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Shohei Hino, best known to anime fans as the original Japanese-language voice actor of the Great Uncle in Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki's The Boy and the Heron, has died at age 75.

According to Nhk, the veteran performer suffered a lumbar fracture during the summer. He reportedly passed away on Nov. 14, 2024, but his death was made public on Nov. 20, 2024. In 2023, Hino played the Great Uncle character in The Boy and the Heron, Miyazaki's most recent Ghibli film.

Hino was born May 30, 1949, in Tokyo, Japan as Koichi Nihei. He entered the entertainment industry as a child actor, making his theatrical debut in Kozo Saekis Izukoe in 1966. His stage name, Shohei Hino, was given to him by novelist Shotaro Ikenami in 1973. Hinos acting career lasted nearly 60 years, with his final movie, Last Mile by Ayuko Tsukahara, released this year in Japan. In addition to his acting career, Hino was a musician...

Shotaro Ikenami was a prolific writer of samurai novels, a number of which were adapted for TV and film in Japan. One of his most iconic characters is Baian Fujieda, an acupuncturist who also doubles as a hired killer, who has been the source of a TV series and at least four movies, with Ken Ogata and Ken Watanabe playing the character, among others. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Ikenami’s birth on 1923, a consortium of media companies has produced two films based on the series.

Baian the Assassin, M.D. (Part 1) is screening at Camera Japan

Baian may be known to the world as an acupuncturist, including his maid Oseki, who treats him as a combination of nagging wife, mother, and mother-in-law, but he also doubles as a killer for hire, although he picks his targets among people whom he thinks deserve to die. The beginning of the...