Feb 27th ♥ 松本晃央 (Matsumoto Akio)
Akki joined the agency in 2007. He is part of junior unit Hip Hop JUMP and currently participates in “Shounen Club” and “ヤンヤンJUMP”. Akio-kun has backdanced for groups like Hey! Say! JUMP, Kis-My-Ft2, A.B.C-Z and senpai 横山裕 (Yokoyama Yuu). In 2010 and 2011 he participated in the butai “Minna Kurie ni kite Kurie!”.
Happy 17th Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう！
Feb 23th ♥ 亀梨和也 (Kamenashi Kazuya)
Kamenashi joined the agency in November 1998. As a Junior, he became a member of KAT-TUN in 2001. In 2005 he released a single ”青春アミーゴ“ alongside YamaPi, for the dorama “Nobuta wo Produce” under their character’s names. In 2006, he finally got to debut officially with his bandmates, releasing the single “Real Face”. He is the “KA” of KAT-TUN and his color is pink. He is also one of the few artists to have million-selling certified singles that went on to be the best-selling singles of the year for two consecutive years to his name.
Kazuko-chan is a character created by him, this girl likes to play the hearts of every junior she finds on her way. When he is not playing a girl, he has time for his other passion, baseball. His given name comes from a character from the manga, Touch, written by a Japanese manga artist, Mitsuru Adachi. He, an avid baseball fan and player like the character he was named after, once represented his country in the junior world league as shortstop though he had to give up the sport professionally due to lack of spare time after he was accepted into Johnny’s Entertainment despite having the support of Johnny Kitagawa, to pursue both careers. Kamenashi was as a junior captain for four consecutive years of the J2000 Team for Johnny’s Baseball Tournament from 1999 to 2004. He won three consecutive years the title “The World’s No1 Artist Baseball Player” organized by the WBC (2005-2006-2007) and was finalist two times (2004 & 2008). Kazu threw the first pitch at the Pacific League opening ceremony for the 2009 baseball season at a match in Chiba City featuring the Chiba Lotte Marines against the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawkson July 19, 2009.
Kamenashi made his acting debut in October 1999 in the fifth season of 3 nen B gumi Kinpachi Sensei as Akihiko Fugakawa. He also began appearing on stage in supporting roles of musicals, Show Geki Shock, Shock is Real Shock, Dream Boy and Dream Boys from 2001 to 2004. In late 2004, he took over the lead role in Dream Boys from Hideaki Takizawa and played the lead character in later seasons of the musical in January 2006, September 2007, March 2008, September 2009 and October 2009. This year, he has won his 3rd Television Drama Award, and his 2nd for Best Actor for his leading role in the dorama 「妖怪人間べム」(Yokai Ningen Bem).
Kazu also has a career in modeling, he walked the runway in 2008 for Hermès’ men’s autumn/winter 2008 collection in Tokyo. In 2010, Kamenashi won the annual Best Jeanist award with more than 29,000 votes in the men’s category. This is his fifth consecutive win and is thus promoted into the hall of fame, making him Eternal Best Jeanist and ineligible for future runs.
Happy 26th Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう！
Feb 21st ♥ JOHNNY’Sジュニア・スペシャル (JOHNNY’S JUNIOR SPECIAL)
Back in 1974 there was a junior unit called “Johnny’s Junior First Class”, they had 9 members divided into two sub-groups; “Junior Ace” (6 members) who were Hiromi Go-san’s back-dancers, and “Junior Special” (3 members) who were Four Leaves-san’s back-dancers.
Out of this 2 groups, 5 people were picked to release a single… but in the end, only 3 remained in the group. They released their debut single in Feb 21st, 1975 with the song “ベルサイユのばら” (Versailles no Bara) and made their stage debut two days after that.
Those members were:
- 板野俊雄 -Itano Toshio- (April 26th, 1957 - )… Leader, Toshichan
- 林正明 -Masaki Hayashi- (August 30th, 1958 - )… Macchan, Dracula
- 畠山昌久 -Hatakeyama Masahisa- (February 9th, 1958 - May 31st, 2003)… Charlie
They were disbanded 4 years after, to become part of a group called “VIP”, which included female members. Macchan left the group one year later.
Happy 37th Anniversary!
Feb 20th ♥ 森田剛 (Morita Go)
Morita-kun joined the agency in October 1994 and in less than a year he became a member of Coming Century and debuted with 20th Century, forming V6. He is also a member of the units MiMyCen, Go Tarimo & Mini-Curry and Trio the Shakiiin.
