Police have confirmed the body found on Mount Arafune on the border between Gunma and Nagano prefectures to be that of cartoonist Yoshihito Usui, creator of the popular "Crayon Shinchan" series, local papers reported Monday.

The body, covered in bruises, was found Saturday at the base of a cliff on the 1422.7-meter mountain. No suicide notes were found near Usui or in his belongs.

The cartoonist, 51, went missing after telling his family Sept. 11 he was going to climb the mountain. Police said that he might have fallen from a climbing path.

Usui started drawing "Crayon Shinchan," the story of feisty kindergarten boy Shinnosuke Nohara living in Kasukabe with his family, in a comic book published by Futabasha Publishers Ltd. in 1990.

(CRI September 21, 2009)