“Perhaps I Was My Own Prison”—George Takahashi Opens Up on His Perfectionism

Days of hell: The painful period of wanting to meet someone but being unable to

“I can’t forget the date, March 23. That was the last day I saw my daughter back in 2014. Then, ten years later, on the same day, I happened to check my smartphone and found an email from her.”

About a year and a half ago, George Takahashi received a sudden email from his daughter, with whom he had lost contact for ten years:

“I turn 20 this year. Now that I’m an adult, I thought we could talk without parental restrictions, if that’s alright with you, Mr. Takahashi.”

“She didn’t call me ‘Dad,’ but ‘Mr. Takahashi.’ Later I learned she didn’t know what to call me,” he laughed.

George Takahashi (67), the vocalist of THE Toraburyu, whose 1993 hit “Road” and its series sold over three million copies, spoke with an unusually bright tone.

In 1998, he married talent Mika Mifune (42), 24 years his junior, becoming a celebrated ideal couple. However, after news of divorce proceedings in 2015, they finalized their divorce in 2016 when Takahashi was 57, and contact with his daughter, who was then in elementary school, was severed.

“The reunion happened last April. We had a Yakiniku lunch together in Tokyo. At the meeting place, she tapped my shoulder and asked, ‘Do you remember me?’ I replied, ‘Yeah!’ but honestly, I thought, ‘Who is this again?’” he laughed. “Ten years change a face. She said she wanted to be independent and asked for my help, so I asked, ‘Then come to Tokyo and live with me?’ She nodded. That moment was beyond words; it was profound. For ten years, we didn’t share breakfast, didn’t laugh together watching TV. That everyday life had completely disappeared.”

He described the years apart from his daughter as like being in prison.

“Every March 23, I would count—one year, two years, three years. I wanted to see her but couldn’t. Those were hellish days.”

After the divorce, he had only one brief meeting with his daughter when she was 14. In spring 2019, they met in an Osaka café with a lawyer present for just two hours.

“She clearly told me, ‘I don’t think of you as my father.’ At that moment, I thought she was saying it because someone told her to, but in hindsight, it might have been her own way of expressing herself. I felt ashamed that I had made a middle school child say something like that.”

Five years later, he reunited with his daughter and also began recalling suppressed memories of family.

“It all seemed too perfect back then. We appeared together on variety shows, in commercials, and magazines praised us as the ideal family. But I think that was just a role. When you live life assuming someone is always watching, you can’t be yourself. We were acting as a ‘TV family.’ In 2011, we even received a ‘Partner of the Year’ award. It was all completely scripted. I might have trapped myself too much, focusing on the image of our marriage and earnings.”

After finalizing the divorce in 2016 and being separated from his family, Takahashi began facing his origins and started walking the life of his hit song, Road.

In the August 21 issue of FRIDAY (September 5 edition) and the paid FRIDAY GOLD, he talks about finding ordinary happiness in daily life and his future plans.

From the September 5, 2025, issue of “FRIDAY”