News
Actress Kirin Kiki Passes Away at 75
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Actress Kirin Kiki passed away in her Tokyo home on Saturday, September 15. She was 75.
Kiki had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2004, which she revealed had metastasized in 2013. She was hospitalized for a fracture in her left thigh on August 13.
She had her first major recurring role in the 1964 television series Shichinin no Mago. She won the Best Actress in the Japan Academy Prizes for her roles in the 2006 Tokyo Tower: Okan to Boku to Tokidoki Oton series and the 2011 Chronicle of My Mother (Wa ga Haha no Ki) film.
In anime, Kiki played the character Madame Noir in Gisburō Sugii's 1974 anime Jack to Mame no Ki under her birth name of Chiho Yūki. She also played Yamanba in Taro the Dragon Boy, Onba in Brave Story, and Haru in The Secret World of Arrietty. She has also acted in numerous live-action films, television series, and commercials, and recently acted in Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters (Manbiki Kazoku) film.
Kiki was a recipient of the Japanese government's The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette in 2008, and also received the "Arigatō" (Thank You) Award from the Tokyo International Film Festival in 2015.
Sources: Nikkan Sports, The Mainichi via Otakomu, picture from Wikipedia
