Anime & Manga News

Novel Author of Zero no Tsukaima Suffering From Terminal Cancer [Update Aug 4]

by dtshyk
Jul 8, 2011 7:13 AM | 112 Comments
Novel author Yamaguchi Noboru posted in his twitter that he will be hospitalized tomorrow and will take a major surgery in August. He said he would have been dead if he had missed the chance to take the operation. "The 21st volume of Zero no Tsukaima novel will be delayed at least for two months. Please forgive me! Damn! I'll live on. I had been desperate, but I miraculously got an opportunity to take the operation. There is a possibility of survival. I really want to live."

Source: Yamaguchi's twitter

Update July 15th
According to Media Factory, Yamaguchi is suffering from a terminal-stage cancer. A tumor was found this February. At that point, it was impossible to carry out a surgery but a shrinkage of the tumor was observed in May thanks to the effect of anti-cancer drugs. He said he has already completed the outlines of the remaining two volumes of Zero no Tsukaima novel and wanted to publish them as soon as possible.

Source: Media Factory

Update August 4th
Yamaguchi posted in his twitter that the operation was finished and he was allowed to walk outside.

20 of 112 Comments Recent Comments

shiit.. i hope the operation is successfull and he recovers... not because he is the author of my favorite anime.. but just because he´s a person and it would be really sad for the people who cares for him and loves him...

Aug 8, 2011 10:12 PM by mau214

Well, thats good to hear.

Aug 4, 2011 11:13 AM by malvarez1

I'm glad the surgery was finished with no problems, now the recovery begins and I hope it's successful.

Aug 4, 2011 7:17 AM by Hoppy

Little stroll? Well that's something at least.

Aug 4, 2011 5:24 AM by notsureifsrs

Update August 4th
Yamaguchi posted in his twitter that the operation was finished and he was allowed to walk outside.

Source: Yamaguchi's twitter

Aug 4, 2011 5:20 AM by dtshyk

mik123mik said:
I like how all of Gangler's comments are long winded. I mean why can't people just write simple "get well" stuff for this guy. I mean really, don't just comment on what other people say with some extremely long statement. It is unnecessary! And not only that but you are acting smart by using unreasonably humongous words to get an immensely simple statement into fellow homo-sapiens' understandably miniscule cerebrum!
... that was supposed to look a lot longer, crap.

Jul 22, 2011 6:57 PM by mik123mik

I like how all of Gangler's comments are long winded. I mean why can't people just write simple "get well" stuff for this guy. I mean really, don't just comment on what other people say with some extremely long statement. It is unnecessary! And not only that but you are acting smart by using unreasonably humongous words to get an immensely simple statement into fellow homo-sapiens' understandably miniscule cerebrum!

Jul 22, 2011 6:50 PM by mik123mik

Man I really hope hes going to be ok. To many good authors die. Like Kaze no Sigma. I really hope he makes it love your work. One of my Favs.

Jul 18, 2011 1:16 AM by KanameChidori23

please get well ♥

Jul 16, 2011 4:17 AM by Ariahs_Kawaii

Leon-Gun said:
It's rather funny you are saying the exact opposite you did last time.

That said, that's pretty dedicated to have his last two novels already being worked on.

Eh, the odds still aren't in his favor. Wrapping up his shit would be a good move, but a hypothetical ten percent chance of survival is still better than nothing.

It helps to know what we're talking about. A mystery illness that he's not sure he'll survive the surgery for is one thing. A known illness where the surgery is most likely intended to save his life in one fell swoop is another. For one thing we know that if the surgery works and takes there'll be wellness on the other side of the tunnel now, so that's a bit of a gamechanger.

Also sometimes helps to share that story. Cancer is often treated as a guaranteed death. It often is guaranteed death, and when it's not it's frequently pretty close to that. Still, if it all works out in your favor then you've got your entire life ahead of you. My dad got cured and then proceeded to witness the birth of his first child and then spawn an entire family. Getting diagnosed a handful of months after marriage while his wife had a bun in the oven was rough but here we are. I know the story's helped a lot of the people we've seen get cancer and their families since. Though of course their own stories haven't all ended quite so well.

