Miki Sakai (''Sakai Miki'', 酒井美紀), born 21 February 1978 in

Aoi-ku, Shizuoka is one of three wards of the city of Shizuoka in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, located in the northern part of the city. Aoi-ku borders Suruga-ku in the south and Shimizu-ku to the southeast; the west faces Shimada, Fujieda and Kawanehon a ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

is an

actress An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

and

J-pop J-pop (often stylized in all caps; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in trad ...

idol singer. As a teenager she made her feature film debut in the 1995

Shunji Iwai is a Japanese filmmaker, video artist, writer and documentary maker. Life and career Iwai was born in Sendai, Miyagi, Japan. He attended Yokohama National University, graduating in 1987. In 1988, he started out in the Japanese entertainment ...

film ''

Love Letter A love letter is an expression of love in written form. However delivered, the letter may be anything from a short and simple message of love to a lengthy explanation and description of feelings. History One of the oldest references to a l ...

'' playing the role of Itsuki Fujii as a young girl. The film was a huge box-office success and Miki picked up a number of awards for her role including a

Japanese Academy Award The , often called the Japan Academy Prize, the Japan Academy Awards, and the Japanese Academy Awards, is a series of awards given annually since 1978 by the Japan Academy Film Prize Association (日本アカデミー賞協会, ''Nippon Akademii- ...

for 'Newcomer of the Year'. She also starred in ''Hagusen nagashi'' (1996) on TV as well as in numerous other television series and movies. Miki's portrayal of the character Tomie in the 2001 horror movie '' Tomie: Re-birth'' was one of the more popular interpretations of the role. In January 2008, Miki Sakai appeared in the 10-hour long TV historical drama ''

Tokugawa Fūunroku Hachidai Shōgun Yoshimune is a television program broadcast on January 2, 2008, on the TV Tokyo network in Japan. It was the 28th in the annual ''Shinshun Wide Jidaigeki'' series. Ten hours long, it began at 2:00 p.m. and ran until midnight. Cast The production star ...

''.

Personal life

On October 19, 2008, she married a doctor working at a university hospital who is four years older than her. In October 2009, she announced on her official blog that she was pregnant with her first child, and gave birth to her first son in 2010. In 2019, while continuing her acting career, she announced that she had enrolled in a private graduate school in Tokyo. In March 2023, she reported that she had completed her Master's degree in International Cooperation Studies at Toyo Eiwa University.

Filmography

Film

* ''

'' (1995), young Itsuki Fujii * ''Himeyuri no Tō'' (1995) * ''Nagareita shichinin'' (1997) * ''Abduction'' (1997), Mayo * ''To Love'' (1997), Mitsu Morita * '' Juvenile'' (2000), Noriko Kinoshita * '' Tomie: Re-birth'' (2001),

Tomie Kawakami Tomie Kawakami, ( Japanese: 川上富江, Hepburn: ''Kawakami Tomie'') better known mononymously as Tomie, is a character from the Japanese horror manga and film series of the same name created by Junji Ito. Tomie made her first appearance i ...

* ''

Samayou Yaiba is a 2009 Japanese film directed by Shouichi Mashiko and produced by Toei based on the novel, ''Samayou Yaiba'' (2004) by Keigo Higashino. The film is also known under the English title ''The Hovering Blade''. Plot The only daughter of widowe ...

'' (2009), Wakako Kijima * '' Kamen Rider OOO Wonderful: The Shogun and the 21 Core Medals'' (2011) * '' Tomie: Unlimited'' (2011), Tomie (cameo) * ''You Are Brilliant Like a Spica'' (2019) * ''Talking the Pictures'' (2019) * ''Akira and Akira'' (2022) * ''Shinpei'' (2025), Ms. Kōda * ''Mt. Fuji and Happiness Code'' (2025), Aya Ando

Television

* ''Hakusen Nagashi'' (1996), Sonoko Nanakura * ''Hakusen Nagashi: Spring at Age 19'' (1997), Sonoko Nanakura * ''Hakusen Nagashi: The Wind at Age 20'' (1999), Sonoko Nanakura * ''

Aoi Tokugawa Sandai is a 2000 Japanese historical drama television series and the 39th NHK taiga drama. The series respectively stars Masahiko Tsugawa, Toshiyuki Nishida, and Onoe Tatsunosuke II as the first three Tokugawa shōguns. It aired from January 9 to Dec ...

'' (2000),

Tokugawa Masako , also known as Kazu-ko, was empress consort of Japan as the wife of Emperor Go-Mizunoo. Through collaboration with her parents, Oeyo and Shogun Tokugawa Hidetada, she was a prominent and influential figure within the politics and culture of the E ...

* ''Hakusen Nagashi: The Poem of Travels'' (2001), Sonoko Nanakura * ''Hakusen Nagashi: Age 25'' (2003), Sonoko Nanakura * ''Hakusen Nagashi: The Final – Even as the Times of Dreaming have Passed'' (2005), Sonoko Nanakura * ''

'' (2008) * '' Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju'' (2018), Oei * ''Because We Forget Everything'' (2022)

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Official profile
* 1978 births Living people 20th-century Japanese actresses 21st-century Japanese actresses Japanese film actresses Japanese television actresses Singers from Shizuoka (city) Actors from Shizuoka Prefecture 21st-century Japanese singers 21st-century Japanese women singers {{Japan-screen-actor-stub