Image via Ichiro Mizuki’s Twitter account

The official Twitter account for anime song artist Ichiro Mizuki announced his passing today. Mizuki was 74.

Mizuki’s management announced the lung cancer diagnosis publicly in July after undergoing surgery for it in June. Mizuki had been undergoing tests after coming down with partial vocal cord paralysis in April 2021. Those tests found the cancer and that it had spread to his lymph nodes and brain. Mizuki succumbed to the cancer on December 6 at 6:50 pm after being rushed to the hospital. 

Ichiro Mizuki, whose real name was Toshio Hayakawa, is best known as the Emperor of Anime Songs for pioneering the anison industry, members of which lovingly called him “Aniking” and “Aniki (big bro).”

Mizuki was born in Setagaya, Tokyo on January 7, 1948. He grew up surrounded by music in his parent’s record store, listening to jazz from an early age. As he grew older, Mizuki would frequent Jazz cafes throughout Tokyo which is where he caught the eye of the late composer and enka singer Kanae Wada, who gave Mizuki his stage name.

The first song Mizuki would perform was the opening theme to the Japanese dubbed version of A Man Called Shenandoah in 1965. He’d make his full debut in 1968 with the single “Kimi ni Sasageru Boku no Uta,” which failed to gain traction and after poor sales saw Mizuki bow out from the music industry until 1971 when he turned his focus to anime music.

From here, Mizuki would perform the theme songs and insert songs for classic anime series such as Mazinger Z, Genshi Shounen Ryuu, Great Mazinger and Lupin the Third Part 2, among many more. Mizuki also performed songs for early tokusatsu series. While performing the anime songs, from April 1976 to March 1979, Mizuki would serve as the second generation Oniisan for NHK children’s show Okaasan to Issho, which is still running on television every morning. He has over 1,200 songs to his name.

For the children and teens that grew up during this time, Mizuki would be a household name and a voice of a generation.

During his career, he pushed for greater recognition of anime music in the music industry, pushing sales of his records to heights that could not be ignored. After a long and fruitful career, he formed the JAM Project supergroup in 2000 with fellow anison singers Hironobu Kageyama, Masaaki Endoh, Eizo Sakamoto and Rica Matsumoto to continue the “anison spirit.” He would work part-time with the group since 2002 due to work.

Even after his health issues, Mizuki proclaimed that he wanted to be active for life and was in the midst of planning his 50th-anniversary celebrations. 

A classic image of Ichiro Mizuki from the Oha Suta morning kid’s program in the 1990s where he’d make appearances under the name Mizuking:

Though Mizuki didn’t get to perform in that concert, he was continuing to perform throughout November with his final performance on November 27 at the Mizuki Ichiro and Horie Mitsuko Futari no Anison #19 concert, a concert series in celebration of classic anison music supported by Mizuki and other veterans of the industry. This is where Mizuki proclaimed “I will never retire in my lifetime.”

A private funeral for Mizuki will be held with close friends and family. A farewell party will be held at a later time in accordance with the wishes of his family.

Rest in peace, Mizuki. Your memory and influence will live on in the anison industry.

Sources: Ichiro Mizuki on Twitter, Oricon

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Daryl Harding is a Senior Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs a YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza, and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.