Jun Maeda, known for writing visual novels as well as for composing music for them, has chosen to enter palliative care after being diagnosed with throat cancer. Japanese visual novel publisher Visual Arts made the announcement on the company’s X page.
We would like to share an important announcement concerning our creator, Jun Maeda.
For details, please refer to the attachments. pic.twitter.com/4tUBOLPnNy— VISUAL ARTS Co.,Ltd. (@VisualArtsUSA) October 19, 2026
In Visual Arts’ announcement, the publisher said that Maeda had chosen palliative care instead of undergoing chemotherapy in order to “conserve his strength and devote himself to his creative work.” At the time of his diagnosis, Maeda was writing for the free-to-play mobile RPG Heaven Burns Red as well as working on an unnamed music project.
If you were a serious about video games or anime in the early aughts, you’ve experienced Maeda’s work. He wrote the main scenarios for visual novels that became the keystones of the “moe” subgenre of Japanese entertainment in the west. His works include Air, Clannad, and Kanon, all of which were turned into anime shows that were in turn memed to death on message boards for how they made you bawl like a damn baby. He also wrote the anime Angel Beats! which became another bullet point on the “Jun Maeda likes making you cry” list. Maeda also composed music for his works, notably writing the lyrics for “Tori No Uta,” the theme song for the Air anime which, for my money, could challenge “Tank!” in the battle for the greatest anime opening of all time forever.
Visual Arts has included contact information so fans can send Maeda words of encouragement. The company said that Maeda’s work on Heaven Burns Red has been completed up to chapter six and seems to suggest he will continue writing and composing for as long as he can. “Maeda is currently hospitalized, but even under these circumstances, he remains strongly determined to devote himself to creative work through to the very end.”