Tsuchida was born in Akita Prefecture, and he made his professional manga debut while he was still a teenager in 1986. That year, he was a finalist for the prestigious Tetsuya Chiba Prize with his submission "Zansho," which became the first installment of his Miseinen series. His breakthough work was Orebushi, a 1991 Weekly Big Comic Spirits series about a high school who travels from rural Tsugaru to Tokyo to seek his forture as an traditional enka singer. Three years later, he launched Henshūō, his hit seres about a former boxer who becomes a manga editor. 6s1u6p

Tsuchida launched his best-known work, Under the same Moon, in Shogakukan's Young Sunday magazine. It won the Excellence Prize in the Media Arts Festival Awards in 1999, and it inspired a 2005 film starring Yosuke Kubozuka. His latest series, Kazoku, ran in Thursday's issue of Nihobungeisha's Weekly Manga Goraku magazine. He was set to contribute to Shueisha's Grand Jump magazine, which just launched in December.

ed away on April 24, 2012 from cirrhosis.

Erichin worked as his assistant.