is a Japanese actress and singer. She was a member of

Japanese idol An is a type of entertainer marketed for image, attractiveness, and personality in Japanese popular culture, Japanese pop culture. Idols are primarily singers with training in other performance skills such as acting, dancing, and modeling. Idol ...

girl group A girl group is a music act featuring two or more women in music, female singers who generally vocal harmony, harmonize together. The term "girl group" is also used in a narrower sense in the United States to denote the wave of American female p ...

AKB48 AKB48 (pronounced ''A.K.B. Forty-Eight'') is a Japanese idol musical girl group named after the Akihabara area in Tokyo, where the group's theater is located. AKB48 has sold more records than any other female musical act in Japanese history. AK ...

and its spin-off unit

Diva Diva (, ) is the Latin word for a goddess. Diva is a name from Roman mythology, and is associated with the nouns divus, diva, which means god, goddess, and the adjective divinius, which means divine or heavenly. It has often been used to refer t ...

. As an actress, Akimoto has appeared in both Japanese and American productions, and made her Hollywood debut in '' Sniper: Assassin's End'' (2020). She also provides the Japanese dub for

Mantis Mantises are an order (Mantodea) of insects that contains over 2,400 species in about 460 genera in 33 families. The largest family is the Mantidae ("mantids"). Mantises are distributed worldwide in temperate a ...

in the

Marvel Cinematic Universe The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is an American media franchise and shared universe centered on List of Marvel Cinematic Universe films, a series of superhero films produced by Marvel Studios. The films are based on characters that appe ...

Career

Family and early career

Akimoto was born to a Japanese father and a Filipino mother. In 2012, she ran the

Tokyo Marathon The is an annual marathon sporting event in Tokyo, Japan. It is a World Athletics Platinum Label marathon and one of the seven World Marathon Majors. The latest edition of the race took place on . It is sponsored by Tokyo Metro. History The fi ...

for the second year in a row and donated the money to the Philippines. Her solo book of photographs is entitled ''Ari no Mama''. On June 26, 2014, Akimoto was appointed as the Goodwill Philippine Tourism Ambassador to promote the Philippines as a tourist destination in Japan. She was also assigned as a narrator in the collaboration drama of PTV-4 and

Nippon TV JOAX-DTV (channel 4), branded as (NTV) or Nippon TV, is a Japanese television station serving the Kantō region as the flagship station of the Nippon News Network and the Nippon Television Network System, owned and operated by the , a sub ...

entitled "Halo Halo House-Jose's Nippon Diary"

2006–2013: AKB48 member

Akimoto began her career in

as one of the members of the second generation, the Original Team K. On the last day of the Budokan concert on August 23, 2009, during the first team shuffle, Akimoto was officially made captain of Team K. She resigned after a scandal in 2010 but after completing the

in 2011, she was reappointed the position. On August 24, 2012, in the Tokyo Dome~1830m no Yume~ concert,

Yuko Oshima is a Japanese actress and former member of idol girl group AKB48, of which she was the captain of Team K. She was also a member of the AKB48 subunit Not Yet. In addition to the singles that involved the rock-paper-scissors tournaments, she sa ...

replaced her as the captain of Team K via team shuffle. She has since been involved with sub-unit group

under

Avex Avex Inc. ( kabushiki gaisha , commonly known as Avex and stylized as avex) is a Japanese entertainment conglomerate led by founder Max Matsuura and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1988, the company manages J-pop talents like Ayumi ...

. She became a regular on the popular noon TV show ''

Waratte Iitomo was a Japanese variety show aired every weekday on Fuji TV. The show was hosted by Tamori (Kazuyoshi Morita) and ran from 1982 to 2014. The show was produced in the Studio Alta building in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The show featured a series of regular m ...

'' from 2010 to 2012''.'' She was also featured as one of the members in AKB48's own anime television show alongside other members

Minami Takahashi is a Japanese idol, singer, tarento and a former member of the Japanese girl idol group AKB48. She is in Team A of AKB48. She became the first of AKB48 and its sister groups. In an interview with Nippon Television in June 2010, AKB48 produc ...

Tomomi Itano is a Japanese recording artist, songwriter, dancer, model, and actress. She is a former member of the Japanese idol girl group AKB48. She was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. In 2011 she debuted solo with a single titled " Dear J", which wa ...

Atsuko Maeda is a Japanese actress and singer. She is a former member of the idol girl group AKB48, and was one of the most prominent members in the group at the time, regarded as the group's "absolute ace", "immovable center", and the "Face of AKB." After ...

and others. On April 7, 2013, Akimoto announced on her official blog that she would not be participating in AKB48's 2013 general election, and would be graduating from AKB48 to focus on her acting. Her graduation ceremony was held on August 22 at the Tokyo Dome, and her final stage performance was held on August 28 at the AKB48 Theater, and has been streamed live by Nico Nico Namahousou.

2014–present: Solo career

In 2014, she reunited with her sub-unit group DIVA to release their final single "Discovery", an album, and a tour before disbandment. She composed and sang "Little Witch" which was the

NHK , also known by its Romanization of Japanese, romanized initialism NHK, is a Japanese public broadcasting, public broadcaster. It is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television licence, television license fee. NHK ope ...

2014 Spring Campaign Theme Song. Since leaving AKB48 she has starred in four films. She has a recurring role as Bikuu in ''Garo'' which led to a solo film spin off in 2015. She sang the theme song of the film entitled "Sengetsu ~Hikari to Yami no Soba de~". Akimoto was a co-host for Team Japan in the reality competition show '' Ultimate Beastmaster'' which was released on Netflix on February 24, 2017.

Personal life

On July 27, 2020, Akimoto married

music producer A record producer or music producer is a music creating project's overall supervisor whose responsibilities can involve a range of creative and technical leadership roles. Typically the job involves hands-on oversight of recording sessions; ensu ...

and singer . She gave birth to their first child on October 4, 2023.

Discography

With AKB48

Singles

Singles with SKE48

Stage units

;Team K 1st Stage * * ; ;Team K 2nd Stage * Blue Rose * ;Team K 3rd Stage * ;Himawari Gumi 1st Stage * ;Himawari Gumi 2nd Stage * Confession ;Team K 4th Stage * ;Team K 5th Stage * (Solo Unit) ;Team K 6th Stage "Reset" * ;Team K Waiting Stage * *

With Diva

* "Tsuki no Ura gawa" ** "Fade out" ** "Information" ** "Blue rose -Diva ver.-" * "Cry" ** "No way out" ** "Chika Suidō" ** "Maria -Diva ver.-" * "Lost the Way" ** "Kanashimi no Mirage" ** "Kimi wa Pegasus -Diva ver.-"

Filmography

Films

Television dramas

Stage plays

Musicals

Other television

Japanese dub

References

External links

*
Official agency profile

Sayaka Yamamoto
at Oricon * {{DEFAULTSORT:Akimoto, Sayaka 1988 births Living people Actresses from Manila AKB48 members Filipino people of Japanese descent Japanese actresses Japanese expatriates in the Philippines Japanese idols Japanese people of Filipino descent Actresses from Makati Singers from Chiba Prefecture People from Matsudo 21st-century Japanese singers 21st-century Japanese women singers Singers from Makati