Tetsuya Chiba’s manga Hinemosu Notari Nikki is going on hiatus. This year’s 19th issue of Shogakukan’s Big Comic magazine announced on Friday, September 25, 2026, that the series will pause due to the 87-year-old creator’s poor health.
The magazine’s editorial staff said Chiba is eager to resume serialization as soon as possible, but that the editorial department will prioritise his health and recovery over the schedule. In a separate statement, Chiba said the severe summer heat may be the cause of him feeling under the weather. He added that he will focus on recovering so he can get back to drawing, apologized for the worry he has caused, and asked readers for patience.
About Hinemosu Notari Nikki
Hinemosu Notari Nikki is an autobiographical short essay manga, a format in which the creator reflects on daily life in short, loosely connected pieces rather than telling a continuous story. Chiba launched it in Big Comic in December 2015, and Shogakukan published the first collected volume in 2018 and the seventh in November 2025.
This is not the first interruption for the series. It previously went on hiatus in August 2024 and resumed serialization that December, so readers have seen the same pattern before: a pause announced with a note about the creator’s condition, followed by a return within months.
Why Chiba’s health draws attention
Chiba has been open about his health for years, and the current pause lands in a longer stretch of medical issues. In November 2021 he revealed that he had admitted himself to a Tokyo hospital after feeling unwell once summer ended that year, and that he had begun treatment for a tumour in his throat after problems with his heart valve, coronary artery and throat appeared one after another. In January 2022 he underwent heart surgery to place a stent in his coronary artery, and in a 2024 blog post he noted that he had also had eye surgery.
At 87, Chiba is one of the most decorated figures in Japanese comics, and each of his health updates tends to be reported widely because of how long his career has run.
The career behind the announcement
Chiba debuted as a manga creator in 1956, which means the hiatus comes in his 70th year in the industry. He is best known for the boxing manga Ashita no Joe (Tomorrow’s Joe), which ran from 1968 to 1973 and became a permanent fixture in Japanese popular culture. It inspired two television anime, in 1970 and 1980, along with two anime films in 1980 and 1981.
The story was reimagined in a new science-fiction setting with new characters in the 2018 anime Megalobox, which credits the original manga as its origin. Its sequel, Megalobox 2: Nomad, premiered in April 2021. Ashita no Joe finally received its first official English release under the title Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow in December 2024.
His recognition extends well beyond the page. Chiba was nominated to the Japan Art Academy in 2022 as one of its first two manga creators, alongside Yoshiharu Tsuge, and he is currently the chair of the Japan Cartoonists Association. In 2024 he received the Order of Culture, becoming the first manga creator to be honoured with it. The award is given to people who have made outstanding contributions to developing Japanese culture.
Why it matters
A hiatus announcement from a veteran creator is a different kind of news from a delay on a new series. Chiba has already spent seven decades building a body of work, and Hinemosu Notari Nikki is a reflective, low-pressure project by design, so the pause is not a production crisis in the usual sense. The editorial department’s wording, which puts health ahead of the schedule without giving a return date, is the same language Shogakukan used in 2024 before the series came back within four months.
For readers, the practical situation is unchanged: the seven published volumes remain available, and the series is paused rather than ended. We have not listed a resumption date because Shogakukan has not given one.
Recent news about veteran creators has been a frequent thread on the site, including the passing of Space Battleship Yamato film director Toshio Masuda at 98. Health-related pauses in manga have also been a recurring theme this month, as with Go! Go! Loser Ranger! returning from its hiatus.
Source: Anime News Network, citing the 19th issue of Big Comic and a statement from Tetsuya Chiba
Featured image: Artwork from Tetsuya Chiba’s Hinemosu Notari Nikki, via Anime News Network.
