The Twitter account for manga artist Motoyuki Asai announced on Thursday that Motoyuki and his wife, fellow manga artist Yū Asai, were in a car crash on March 2. Sadly, Yu passed away on March 6, while Motoyuki is in the hospital with broken bones and is in serious condition.

A family member, who shared the news on Twitter, also mentioned in another post that it will take a long time for Motoyuki to get better. Yu’s close family members held a funeral for her.

Manga artist Ken Akamatsu (known for Love Hina) said on Twitter on Friday that Motoyuki had a stroke in 2015. After Yu asked for help back then, Akamatsu had been supporting them since.

He shared his condolences and mentioned that Motoyuki’s recovery from the stroke was going well before the accident.

Motoyuki started as an assistant to Game Center Arashi manga creator Mitsuru Sugaya. He began his own manga career in 1984 with Magnum Taisho manga in a special issue of Coro Coro Comics magazine.

A year later, he introduced Famicom Rocky manga (shown on the right) in the same magazine. He also created the Sukebo Rocky manga. Yu used to help Motoyuki before.

They teamed up to create manga under Yu’s name. Yu became well-known for manga like Hoshi no Kazu dake Dakishimete, Kimagure Short Cut, Sho-kun Wake up!!, and Lovin’ You, which came out in the 1990s.