Lyricist and Naoki Prize winner, Rei Nakanishi (real name: Rei Nakanishi = Reizo Nakanishi) died at a hospital in Tokyo at 4:23 am on the 23rd due to myocardial infarction. On the 25th, I found out that he passed away. he is 82 years old. Born in former Manchuria. In 2012, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, but overcame it with advanced medical proton beam therapy. After that, he showed a strong creative desire, but finally became a person who did not return. The funeral and farewell ceremony will be held at a later date as a family funeral. The chief mourner is his wife Yuriko.
A popular lyricist who has won the Japan Record Award three times for "Temptation of Angels" and other songs, he also won the Naoki Prize for "Nagasaki Burabura Bushi" as a writer. Mr. Nakanishi, who had many faces, passed away.
According to relatives, he was admitted to a hospital in Tokyo about a month ago. She left while being watched by her family. It is also a corona misfortune, and the funeral will be held at the family funeral. A relative explained, "It was also his will to have a family funeral."
Mr. Nakanishi, who has turned his overflowing talent into numerous works, was a hard-working man who withdrew from China to Japan when he was defeated in the war when he was seven years old. After running away from home at the age of 18, he made a living by doing road construction, etc. After that, he worked on the translation of chansons at Rikkyo University, where he entered Rikkyo University, also to earn tuition fees.
In 1966, he made his debut as a lyricist with the song "Nude to Ame ni Nurete". Since then, he has written about 4,000 songs as a hitmaker. He also has a face as a manager, and when the entertainment production company he established went bankrupt, it was reported that he made about 250 million yen in debt. Even so, at the party in 1989 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his life as a lyricist, he laughed off even the tough past, saying, "There are peaks and valleys in life. There were times when I was almost shipwrecked, but thanks to all of you, I've come this far." .
The first major illness was in 1992 (Heisei 4). At the age of 54, he suffered a myocardial infarction that destroyed two-fifths of his heart. In 2012, he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. He overcame this by undergoing proton beam therapy, a type of radiotherapy, 30 times in four months. Even after returning to work, he does not miss regular checkups once every three months, and in January 2015, he released the album "Rei Nakanishi and 12 Actresses" commemorating the 50th anniversary of his life as a lyricist and writer. has been active in
However, a detailed examination at the same time revealed that the cancer had recurred in the lymph nodes near the esophagus. Because the affected area was a densely packed area of organs, proton beam therapy, which I had relied on, was not possible. Then choose surgery. Initially, the plan was to perform a thoracoscopic surgery, which would be less stressful on the body, but during the surgery, it was suddenly changed to an open-heart surgery in which a large cut of about 25 centimeters was made in the back.
After the surgery, in a telephone interview with Nikkan Sports, "(Myocardial infarction in 1992) caused about half of my heart to be necrotic, so I wondered if my heart could withstand the long-term general anesthesia surgery. I did it, but I couldn't remove all the affected parts," he confessed. Regarding the future, he said, "I will continue to consider how to deal with it with my doctor, but first I will concentrate on treatment. I want to return as soon as possible."
After that, he did not lose his creative motivation until the end, such as serializing a novel in the weekly magazine "Sunday Mainichi".