He has participated in numerous doramas and movies. In 2011, he made his US debut in Miyamoto Amon’s stage play “Kinkakuji”. The stage performance was featured at the 2011’s Lincoln Center Festival in New York City and showed during July. The play is an adaptation of Mishima Yukio’s novel of the same name, also known by the English title “The Temple of the Golden Pavilion.”
The DVD of this play was released the same day as V6’s latest single “バリバリBUDDY!”, this year on Feb 15th.
Happy 33rd Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう
Feb 19th ♥ 薬丸裕英 (Yakumaru Hirohide)
In 1981, he made his acting debut on TV drama “San-nen B-gumi Kinpachi sensei”. The following year he made his music debut as a member of “Shibugakitai”. They became one of the most popular singing trio during the early to mid-1980s in Japan with an extremely busy schedule of magazine photo shoots and TV appearances, which forced Yakumaru to drop out of his high school.
After their six-year run, Shibugakitai ended their prolific career on November 2nd, 1988. They have a total of 40 singles and albums to their credit. After going solo, Yakumaru became busy as an actor, author, and a talk show host for “Hanamaru Market”.
In 1990, he married an also popular singing idol of the 1980s, Hidemi Ishikawa. Ishikawa was rumored to be eight month pregnant when they got married. Ishikawa retired from show business after marrying Yakumaru, and for about ten years to raise children, concentrating on her role as a housewife. But, as of 2006, she has returned to show business and is now working along with her husband as advertisement personality. Yakumaru now works as a host of “Hanamaru Market” and he has, on occasion, invited his old Shibugakitai buddies to his talk show. Yakumaru now lives with his wife, three sons, and two daughters in Tokyo.
Happy 46th Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう！
Feb 19th ♥ 室将也 (Muro Masaya)
Masaya-kun is the youngest sibling of the kansai junior -family related- unit “Muro Brothers”. In 2010, he participated in the variety “Daremo Shiranai J Gakuen” and he is currently an active participant of Shounen Club under the unit KyoOtoko [京男].
Happy 18th Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう！
Feb 12th ♥ 上原勝太郎 (Uehara Shotaro)
Sho-chan joined the agency in 2010. His admired senpais are 山下智久 (Yamashita Tomohisa) and 赤西仁 (Akanishi Jin). He appears regularly in Shounen Club and is a background dancer of Hey! Say! JUMP and A.B.C-Z.
Happy 14th Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう！
Feb 10th ♥ 石川拓哉 (Ishikawa Takuya)
Taku is a member of Johnny’s Jr. who usually participates as background dancer in concerts of Kis-My-Ft2, Hey! Say! JUMP and also senpai 横山祐 (Yokoyama Yuu). In 2010 he had an appearance in TOKIO’s PV “advance” and he admires senpai 山下智久 (Yamashita Tomohisa).
Happy 17th Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう！
Feb 10th ♥ 椿泰我 (Tsubaki Taiga)
Taiga-kun began his career at the early age of 6, as an actor in NHK’s dorama “Tenge” under the acting agency “Queens Avenue”. In September 2009, he joined the agency as a Junior. He has participated in 8 doramas, 2 CMs, 2 movies, 1 butai and he is currently a background dancer for senpai groups like HSJ and Kis-My-Ft2, as well as active in Shounen Club.
Happy 14th Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう！
Feb 9th ♥ 畠山昌久 (Hatakeyama Masahisa)
Charlie joined the agency in 1973 (age 15). After being part of Johnny’s Jr. for a year, he was chosen among Go Hiromi’s background dancers to debut as 「JOHNNY’S ジュニア・スペシャル」(Johnny’s Junior Special), releasing their first single the year after that. They “disbanded” in 1978, only to become part of a new unit called “VIP” (this, as far as I know, is one of the two Johnny’s group that had female members). In 1979, they disbanded again, this time for good.
Charlie changed his name for the first time in 1980 to 畠真之 (Hata Masayuki) in order to pursue a career as an actor under “Watanabe Productions”. In 1984, he decided to work with “Shiki Theatrical Company” and he had to return to his original name. The same year, he reconsidered and decided to go international and changed his name yet again, this time to 畠山久 (Hatakeyama Hisashi).
In May 31, 2003, he died due to metastatic bile duct cancer. He was 45 years old… may he rest in peace.
Happy 54th Birthday! お誕生日おめでとう！
