Yuya Yagira hospitalized after drug overdose

by Chris MaGee

Not a lot of details on this yet, but 18-year-old actor Yuya Yagira was hospitalized late Friday (Japan time) after suffering a drug overdose. Yagira is most famous for being the youngest actor to win Best Actor at the Cannes International Film Festival for his performance as an abandoned boy who takes acre of his siblings in Hirokazu Koreeda's 2004 film "Nobody Knows". He was only 14 at the time. Now a fixture on Japanese television Yagira had apparently written in his blog earlier this month that he was cutting back on TV appearances due to illness.

We'll be keeping our eye out for more details on this developing story and wish Yagira-san a speedy recovery. Here's hoping that this isn't another story of a child star publicly burning out. Thanks to Yahoo Canada for the report.

UPDATE: This is really sad news. Yuya Yagigra's overdose doesn't seem to be the result of a hard night of partying or a Heath Ledger type accidental overdose of prescription medication, but a suicide attempt. Don Brown over at Ryuganji.net has more details, but thankfully Yagira has survived the attempt and is expected to make a full recovery. Check out the video below that ran on Japanese television about this very sad story: