#Macross Mechanical Designer Kazutaka Miyatake Recovering After House Fire

TBS News in Japan and the Twitter account for Dirty Pair creator Haruka Takachiho reported on Tuesday that mechanical designer Kazutaka Miyatake’s house caught fire on May 22. Miyatake is known for being a co-founder of Studio Nue (creators of Macross) and working on mechanical designs on series such as Space Battleship Yamato, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED. Miyatake survived the fire and is currently resting in a local hospital, but sadly his wife passed away.

According to the TBS report, a call came into the fire department of Yokosuka City in Yokohama at 3 PM on May 22 from the house behind Miyatake’s. Twelve trucks appeared at the scene and the fire was extinguished two hours later but the wooden house was partly destroyed. Investigators said the flames originated from the kitchen and were so intensive they will be launching a full investigation on how the fire started.

The 71-year-old Miyatake (whose real last name is Watanabe) was said to have escaped from the house on his own and while the firefighters were able to rescue his wife, Tomoko Watanabe, the 60-year-old passed away at the hospital. Miyatake is in a stable condition but is suffering from smoke inhalation.

TBS originally reported the news without the connection to Kazutaka Miyatake‘s career, but Haruka Takachiho confirmed the connection in his Twitter post (above).

Haruka Takachiho sent his condolences to Miyatake on Twitter, as well as asking people to respect the privacy of him and Studio Nue by not contacting them for comments or queries. 

Sources: TBS News, Haruka Takachiho on Twitter

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Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs the YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.