The fact that what has thus far been his life's work is so close to completion that he may be able to finish before the surgery is also a gamechanger. That's a race against the clock if ever I've heard of one but God Speed to him. In the likely scenario that this doesn't work out I'm sure that'll provide a certain level of peace that at least that part of his life has been successfully taken to completion. There's always so much more to do, but we don't all have the luxury of knowing we've secured our legacy, left our mark on the world, and achieved some our greatest ambitions.

The money quite likely means that his family won't be left in need, so his regrets will probably be limited to things like not seeing his kids grow up, as opposed to many who spend their last days worrying about how the family will feed themselves without them. I can't imagine he's got a fortune or anything, but the royalties should afford a comfortable life. Nice when your work can continue to take care of your loved ones after you're gone.

Overall this sounds like a remarkably peaceful death on the relative scale of lives ended far before their time. A life well lived.

Jul 15, 2011 8:50 AM by Gangler

Gangler said:
Hoppy said:
The horror

He doesn't have long to live and it's a shame, why do the good ones have to die of the worse things. Can't they all just die peacefully from old age in their sleep or from heart disease and/or stroke.


He might make it through this. He's well enough for the surgery now and that's his ticket to wellness if it's successful. Cancer's a terrible illness but it's not an immediate ticket to death. Well some cancers are but they wouldn't be giving him surgery if it wasn't treatable.

My dad's a cancer survivor. It's not the easiest thing to go through and just like Yamaguchi he had no idea if he was gonna survive but he lucked out and the surgery only cost him a single bone in his arm and some pretty severe scarring, which all things considered has never been a complaint.

It's cool that he's got hope to finish his story. That's amazing actually. A very lucky man in that sense. Even still I would imagine he doesn't want it to end here. He either has more to write or he has plans to spend the rest of his life in early retirement with his family or wants to start a business or who even knows? The sky is the limit if he pulls through this, so all that's left is to roll the dice.
It's rather funny you are saying the exact opposite you did last time.

That said, that's pretty dedicated to have his last two novels already being worked on.

Jul 15, 2011 8:00 AM by Leon-Gun

Gangler said:
Hoppy said:
The horror

He doesn't have long to live and it's a shame, why do the good ones have to die of the worse things. Can't they all just die peacefully from old age in their sleep or from heart disease and/or stroke.


He might make it through this. He's well enough for the surgery now and that's his ticket to wellness if it's successful. Cancer's a terrible illness but it's not an immediate ticket to death. Well some cancers are but they wouldn't be giving him surgery if it wasn't treatable.

My dad's a cancer survivor. It's not the easiest thing to go through and just like Yamaguchi he had no idea if he was gonna survive but he lucked out and the surgery only cost him a single bone in his arm and some pretty severe scarring, which all things considered has never been a complaint.

It's cool that he's got hope to finish his story. That's amazing actually. A very lucky man in that sense. Even still I would imagine he doesn't want it to end here. He either has more to write or he has plans to spend the rest of his life in early retirement with his family or wants to start a business or who even knows? The sky is the limit if he pulls through this, so all that's left is to roll the dice.


The problem is the dice metaphorically speaking, they haven't been rolling in a novelist's favor, it's like death at every corner. It hasn't been very long since MM!'s author died of unknown circumstances. I hope he does recover and maybe retire (cancer takes a toll in all aspects of the human being), but the odds are something to be concerned about.

Jul 15, 2011 8:00 AM by Hoppy

Hoppy said:
The horror

He doesn't have long to live and it's a shame, why do the good ones have to die of the worse things. Can't they all just die peacefully from old age in their sleep or from heart disease and/or stroke.


