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Friends & Colleagues Offer Tributes 1 Year After Familiar of Zero Author's Passing

It's been one year since the untimely passing of 41-year-old Zero no Tsukaima (The Familiar of Zero) author Noboru Yamaguchi, who passed away after a two-year battle with cancer. The official Familiar of Zero webpage updated with a memorial including comments from friends and colleagues at MF Bunko J, the publishing house responsible for publishing The Familiar of Zero.

A letter was written by MF Bunko J editor-in-chief Sou Yurugi to preface the memorial; it ended by saying that everyone at the publishing house deeply misses the beloved author and wishes to offer up their sincerest gratitude for Yamaguchi's gift of his work.

Among those who helped put together the sincere memorial were The Familiar of Zero's's illustrator, Eiji Usatsuka, fellow novelists Satoru Akahori (Saber Marionette and Sakura Wars) and Chūgaku Akamatsu (Hidan no Aria). Usatsuka commented that he found himself looking at Yamaguchi's old Twitter page, and thinking on how he had last posted only four days before his passing. He also noted how even one year after Yamaguchi's death, fans were still mourning him, saying how they wish they could have seen the completion of his series. Akahori said, "Even now I don't understand my feelings on this. Some nights, I'll expect to hear my cell phone ring and hear him say, 'I'm in Gotanda right now, want to go drinking?'"

Yamaguchi made his debut in 2000 writing scripts for games and other novelizations. He began his masterpiece, The Familiar of Zero, in 2004 and by 2011 had finished up to volume 20. The series was intended to conclude after 22 volumes, however, due to Yamaguchi's passing, the series was left unfinished.

[Source: Familiar of Zero via Otakuma]