A Facebook post from the Yoru no Ki Japanese theatre troupe last April 24, Friday announced that veteran actor, playwright, and director Shu Wada passed away on April 23 due to pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). He was 81 years old.

The post from the Yoru no Ki theatre troupe also details that no funeral service was held for Shu as his remains were cremated immediately (as per government guidelines) and only his family were allowed to be present in the ceremony.

Shu was born on August 6, 1938. After graduating from the Haiyuza Theater Company, he went on to form the Yoru no Ki theatre troupe in 1980. He has an extensive career in both film and TV. Some of his movie credits include Artist of Fasting (2016), Magic Utopia (2015) and Our Night is Not Long (2012). For TV, some of the series he starred in are the Kaitsu Kaishuu and Musashi Musashi Taiga dramas for TV channel NHK, as well as the Nurse no Oshigoto and Aibou series. He was also a voice actor, voicing the Razor Mask in the 1975 tokusatsu TV series Himitsu Sentai Gorenger as well as the Henshoku Kaijin (lit. the Picky-Eating Monster) in the 1979 super sentai series Battle Fever J.

Mr Shu is also the father of popular anime screenwriter Gen Urobuchi. Urobuchi is best known for being one of the creators of the critically-acclaimed 2011 TV anime series Puella Magi Madoka Magica along with Atsuhiro Iwakami, Akiyuki Shinbo, Ume Aoki—known collectively as the “Magica Quartet”. For Madoka Magica Urobuchi won a Tokyo Anime Award for Best Scriptwriter. His other prominent works include the 2003 visual novel Saya no Uta, as well as popular anime series Psycho-Pass (both seasons), Aldnoah.Zero (both seasons), and Fate/Zero (both seasons). Urobuchi is currently a member of creative group Nitroplus.

Source: Anime News Network