Animator Mamoru Hosoda, born September 19, 1967, has passed today at Hiroo Metropolitan Hospital in Tokyo Japan, due to complications arising from eating pufferfish, known in Japan as Fugu.
He was 44 years old.

Hosoda spent many years working in the Japanese animation industry, working on numerous animated films and series including Crying Freeman, One Piece, and Dragonball Z.
In 2005 Hosoda was hired by Madhouse Studios and rose to prominence with his 2006 debut directorial effort, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, a film which was well received in Japan and ultimately ended up on numerous critics' "Best of the Year" lists.

Known affectionately in Japan as a "Miyazaki-wannabe", Hosoda was commissioned by Studio Ghibli in 2003 to direct Howl's Moving Castle, but had to leave the film after citing difficulty with the scope of the project, a move which forced Miyazaki out of retirement.
Hosoda was well known for exhibiting wild mood swings and a quick temper, but he was also known to due his best after calming down to patch things up with anyone whom he'd offended during his self-titled "rampages".
"It's almost never the other person's fault," Hosada once explained, "I just have such a hard time telling to other people what's going on inside my head. It's as if I wish there was a machine so others could see inside my mind and no words would be needed."
Fellow Madhouse animator Osamu Dezak lamented,
"The most frustrating thing about Hosada's passing is that he will not be able to achieve any of his true visions. He was a man who tried and tried, yet in his eyes never managed to make a single good film."

Before his death Hosoda had been working on his third feature film, The Wolf Children Ame and Yuki. Hosoda was reported to have been in a constant state of hostility with his working staff and colleagues, sparring particularly with character designer Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, who described the project as "a bunch of weird furry stuff like his last picture," referring to Hosoda's second film, 2009's Summer Wars.

After an especially nasty blow-out, Sadamoto attempted to smooth things over with Hosoda, inviting the director and the rest of the crew to dinner and drinks at a local restaurant.
There Hosoda, severely intoxicated and against the advice of his co-workers, ordered and consumed copious quantities of Fugu sashimi.
Fugu, known in America as pufferfish, is a potentially lethal dish due to high amounts of tetrodotoxin found within the animal's organs.

At around 9:00PM Tokyo Time Hosoda began to show symptoms of respiratory failure and was rushed to Hiroo Metropolitan Hospital. Doctors were unable to support his circulatory system through the ordeal and he was pronounced dead by Doctors  at 9:52PM Tokyo Time.
A Doctor Uso released a statement to the press, saying,
"We did as best we could, but Hosoda-Sama could not pull through. Unfortunately the Fugu's toxin leaves a victim conscious during the whole ordeal. Hosoda-Sama experienced much pain before his death. Let us take solace that he is in pain no longer."


Mamoru Hosoda 1967-2012.