Akihiro Miwa

Akihiro Miwa was born Akihiro Maruyama in Nagasaki on 15 May 1935. Japanese sources say he was born into the Terada family and registered as an adopted heir of his late mother's Maruyama family, so the name Shingo Maruyama also appears in records of his early life. His family ran a successful cafe called Sekai and a restaurant near Nagasaki's old Maruyama pleasure quarter. His mother died when he was about two, and a stepmother who raised him died during the war.

He has described growing up among the cafe's customers, priests, teachers and politicians who behaved very differently after a few drinks, and said it taught him to look past appearances, a theme that became the title of one of his last books, "Don't Look at What Is Visible."

On 9 August 1945, aged ten, he was at home in the Motoshikkui-machi area, about 4 kilometers from the hypocenter (Wikipedia citing the Mainichi gives 3.6 km), drawing a picture for his summer homework when the atomic bomb exploded. The blast shook the house and blew out the windows. A maid took him and his brother to an air raid shelter. In the following days he saw people whose bodies were burned from head to toe and others trapped under collapsed buildings. He later suffered symptoms he linked to radiation exposure, including anemia and episodes of hair loss and fainting.

Miwa attended Sako National Elementary School and Kaisei Junior High School in Nagasaki, where his classmates included the future House of Councillors president Takeo Nishioka. A music teacher invited him to sing with a soprano group. Inspired by boy sopranos and opera singers such as Enrico Caruso and Beniamino Gigli, he began voice and piano lessons and in 1951 moved to Tokyo to attend the high school attached to the Kunitachi College of Music. After an argument with his father, who disowned him and stopped his allowance, he left school and supported himself by singing and working in bars. He also trained in chanson under Kotaro Hara.

Singing. Miwa began singing professionally around 1951, for occupation troops and in Tokyo bars, and became a resident singer at Ginpari, the Ginza chanson cafe, in the early 1950s. His Japanese version of "Me Que Me Que" was a hit in 1957 and made him a celebrity known for androgynous costumes. His popularity dropped after he spoke publicly about being gay, and he began writing his own songs. In 1963, with the help of composer Hachidai Nakamura, he staged a recital of entirely self-written material. "Yoitomake no Uta" (released 1965) became his best known song and was later covered by Keisuke Kuwata and many others. He sang farewell to Ginpari when it closed in 1990 with his own song "Itoshi no Ginpari."

Theater. In 1967 he starred in Shuji Terayama's Tenjo Sajiki productions "Aomori-ken no Semushi Otoko" and "Kegawa no Marie." In 1968 he starred in Mishima's stage "Black Lizard" (Kurotokage), followed by "La Dame aux Camelias," "Mata Hari" and Cocteau's "The Eagle Has Two Heads." After years of illness he revived "Black Lizard" in 1993, starring and also directing and designing it, and thereafter directed most of his own productions, including Mishima's "Modern Noh Plays" (1996 onward). In 1979 he had premiered "Hymne a l'amour," his own drama about Edith Piaf, which he wrote and starred in.

Film and television. His films include "Black Lizard" (1968) and "Black Rose Mansion" (1969), both directed by Kinji Fukasaku, Terayama's "Throw Away Your Books, Rally in the Streets" (1971), and Takeshi Kitano's "Takeshis'" (2005). He played Nakamura Yukinojo in the 1970 TV drama "Yukinojo Henge" and appeared in the NHK taiga dramas "Kusa Moyuru" (1979) and "Yoshitsune" (2005).

Voice work. He voiced Moro in "Princess Mononoke" (1997), the Witch of the Waste in "Howl's Moving Castle" (2004), Arceus in the 2009 Pokemon film, Froy in "Harmagedon" (1983) and the Queen of the Night in the 1980 anime "Maeterlinck's Blue Bird."

Broadcasting and writing. He gave life advice on TBS Radio for about 25 years from 1970, co-hosted "Aura no Izumi" (TV Asahi, 2005 to 2009) with Hiroyuki Ehara and Taichi Kokubun, narrated NHK's "Hanako to Anne" (2014), and wrote columns for Sports Nippon and The Asahi Shimbun. He published dozens of books, beginning with the memoir "Murasaki no Rirekisho" (Purple Resume, 1968).

