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Singer-Songwriter Sayuri Dies at 28

The official X (formerly Twitter) account of singer Sayuri announced on Friday that Sayuri died on September 20. She was 28. Her relatives and close associates held a private funeral.

Sayuri's husband, the musician Amaarashi, said on his X/Twitter account that Sayuri had been fighting a chronic illness.

On July 25 earlier this year, Sayuri announced that she would go on hiatus due to suffering from functional dysphonia, a condition that causes someone's voice to sound strained or otherwise irregular, with no obvious physiological or neurological reasons. At the time, she said that she was seeing a speech therapist and vocal coach, but that she was feeling frustrated at not being able to express herself and connect to the world.

Sayuri has been active as a singer-guitarist in the local scene of her hometown of Fukuoka since her teenage years, forming the musical duo LONGTAL and performing in small music venues and busking. When she was 19 years old she made her major solo debut with the single "Mikazuki" in August 2016, which also served as the ending theme song for the Rampo Kitan: Game of Laplace anime. She has since performed theme songs for other anime, with some of her popular anime songs including "Hana no Tō" (Tower of Flower) from 2022's Lycoris Recoil, "Heikōsen" (Parallel Lines) from 2017's Scum's Wish, "Sore wa Chiisa na Hikari no yō na" (That Was Like a Small Light) from 2016's ERASED, and "Kōkai no Uta" (Song of Regret) from the fourth season of My Hero Academia in 2019, to name a few.

Sayuri married musician and vocalist Amaarashi on March 18 earlier this year.

Source: Sayuri's X/Twitter account, Amaarashi's X/Twitter account