Legendary Singer Ichiro Mizuki Passes Away at 74

Ichiro Mizuki, the legendary anime and tokusatsu singer and founder of JAM PROJECT who had been fighting lung cancer has passed away at 74.

News out of Japan is now confirming that Ichiro Mizuki, the “emperor of anime songs” and tokusatsu singer has passed away at the age of 74. His talent agency confirmed his passing at 6:50 pm on December 6, 2022 due to lung cancer. The singer had just recently revealed his cancer diagnosis back in July of this year. Mizuki had made his last public appearance in November at the 49th Song Festival held in Tokyo where before performing the opening to Mazinger Z, he expressed to his fans his wish to get well and come back to performing full time as soon as possible. It has been reported that the wake and funeral for Mizuki had already been held and attended by his close family, per their request. A more public ceremony for the public will be held at a later date after consulting with the bereaved family.

Over the course of his life, Mizuki had over 1200 songs to his credit. He had performed some of the most memorable anime and tokusatsu theme openings, including for Kamen Rider X, Kamen Rider Stronger, Kamen Rider (Skyrider), and Zebraman. In 2000, Mizuki became the founder of the vocal supergroup JAM Project which has gone on to do many of the openings for the GARO franchise and other anime. In 2009, Mizuki appeared in a guest spot in Kamen Rider W as a music judge.

Source: LiveDoor

EDIT (2022/12/12): We mistakenly wrote that Mizuki sang the opening to Kamen Rider BLACK RX (which was sung by Takayuki Miyauchi). We have corrected the crediting accordingly.