Obituary: Arcana Heart developer Tohru Sakurai

Word is spreading today that writer and game developer Tohru Sakurai, best known in the game industry for his work on the Arcana Heart (pictured) fighting games, has passed away.

Notice comes courtesy of Japanese game studio Examu, which took to Twitter earlier today to announce that Sakurai died at the beginning of the month. He had recently been collaborating on a new manga, Battle Mexia, and representatives of the publisher noted on Twitter that the comic series will continue in his absence.

Sakurai played a key role as planner and scenario writer on Yuki Enterprise's debut game Arcana Heart, released in 2007 for the PlayStation 2. He continued to contribute to games throughout his career, most notably again as the scenario writer on Arcana Heart 3 (this time developed by Examu) for the PlayStation 3.