Career
In comparison, poetry book sales of 10,000 are considered successful in Japan. Her anthology also topped Japan"s Oricon bestseller chart. lieutenant was originally self-published, but upon seeing its success the publisher Asuka Shinsha reissued it, with new artwork, in 2010.
lieutenant contains 42 poems.
As of 2011 she was writing poems for a second anthology, lived alone in the Tokyo suburbs, and was a widow. There was a television documentary about Shibata in December 2010.
Shibata died on January 20, 2013 in a nursing home in Utsunomiya, north of Tokyo. She was 101.