Taku Mayumura died of aspiration pneumonia at a hospital in Osaka on November 3. The science-fiction author was 85.

Mayumura was born as Takuji Murakami in Osaka city in 1934. An Osaka University alumni with a degree in economics, Mayumura wrote short novels while working as a copywriter and submitted them to contests in literary magazines. In 1961, he won second place in S-F Magazine's Kuusou Kagaku Shousetsu Contest (Science Fiction Contest) for his story Kakyuu Idea-man and made his professional debut in the October issue.

Mayumura's novels would later inspire anime projects such as Madhouse's 1986 film Toki no Tabibito: Time Stranger and Sunrise's 2012 film Nerawareta Gakuen (Psychic School Wars), which is based on the 1973 novel with the same name.

While his wife was suffering from cancer, Mayumura wrote her a story a day to encourage her. These stories were later published as Tsuma ni Sasageta 1778-wa (1,778 Stories Dedicated to My Wife) and inspired a live action film in 2011. According to NHK, Mayumura's family said the author continued writing even during his own years-long battle with cancer, until just before his death.

Source: NHK

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