Danica Davidson
December 13, 2021 
There is sad news coming out from Japan as we report on the death of novelist Masayoshi Yasugi. Yasugi took home the New Japanese Science Fiction Writer Prize in 2003 for his novel Yume-Miru Neko wa, Uchū ni Nemuru (translated as The Dreaming Cat Sleeps in Space), and he also penned the novelization of Expelled from Paradise.
There is not a lot of information. Yasugi was 49 years old, lived alone, and apparently he was barely getting any work because of circumstances having to do with the COVID pandemic. Police were alerted to a problem on the morning of Sunday, December 12, when a neighbor called. Yasugi was already dead, and while nothing is confirmed until the investigation is over, the police think it might be suicide.
This is the description for the Expelled from Paradise movie that he wrote as a novel:
“With Earth now left in ruins following the ‘Nano Hazard,’ most of humanity has abandoned the planet they once called home along with their physical bodies and rebuilt their digitalized minds into a society within the cyber universe of ‘DEVA.’
A.D. 2400, DEVA’s central council detects an incident of unauthorized access into their mainframe. Someone on Earth was trying to hack into the system. The only information DEVA was able to retrieve was that the hacker referred to himself as ‘Frontier Setter.’
To investigate the mysterious hacker’s motives, the high officials of DEVA dispatch System Security Third Officer Angela Balzak to the Earth’s surface. Equipped with a prosthetic ‘material body,’ Angela attempts to make contact with a local agent Dingo, but what awaited her instead was a swarm of Sandworms now infesting the Earth’s surface. Angela intercepts the gruesome pests with her exoskeletal powered suit Arhan.
Will Angela and Dingo be able to find Frontier Setter on this devastated planet? Their journey to explore the secrets of the world begins now…!”
Source: ANN
If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please know that there is help available. In America, you can call 1-800-273-8255. In Canada, you can call 1-833-456-4566. In Japan, you can call 03-5774-0992. For other countries, numbers and resources are available on this site.
____
Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, and its sequel, Manga Art for Intermediates, with professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
Related Posts
