Takehiko Inoue
Mizushima marked his 50th anniversary as a manga artist in 2007, and "Shōnen Champion" placed "Dokaben" on its front cover along with messages and illustrations from many other manga artists such as Osamu Akimoto, Takao Saito, Mitsuru Adachi, Takehiko Inoue, Rumiko Takahashi, Fujiko Fujio, and Hiroshi Takahashi to celebrate Mizushima's achievements. Other enthusiasts and baseball icons including Sadaharu Oh, Shigeo Nagashima, Takeshi Kitano, Hideki Matsui, and Kenji Jojima also contributed messages. Mizushima remains the oldest active manga artist to serialize on weekly publications, 13 years older than the next-youngest artist (Osamu Akimoto).