Acclaimed Japanese animated film director Satoshi Kon, known for Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress and other prize-winning movies, has died of pancreatic cancer. He was 46.

Considered one of Japan’s most exciting directors of animated films, or anime, Kon was born in 1963 on the island of Hokkaido and debuted as a comic book artist at age 23 while still an art student at Musashino Art University near Tokyo.

He began making animated films in 1990, establishing a style that blurred the boundaries of reality and fantasy.

Mr Kon died on Tuesday, his wife Kyoko said in a statement released on his official website, Kon’s Tone.

In a “Goodbye” statement released yesterday, Mr Kon said his doctor told him in May that he had terminal pancreatic cancer which had spread to his bones, and he had at most six months to live. Two months later, his condition worsened. So he decided to go home and die there, he wrote.