About Takao Saito
Takao Saito was a Japanese manga artist, although he rejected the term and considered his work gekiga. He was best known for Golgo 13, which has been serialized in Big Comic since 1968, making it the oldest manga still in publication. Golgo 13 holds the Guinness World Record for "Most volumes published for a single manga series" and, in accordance with Saito's wishes, it continues to be serialized following his death from pancreatic cancer in September 2021. Saito won several awards in his 66-year career, including the Shogakukan Manga Award twice, and received the Medal with Purple Ribbon and Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese government for his contributions to the arts. Having always been known as a skilled artist, Saito drew in his spare time and created his first manga Baron Air in 1955. In 1959, Saito co-founded the artist collective Gekiga Kōbō (劇画工房) in Tokyo with seven other artists, including Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Masahiko Matsumoto, in order to advance the gekiga artistic movement.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.