Filmmaker Satoshi Kon, seen at the Venice International Film Festival in 2006, has died of pancreatic cancer. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters)Japanese animated filmmaker and comic artist Satoshi Kon, known for award-winning films like Tokyo Godfathers and Paprika, has died at age 46.

The celebrated filmmaker died Tuesday after a battle with pancreatic cancer, according to a statement his wife, Kyoko, released on his official website Wednesday.

In a "goodbye" message to fans, Kon wrote of being diagnosed in May with terminal pancreatic cancer that had spread to his bones. Two months later and after several hospitalizations, his condition had worsened to the point where he chose to return to his home to die.

"My biggest regret is The Dreaming Machine... I really worry about the film, and the staff," he wrote of his final project, a fantasy-adventure children's film he described in a 2008 interview as "a road movie for robots."

In his message, he apologized to friends and family for not being able to see them one last time because the rapid development of his cancer left him so weak.

"I wanted most of the people I knew to remember me as the Satoshi that was full of life," he wrote.

Kon also thanked his family and his fans for their support over the years, before concluding: "I'll go ahead now."

Born in Hokkaido in 1963, Kon was a fan of the Japanese comic style known as manga. Though he enrolled at Musashino Art University to study painting, his interest was soon captured by illustration and manga.

After starting out by drawing for Young magazine, he eventually moved over to animation, largely in films.

He received both critical and fan acclaim for his inventive visuals, a tendency to upend audience expectations and blur the lines between reality and fantasy, and for delivering thought-provoking and emotional stories that drew inspiration both from Japan and abroad.

Among his best-known features is the Oscar-nominated 2003 film Tokyo Godfathers, Kon's loose interpretation of John Ford's 1948 western 3 Godfathers, reset in modern Tokyo's poor neighbourhoods.

Other works included the highly praised 2001 film Millennium Actress, the tale of a former silver-screen siren who recounts her life story, and 2006's Paprika, about the creation of a device that allows people to enter the dreams of others.

With files from The Associated Press