Miho Nakayama, Japanese Music and Movie Star, Dies at 54

Miho Nakayama, a reigning J-pop star of the Nineteen Eighties who broke by way of to grow to be a critically acclaimed dramatic actress and gained worldwide consideration for her starring function within the sentimental Japanese drama “Love Letter,” died on Friday at her residence in Tokyo. She was 54.

Ms. Nakayama was discovered lifeless in a bath, in line with an announcement from her administration firm. The assertion added, “We are nonetheless within the technique of confirming the reason for loss of life and different particulars.”

The Japan Times reported that Ms. Nakayama had canceled an look at a Christmas live performance in Osaka, Japan, scheduled for that very same day, citing well being points.

Ms. Nakayama — recognized by the affectionate nickname Miporin — rocketed to fame in 1985, changing into one in all Japan’s most profitable idols, as well-liked younger entertainers there are recognized, with the discharge of her first single, “C.” That identical 12 months, she took residence a Japan Record Award for greatest new artist.

She exploded on each the massive and small screens that very same 12 months with starring roles within the comedy-drama collection “Maido Osawagase Shimasu” (roughly, “Sorry to Bother You All the Time”) and the movie “Bi Bappu Haisukuru” (“Be-Bop High School”), an motion comedy set on a dystopian campus stuffed with uniformed schoolgirls and brawling schoolboys.

Such tales had been well-liked teenage fare on the time, as evidenced by her subsequent function in “Sailor Fuku Hangyaku Doumei” (“The Sailor Suit Rebel Alliance”), a tv collection that made its debut in 1986, by which Ms. Nakayama performed a member of a gaggle of martial arts-savvy ladies who squared off towards wrongdoers at a violence-marred highschool.