Miwa spoke publicly about being gay in the late 1950s, decades before it was common in Japan. He later said: "People ask me why I was the first person after World War II to publicly say I was LGBT, but what's wrong with one person loving another?" His close friendship with Yukio Mishima is widely documented, and some English-language accounts describe it as a relationship; in Japanese accounts Miwa said he deeply respected Mishima but did not have romantic feelings for him.

He was a devoted follower of the Lotus Sutra and volunteered giving life counseling at Ikegami Honmonji temple. From the late 1990s he wore his trademark long yellow hair. In 2013 the weekly Shukan Bunshun reported that he had legally adopted the president of his management company, Office Miwa, a former actor about 17 years younger who had worked as his assistant since his late teens. Miwa never married. He lived in Tokyo and was named an honorary citizen of Setagaya ward in 2022.

As a hibakusha (atomic bomb survivor), Miwa campaigned throughout his life for the abolition of nuclear weapons. In 2021 he criticized the Japanese government for not joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, saying Japan, as the only country to suffer wartime atomic bombings, should naturally take part. He opposed the 2015 security legislation and spoke against war in interviews and in his songs, including the 1975 album "Hakuju." He also spoke against discrimination based on gender, sexuality, appearance or status, summed up in his phrase "Don't look at what is visible." His final handwritten message, released after his death, said that love is the key to solving every problem and that if there is love, wars will not happen.

Miwa is remembered as a pioneer of gender nonconforming performance and of openly gay public life in Japan, and as one of the country's first singer-songwriters. Tokyo's 2018 honorary citizenship cited his way of life that transcended gender in postwar Japan. "Yoitomake no Uta" remains a standard. Nagasaki's survivor groups mourned him as a powerful witness to the bombing; Shigemitsu Tanaka of the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors Council said, "We've lost someone truly irreplaceable." His Ghibli roles introduced him to audiences worldwide, and the French documentary "Miwa: A Japanese Icon" (2010) presented his life to international viewers.

Yomiuri Theater Award, Excellence Award (1997, for "The Eagle Has Two Heads"). Tokyo Sports Film Award for Best Supporting Actor (for "Princess Mononoke"). Sponichi Culture and Arts Grand Prize (for the book "Akarui Ashita o"). Honorary Citizen of Tokyo (2018). 73rd NHK Broadcast Cultural Award (2022). Honorary citizen of Setagaya, Tokyo (2022). Kinokuniya Theater Award, Special Award (2025). Four appearances on NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen (2012 to 2015), setting the record at the time as its oldest performer.

Signature songs: "Me Que Me Que" (1957), "Yoitomake no Uta" (1965), "Kurotokage no Uta" (1968), "Itoshi no Ginpari." Albums include "Hakuju" (1975). Books include "Murasaki no Rirekisho" (1968), "Ah, Seifu no Hosoku" (2002), "Senso to Heiwa: Ai no Message" (2005), "Watashi no Jinseiron: Me ni Mieru Mono wa Minasan na" (2024), "Shiawase no Oban Burumai" (2026) and "Hohoende Ikiru Tame no Jinsei Sodan" (2026, published after his death). Documentaries: "Miwa: A Japanese Icon" (2010, dir. Pascal-Alex Vincent). He narrated the 2025 film "Nagasaki: In the Shadow of the Flash."

Akihiro Miwa died at 9:30 a.m. on 20 June 2026, aged 91, of old age (natural causes), according to Office Miwa, which announced the death on 28 June 2026. The agency said he had cut back on work over the past year because of his age, and had been resting at home since his health declined about three months earlier. His last word was "thank you." A private funeral for close relatives was held in Tokyo, with the yellow roses he loved and letters from fans placed in his coffin. No farewell gathering was planned. His Buddhist posthumous name was reported as Shiun-in Hoshin Shoei Nikko Koji.