The Japanese vocalist Ichiro Mizuki, better known as "the emperor of anime songs" given his long career in this sector, with songs such as Mazinger Z or Captain Harlock, has died at the age of 74.
This was announced by his production company, which has detailed that the singer suffered from lung cancer that was diagnosed in April of last year and for which he had been repeatedly going in and out of the hospital.
Although his condition was serious, with brain metastases, "he continued to perform with the aim of remaining active for the rest of his life while undergoing treatment," as the artist himself pointed out at his last concert at the end of last month. "Even though he couldn't act as well as he wanted, his strong determination didn't change and he showed a big smile at his last live performance on November 27," the producer shared.
Born in Tokyo on January 7, 1948 under the name Toshio Hayakawa, Mizuki, who is also affectionately known by the acronym "Aniki", made his musical debut in 1968. During his more than half a century professional career he recorded more than 1,200 songs for films , television series and video games.
It marked the childhood of the generation that grew up with iconic animated series such as Mazinger Z and Captain Harlock or the superhero series Kamen Rider, pioneer of the Henshin Hero subgenre, which includes, for example, the Power Rangers.
