Tetsuya Chiba’s Hinemosu Notari Nikki to Conclude With Volume 8

Shogakukan’s Big Comic magazine confirmed Friday that Hinemosu Notari Nikki’s eighth collected volume will be its last. It will ship on February 12.

The same day, Shogakukan will publish a commemorative book tracing Chiba’s 70 years as a manga artist. Its title is 70th Anniversary as a Working Artist: Love, Peace, and Tetsuya Chiba (Gagyō 70-shūnen Ai to Heiwa to Chiba Tetsuya).

Chiba launched Hinemosu Notari Nikki, an autobiographical manga of short essays, in Big Comic in December 2015. Shogakukan released the first collected volume in 2018 and the seventh in November 2025.

The manga went on hiatus on September 25 because of Chiba’s poor health. He died on October 22 from myelodysplastic syndrome, a cancer affecting blood cells in the bone marrow.

Chiba made his professional manga debut in 1956 at age 17, while still in high school. He is perhaps best known for the boxing manga Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow (Ashita no Joe), also known as Tomorrow’s Joe.

The series ran from 1968 to 1973 and has remained a fixture of Japanese popular culture for decades. Its first official English release arrived in December 2024.

The manga inspired several anime adaptations and a later reimagining:

• Two television anime, released in 1970 and 1980.
• Two anime films, released in 1980 and 1981.
• Megalobox, a 2018 anime that reimagined the story with new characters in a science-fiction setting and credited the manga as its origin.

Megalobox’s sequel, Megalobox 2: Nomad, premiered in April 2021.

In 2022, Chiba was nominated to the Japan Art Academy alongside Yoshiharu Tsuge as its first two manga creators. Chiba also chaired the Japan Cartoonists Association.

In 2024, Chiba became the first manga creator to receive the prestigious Order of Culture. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to developing Japanese culture.