Takumi Shibano, The Father of Japanese Sci-Fi Fandom, is Dead

Takumi Shibano was a leading Japanese science fiction author and translator who helped begin sci-fi fandom in Japan in the 1950s.

Shibano was born in the central Japanese prefecture of Ishikawa, on October 27, 1926.  A high school mathematics teacher, he was co-founder and editor of Japan’s first science fiction fanzine Uchu-jin (Cosmic Dust) in 1957.  Many of the fanzines’ contributors went on to become leading writers in the genre, including Ryu Mitsuse, Yasutaka Tastsui, Sakyo Komatsu, and Shin’ichi Hoshi.

Shibano hosted Japan’s first science fiction convention in 1962, and was a founder of the Federation of SF Fan Groups of Japan in 1965.  He also wrote three juvenile sci-fi novels under the name Rei Kozumi: Superhuman `Plus X (1969), Operation Moonjet (1969), and Revolt in North Pole City (1977).

Shibano became a full-time writer and translator in the late 1970s, bringing works by such authors as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith, Hal Clement, and Larry Niven to Japanese readers.  He was a frequent figure at the World Science Fiction Conventions in the 1970s.  He was the Fan Guest of Honor at the Worldcons in 1996 and 2007.  He was also a consultant with Tatsunoko Productions on such anime science-fiction classics as Tekkaman, Gatchaman F, and Casshan.

Shibano died of complications from pneumonia in Japan on January 16, 2010, at age 83.