Japanese Kabuki Star Arrested for Helping Mother Die by Suicide.<br />One of Japan’s best-known kabuki actors has been arrested on suspicion of assisting in his mother’s suicide after both parents were found unconscious at his home last month.<br /><br />Police said Ennosuke Ichikawa, a 47-year-old star of the classical theatre form, “allegedly made a 75-year-old woman take sleep-inducing pills at his home and die of psychoactive drug addiction, thereby assisting in her suicide”.<br /><br />Rescue workers in May found Ichikawa’s 76-year-old father – also a kabuki actor – and his 75-year-old mother unconscious at his home in Tokyo.<br /><br />Both were later confirmed dead, and police are also investigating the father’s death, media reports said.<br />Ichikawa, who has performed in London, Amsterdam and Paris, was discovered collapsed at his home on the same day and taken to hospital, where he was questioned.<br /><br />On Tuesday, he was quoted by the news agency Jiji Press as telling investigators that he was “going to follow my parents and kill myself”, admitting to the charges.<br /><br />Ichikawa told officers that the family “discussed dying and being reborn” and that his parents had taken sleeping pills, according to the public broadcaster NHK.<br /><br />An apparent suicide note written by Ichikawa was also reportedly found at his home.<br /><br />Ichikawa, whose real name is Takahiko Kinoshi, made his kabuki debut in 1980 and went on to become one of the country’s most renowned performers.
