Shuntaro Tanikawa, who pioneered modern Japanese poetry, poignant but conversational in its divergence from haiku and other traditions, has died. Tanikawa, who translated the Peanuts comic strip and penned the lyrics for the theme song of the animation series Astro Boy, died Nov 13, his son Kensaku Tanikawa said on Tuesday. "For me, the Japanese language is the ground. In every work Tanikawa tackled, including the script for Kon Ichikawa’s Tokyo Olympiad, a documentary film of the 1964 Tokyo Games, the respectful love for the beauty of the Japanese language resonates. Some of his works were made into picture books for children, and they are often featured in Japanese school textbooks.

Source: The Star November 20, 2024 03:24 UTC