THE ASAHI SHIMBUN
July 18, 2023 at 14:07 JST
Kabuki actor Ichikawa Ennosuke (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Tokyo police filed a separate arrest charge against popular Kabuki actor Ichikawa Ennosuke on July 18 for helping his father to commit suicide.
The 47-year-old actor was already under arrest for assisting in his mother’s suicide.
Police suspect Ennosuke helped his father, Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danshiro, kill himself at their home in the capital’s Meguro Ward by supplying him with prescription sleeping pills between the evening of May 17 and the following morning.
Ennosuke, whose real name is Takahiko Kinoshi, told police he covered his father’s face with a plastic bag after the pills rendered him unconscious.
An autopsy found that Danshiro, 76, died from psychotropic drug poisoning.
Officers of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police Department arrested Ennosuke on June 27 for using the same method to help his 75-year-old mother commit suicide that same night.
Ennosuke was found semiconscious in a room on the lower level of the house that he shared with his parents.
He said the three of them decided to commit suicide after learning a weekly magazine would run a story May 18 that accused Ennosuke of sexually abusing and bullying his fellow actors.
(This article was written by Yuji Masuyama, Minami Endo and Shomei Nagatsuma.)
Magazine article prompted family suicide bid, actor tells police
June 28, 2023
Kabuki actor Ennosuke arrested for helping mother’s suicide
June 27, 2023
Kabuki actor says parents ingested drugs after family talks
May 21, 2023
Kabuki actor’s parents died of apparent drug overdose
May 20, 2023
Police suspect Kabuki actor tried suicide as scandal broke
May 19, 2023
Kabuki actor Ennosuke found collapsed at home in Tokyo
May 18, 2023
A peek through the music industry’s curtain at the producers who harnessed social media to help their idols go global.
A series based on diplomatic documents declassified by Japan’s Foreign Ministry
Here is a collection of first-hand accounts by “hibakusha” atomic bomb survivors.
Cooking experts, chefs and others involved in the field of food introduce their special recipes intertwined with their paths in life.
A series about Japanese-Americans and their memories of World War II
