Sanpei Satō (サトウサンペイ, Satō Sanpei; 11 September 1929 - 31 July 2021) was a Japanese manga artist best known for salaryman manga such as Fuji Santarō and Dotanba's Manners. He was born as Yukikazu Satō (佐藤 幸一, Satō Yukikazu) in Nagoya, but grew up from a young age in Ōsaka after his father built and managed a clock manufacturing plant there as part of the family business. When Satō was in junior high, he worked at a munitions plant during World War II. After studying dyeing at Kyoto Technical College, he was hired at Daimaru where he started in clothing sales and quickly moved into advertising department. In 1953, he made his manga debut in the Shin Ōsaka newspaper. Only four years later, he quit his job at Daimaru in order to work full time as a manga artist. He moved to Tokyo in 1961. Both Satō and his works have received multiple awards and recognition, including the Bungeishunjū Manga Award in 1966, the Tokyo Metropolitan Cultural Honor Award in 1991, the Medal of Honor from the Emperor of Japan in 1997, the Order of the Rising Sun in 1996, and the Special Award at the Japan Cartoonists Association Awards in 2017. Satō died in 2021 from aspiration pneumonia at age 91.
Source: “Sanpei Satō”, English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0), excerpt