The blog of manga creator Kunio Nagatani announced on Monday that he had passed away at a hospital in Takanezawa, Tochigi prefecture due to congestive heart failure on November 25. He was 81. His family held a private funeral.

Nagatani's son wrote the blog post announcing his father's death. The son explained that Nagatani had been living in a nursing home until summer 2017, when he was hospitalized due to his worsening condition. While being treated, he repeatedly suffered from aspiration pneumonia, and was diagnosed with heart failure.

Nagatani began his career submitting manga to the Manga Shounen magazine, with his work frequently appearing in Osamu Tezuka 's Manga Kyōshitsu column where he gave advice on drawing manga. There, Nagatani also met Shotaro Ishinomori , the creator of the Cyborg 009 , Super Sentai , and Kamen Rider franchises. Nagatani joined Ishinimori's Bokujū Itteki dōjinshi magazine, and there met Fujio Akatsuka ( Osomatsu-kun , Tensai Bakabon ).

In the late 1960s, he joined Studio Zero , an anime studio formed by manga creators and artists living together in the famed Tokiwa-sō apartment building, including Shinichi Suzuki , Akatsuka, Ishinomori, Doraemon creators Hiroshi Fujimoto and Motoo Abiko , and Jirō Tsunoda . Nagatani later collaborated with Akatsuka on the Shibire no Skatan manga. In the Manga Sunday magazine, he created a series of parody manga, including Aho-Shiki and Baka-Shiki . He created the Kama Sutra manga alongside Go Nagai , which was adapted into a 1991 original video anime project.