[Update: The Otakon message boards have confirmed that Madhouse's Maruyama-san was in fact correct. We'll still wait for an official statement, but it looks as if this may be true.]

Twitter is in an uproar this afternoon as Gainax employee Takeda Yasuhiro has tweeted about the death of director Satoshi Kon, who was the mind behind anime classics such as Perfect Blue and Paprika. Madhouse producer Masao Maruyama has also mentioned "the death of an important director" on his Twitter page.

UK Anime has also reported the news, although Kon's official website does not reflect any confirmation.

Kon was at work on his fifth film, called The Dream Machine, which he described as "a road movie for robots."

We'll bring you more news on this as we get confirmation, but we hope it's not true.