He might make it through this. He's well enough for the surgery now and that's his ticket to wellness if it's successful. Cancer's a terrible illness but it's not an immediate ticket to death. Well some cancers are but they wouldn't be giving him surgery if it wasn't treatable.

My dad's a cancer survivor. It's not the easiest thing to go through and just like Yamaguchi he had no idea if he was gonna survive but he lucked out and the surgery only cost him a single bone in his arm and some pretty severe scarring, which all things considered has never been a complaint.

It's cool that he's got hope to finish his story. That's amazing actually. A very lucky man in that sense. Even still I would imagine he doesn't want it to end here. He either has more to write or he has plans to spend the rest of his life in early retirement with his family or wants to start a business or who even knows? The sky is the limit if he pulls through this, so all that's left is to roll the dice.

Jul 15, 2011 7:52 AM by Gangler

Who cares about Zero no Tsukaima, I just hope he's goin to recover.
Hang in there! <3

Jul 15, 2011 7:24 AM by Prizkilla

The horror

He doesn't have long to live and it's a shame, why do the good ones have to die of the worse things. Can't they all just die peacefully from old age in their sleep or from heart disease and/or stroke.

Jul 15, 2011 7:23 AM by Hoppy

Update July 15th
According to Media Factory, Yamaguchi is suffering from a terminal-stage cancer. A tumor was found this February. At that point, it was impossible to carry out a surgery but a shrinkage of the tumor was observed in May thanks to the effect of anti-cancer drugs. He said he has already completed the outlines of the remaining two volumes of Zero no Tsukaima novel and wanted to publish them as soon as possible.

Source: Media Factory

Jul 15, 2011 5:52 AM by dtshyk

I shall avoid joining the 'debate'(?) going on and continue to say:
While I never read or watched Zero no Tsukaima, I still wish him a successful operation and will be hoping for his recovery. Good luck, stay strong!

Jul 14, 2011 7:28 AM by sasohina

What the fuck?

Jul 13, 2011 11:12 PM by notsureifsrs

FearTheDarkSide said:
It has been proven many times throughout history that if a man truly wishes to survive, he WILL survive. I hope the best for him.

Um... I don't know that this has been proven. At All. I don't really even know that this is remotely close to theoretically feasible, let alone provable. I mean, I just. Ughh.

I mean I want to ask what all this proof is, but I also just desperately want to ignore you. I mean, how do you reconcile such a notion with incidents like Columbine? Or even with the very notion of a disease. Birth defects, toxins, unexpected allergic reactions. Unforeseeable accidents, natural disasters, poverty. How does such an attitude even make sense supposing that a self-preservation instinct will generally enforce a desire to survive as the default?

I mean... what? This is surgery. Sometimes surgeons fuck up and you end up losing all your blood while unconscious. Sometimes he doesn't clean it right and you end up with a swollen infection that prevents you from breathing. Sometimes they mismeasure the knockout gas and sedate you to the point that you cease to breath. Sometimes they just don't manage to finish the surgery within the time limit and you die because you've been opened up for far longer than planned. Under such a theory could one will themselves through that? Would desire to survive sustain a man after he's got no blood? Is survival desire a functional replacement for food, water, air, and internal organs?

Mortality. Is that even an applicable concept with such a notion in effect? No one will die if they want to survive? Old age! What about old age! The human body just plain can't last more than about a hundred twenty years tops no matter what we do and we don't yet have the capability to transplant our brains into cyberman bodies. Are we regenerating? Is that what we're doing? We hit a a solid hundred years or so and then we shed our body in lieu of a fresh twenty-something year old form?

Animals that don't have a sufficiently developed mind to desire anything other than survival. How do they die? I mean holy freaking Christ boy I simply must know how this work! If you've actually got this worked out and it all checks through then that changes everything! We'll have to rethink medicine from the ground up! Completely restructure biology as a science! The ramifications this would have in the fields of Anthropology and Psychology are downright astronomical! For the love of all that's Holy I demand your thesis!

Jul 13, 2011 11:09 PM by Gangler

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