-after-falling-off-a-cliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jetwit.com\/wordpress\/2009\/09\/22\/crayon-shinchan-creator-yoshito-usui-dies-after-falling-off-a-cliff\/","title":{"rendered":"Crayon Shinchan creator Yoshito Usui dies after falling off a cliff"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CrayonShinchan\"Thanks to a tweet from Roland Kelts<\/strong><\/a> (Osaka-shi, 1998-99)<\/strong>, I just read the news that Yoshito Usui<\/strong><\/a>, the creator of Crayon Shinchan<\/strong><\/a>, died after falling off of a cliff.\u00a0 Apparently he was taking photos in Nagano and must have slipped.<\/p>\n

Here’s the article:\u00a0 http:\/\/search.japantimes.co.jp\/cgi-bin\/nn20090922a2.html<\/a><\/p>\n

This is very sad news.\u00a0 I learned Japanese thanks to Crayon Shinchan.\u00a0 No joke.\u00a0 When I went on JET, I subscribed to Manga-Jin<\/strong><\/em>, a now defunct magazine that would do line-by-line explanations of manga<\/em>.\u00a0 It was studying from an issue of Manga-Jin<\/em> one day that introduced me to Crayon Shinchan.<\/p>\n

I was hooked, and I proceeded to buy ever new Crayon Shinchan book I could find.\u00a0 The relatively simple language combined with use of furigana<\/em> plus the appealingly crude humor that also inadvertently explained a lot of Japanese social dynamics was exactly what I was seeking in those pre-Internet days of JET.<\/p>\n

The news of Usui’s death reminded me that I had a sort of fantasy (long since forgotten) where I would track down Usui-san and thank him and let him know how influential he was in my Japanese language study.<\/p>\n

Well, that opportunity no longer exists.\u00a0 But if anyone else wants to share any thoughts or memories about their experience with Crayon Shinchan, feel free to post below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks to a tweet from Roland Kelts (Osaka-shi, 1998-99), I just read the news that Yoshito Usui, the creator of Crayon Shinchan, died after falling off of a cliff.\u00a0 Apparently he was taking photos in Nagano and must have slipped. Here’s the article:\u00a0 http:\/\/search.japantimes.co.jp\/cgi-bin\/nn20090922a2.html This is very sad news.\u00a0 I learned Japanese thanks to Crayon […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12,26,30,18,1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cartoonillustration","category-celebrity","category-japan-trends","category-translatinginterpreting","category-uncategorized","category-writers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t