From the outside, Yuko Takeuchi seemed to have a golden life. She had won Japan’s top acting award three times and had recently given birth to her second child. A graceful beauty, she appeared in a box-office favorite last year and advertisements for a top ramen brand.
Takeuchi, 40, died late last month, apparently in a suicide. No one can fully know what private torment might have lurked beneath the surface, but in a Japanese society that values gaman — endurance or self-denial — many feel pressure to hide their personal struggles. The burden is compounded for celebrities whose professional success depends on projecting a flawless ideal.
Takeuchi is the latest in a succession of Japanese film and television stars who have taken their own lives this year. Her death came less than two weeks after the suicide of another actress, Sei Ashina, 36, and two months after Haruma Miura, 30, a popular television actor, was found dead in his home, leaving a suicide note.
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