Akihiro Miwa, the celebrated Japanese singer, actor, and cultural icon, has passed away at 91, his agency announced.
Akihiro Miwa, the singer, actor and cultural icon whose career spanned more than seven decades and crossed almost every corner of Japanese entertainment, has died at the age of 91. According to a statement from the management agency, Miwa died on June 20, 2026, of natural causes, with the news made public later in the month. The wake and funeral were held privately with close family members, in keeping with Miwa's wishes, and no public memorial service was planned. The agency asked that condolences and floral tributes be respectfully declined.
Born Akihiro Maruyama on May 15, 1935, in Nagasaki, Miwa moved to Tokyo and entered the entertainment world young, beginning a professional singing career at the age of 16 at Ginpari, a celebrated French music cafe in the capital's Ginza district. National attention came in 1957 with a Japanese adaptation of a French song, which Miwa translated and performed in a distinctive style. It was an early sign of a sensibility that blended European cabaret influences with a singular stage presence.
The song most closely tied to Miwa's legacy is Yoitomake no Uta, or The Song of the Yoitomake, which Miwa wrote, composed and released in 1965. The ballad, rooted in the hardship of manual laborers, became a touchstone of the Japanese musical canon and one of the performer's signature works. Decades after its release it remained the piece audiences most associated with the artist, a testament to its emotional resonance and staying power.
Miwa's reach extended well beyond music into the theater, where the role of the jewel thief in the stage production of Black Lizard, based on the work of Edogawa Ranpo, drew particular acclaim. As an actor, author and stage performer, Miwa built a reputation as a boundary-defying presence in Japanese culture, equally at home as a singer, a dramatic performer and a commentator. That versatility, sustained across generations, helped make the artist a fixture of public life in Japan.
To international audiences, Miwa is perhaps best known for voice work in the films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. Miwa voiced Moro, the wolf goddess, in 1997's Princess Mononoke, lending the character a commanding gravity, and later voiced the Witch of the Waste in Howl's Moving Castle. The Miyazaki collaborations introduced Miwa's voice to a global audience that may never have encountered the singer's music, cementing a place in animation history alongside the music and stage careers.
Miwa's screen work was not limited to Ghibli. The performer also voiced the legendary Pokemon Arceus in the 2009 film Pokemon: Arceus and the Jewel of Life, reaching yet another international fan base through one of the world's largest media franchises. The range of these roles, from a primal forest deity to a powerful creature in a children's blockbuster, reflected a career that refused easy categorization. Few performers have moved so fluidly between such different worlds.
Throughout a long life in the public eye, Miwa was also a prominent figure for living openly outside conventional norms, recognized as a drag artist and an outspoken presence who challenged social expectations. The statement announcing the death used both he and she pronouns in describing the performer's life and career, and noted that Miwa had scaled back work in recent years following a stroke in 2019. A message from Miwa, shared after the death, expressed a wish to eliminate discrimination and prejudice and to build a society of coexistence where all people could live in peace. It was a fitting final word from an artist who spent a lifetime expanding what was possible.
Reported by The Japan Times.
