Taku Chiba
Taku Chiba (1959-2016) was a Japanese manga artist born in Ota, Gunma Prefecture, active in Weekly Shonen Jump during the 1980s. After his sports romantic comedy Kick Off, which ran for nearly two years, he serialized sports manga in the magazine including the high school baseball series Shori!!, the rugby manga No Side, and the ekiden relay-race series Niji no Runner. He died of renal pelvis cancer in 2016 at the age of 56.