Danica Davidson
April 17, 2025 
There is sad news coming out of Japan with the word that actor Mizuki Itagaki, who acted in a number of live-action movies based on manga, has passed away. He was only 24 at the time of his death, and would have turned 25 this October.
Itagaki went missing in January. Authorities, along with his friends and family, searched of him. According to his family, he had been having mental health issues, issues that they said began in 2024.
Within the last week, his body was discovered in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Authorities let his family know. His death was described as an “unexpected incident.”
Itagaki got into performing young, joining the vocal dance unit M!LK in 2014 and staying with them until 2020. In 2015 he was in the two-part movie project Solomon’s Perjury, and in 2016 he received the Male Rookie of the Year award from the Japanese Movie Critics Awards. Since then he was in the live-action Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, Hot Gimmick: Girl Meets Boy, Ushijima the Loan Shark Part 2, Blue Spring Ride, Moribito – Guardian of the Spirit, For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams, and Hibiki. With For the Kid I Saw in My Dreams, he had two roles by playing a pair of twins.
Besides live-action, he also did stage work, with Evangelion Beyond perhaps being of the most interest to otaku.
Dark Horse Comics publishes the Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! manga and gave this description for the first volume:
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Plot
Asakusa loves to design worlds. Mizusaki loves to animate. Kanamori loves to make money! And at Shibahama High, they call them Eizouken–a three-girl club determined to produce their own spectacular science fiction anime! But with no budget from their school and a leaky warehouse for a studio, Eizouken is going to have to work hard and use their imagination . . . the one thing they’ve got plenty of!
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! was nominated for the Manga Taisho Award as one of the 10 best new manga of the year!
We send our condolences to Itagaki’s friends and family.
Source: ANN
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
