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Mayumi Ogawa Dies on March 26… Remembering the Actress of *Vengeance Is Mine*

A stage honoring Mayumi Ogawa
A stage honoring Mayumi Ogawa

News of the death of Mayumi Ogawa, an actress who represented Japan’s Shōwa era, emerged belatedly. According to reports, she died at age 86 on March 26, 2026, and the news was made public on August 9 through reporting citing testimony from her bereaved family.

Mayumi Ogawa, who began on the stage at Bungakuza, was an actress who won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Supporting Actress for the films *Vengeance Is Mine* and *Three Undelivered Letters*.

Three-line summary
1. News of Mayumi Ogawa’s death was made public through an August 9 report citing testimony from her bereaved family.
2. Reports gave her date of death as March 26 and her age as 86.
3. She won the 1980 Japan Academy Prize for Best Supporting Actress for *Vengeance Is Mine* and *Three Undelivered Letters*.

What is known

According to a report carried by Livedoor News, Mayumi Ogawa died at age 86 on March 26. Her death was made public about four and a half months later, on August 9, through reporting citing testimony from her bereaved family.

Media outlets reported the cause of death as acute coronary syndrome. This article is limited to the date, age, and cause of death reported through coverage citing testimony from her bereaved family, as well as her publicly available career history.

Why the news may have emerged later

News of a celebrity’s death is not always made public immediately. The timing of an announcement may vary depending on the family’s period of mourning, funeral arrangements, and the decision by an agency or family to disclose the news.

In this case, the article should distinguish between the actual date of death and the date on which it became known to the public. The fact that the two dates differ does not mean the information itself is inaccurate. However, it is important to confirm the basis for the initial announcement.

An actress who began at Bungakuza

Born in Tokyo in 1939, Mayumi Ogawa graduated from Wayo Women’s Junior College in 1961 and then entered the first class of the Bungakuza-affiliated theatrical research institute. She made her stage debut in 1962 in *Empress Kōmyō*, and drew attention the following year when she played the heroine Momoko Inui in the TV drama *Gambling in Solitude*.

She made her film debut in Kaneto Shindō’s *Mother*. She went on to take on a broad range of roles in works including *Two Bitches*, *Bad Woman*, *Army Nakano School*, and *The Great White Tower*, and received the 1970 Kunio Kishida Award for the stage production *The Wife of Seishū Hanaoka* during her time at Bungakuza.

Works she left in film and television

From the 1970s onward, she led the popularity of a television series in the title role of *Ukiyo-e Female Rat Thief*. The films *The Village of Eight Gravestones*, *The Demon*, *Three Undelivered Letters*, and Shōhei Imamura’s *Vengeance Is Mine* were among her representative works of the late 1970s.

In *Vengeance Is Mine*, she appeared as the proprietress of a lodging house. For that film and *Three Undelivered Letters*, she received the Best Supporting Actress award at the 3rd Japan Academy Prize in 1980. In 1991, she also received the Excellence Award in the same category for *Inheritance*, *White Hands*, and *Faraway Koshien*.

On stage, she took on her third leading role in *The Black Lizard* in 1982, and later appeared in the film *A House Without a Dining Table*, the drama *Tsumikikuzushi: 200-Day War Between Parents and Children*, and the NHK taiga drama *Aoi: Tokugawa Three Generations*. In her later years, she participated in theater activities and workshops for young theater companies.

Conclusion

News of Mayumi Ogawa’s death emerged belatedly through reporting citing testimony from her bereaved family. Beginning on the Bungakuza stage, her career—from *Vengeance Is Mine*, *The Demon*, and *The Black Lizard* to *Aoi: Tokugawa Three Generations*—remains a scene in the history of Japanese film and drama.

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