Yū Aoi

Yū Aoi (蒼井 優, Aoi Yū^?) (born August 17, 1985) is a Japanese actress and model. She made her film debut as Shiori Tsuda in Shunji Iwai's 2001 film All About Lily Chou-Chou. She subsequently portrayed Tetsuko Arisugawa in Hana and Alice (2004), also directed by Iwai, Kimiko Tanigawa in the hula dancing film Hula Girls and Hagumi Hanamoto in the 2006 live-action adaptation of the popular Honey and Clover manga series.

She has won numerous awards for her performances on screen, including the prestigious Japan Academy Prize and Kinema Junpo Awards for best supporting actress in 2007 for Hula Girls and Rookie of the Year for continued performances in the field of Films in Media and Fine Arts by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan in 2009.^[1]

Career

Early career

Yu Aoi did her stage debut as Polly in the 1999 rendition of Annie, followed by her appearance as a regular on TV Tokyo's Oha SUTA (The Super Kids Station) in 2000. A year later, she debuted in Shunji Iwai's All About Lily Chou-Chou playing Shiori Tsuda alongside Hayato Ichihara, Shugo Oshinari, Miwako Ichikawa, and Ayumi Ito. Aoi would later work in Ao to Shiro de Mizuiro and Gaichu (Harmful Insect) with friend Aoi Miyazaki. With her first roles on the small and big screen came CMs and endorsements for Sony, Yamaha, DoCoMo, Toshiba and Coca Cola.

In 2003, commemorating the 30th anniversary of Kit Kat in Japan, Shunji Iwai shot a series of short films starring Yu Aoi and Anne Suzuki, which later was expanded into the feature film called Hana & Alice, which earned Aoi the Best Actress award at the Japanese Professional Movie Award.^[2]

2005–2007

In 2005, Aoi played her first lead on the big screen in Letters from Kanai Nirai, which was sold in Korea with the alternate title of Aoi Yu's Letter due to her popularity. She also had supporting roles in the Satoshi Miki film Turtles Swim Faster than Expected starring Juri Ueno, and Yamato with Shido Nakamura and Kenichi Matsuyama. This supporting role would earn her one of her double-nomination as Best Supporting Actress at the 2007 Japanese Academy Award.^[3] She won against herself for her work as Kimiko Tanikawa in the Japanese hit Hula Girls, which was sent to the Academy Awards as the Japanese official selection that year.^[4]

To this date, her role as the hula dancing girl from small town Iwaki remains her most successful role yet, earning her a dozen awards as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress,^[5] alongside her other smaller roles that year as Hagu in Honey & Clover, and Kana Sato in the Shunji-Iwai-produced and Nirai-Kanai-directed Rainbow Song. Aoi also lent her voice to play Shiro in the animated film Tekkonkinkreet, the adaptation to the Taiyo Matsumoto manga, Black and White, directed by Michael Arias.

During these years, she made commercials for Nintendo, Canon, Shiseido Cosmetics, Shueisha Publishing, Kirin Beverage and continued endorsing DoCoMo. Moreover, Aoi also released two successful photobooks with Yoko Takahashi as photographer, and distributed by rockin'on, Travel Sand (2005) and Dandelion (2007). Add to that two interviews with NHK's Top Runner in 2005, and TBS' Jounetsu (Passion) interview in 2006, which was translated into Korean and Chinese.

2007 also proved to be a prolific year for her as she participated in the live action adaptation of the manga series Mushishi alongside Joe Odagiri, as well as WOWOW's Don't Laugh at my Romance, Welcome to the Quiet Room with Yuki Uchida, and going back to the stage to play Desdemona in a rendition of Shakespeare's Othello. For these last two roles, Aoi showed to be moving closer to a more thespian career path by even losing 7 kg. for her role as eating disorder patient, Miki.

2008–present

Aoi began 2008 with the release of Don't Laugh at My Romance, which would earn her a nomination as Best Supporting Actress at the Asian Film Awards 2009. WOWOW would also get her for the experimental drama Camouflage (aka. Aoi Yu x 4 Lies), in which Yu Aoi would collaborate with four different directors exploring the theme of lies. The series lasted for 12 episodes, and included work with Ryō Kase, Yoichi Nukumizu, Shoko Ikezu, Nobuhiro Yamashita and Yuki Tanada.

A couple of months later, NTV would sign Aoi to play her first TV leading role as Handa Sen in the live action adaptation of Kikuchi Shota's manga series, Osen, which aired until the end of June with ten episodes.

Next up, Aoi released One Million Yen Girl written and directed by Camouflage director Yuki Tanada, and also released by WOWOW. This was her latest leading film role since Nirai Kanai in 2005, and proved to be a wise career choice later on. However, she didn't forget her supporting roles, and briefly participated in the Japanese World-War-II-jury-themed film Best Wishes for Tomorrow, as well as the international Tokyo! - a three-short-film collection by Michel Gondry, Leo Carax and Bong Joon Ho.

In 2009, The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan named Yu Aoi Rookie of the Year in the field of Films in Media and Fine Arts, citing her work in her film debut in All About Lily Chou Chou, until her work in One Million Yen Girl.

In June 2009, the movie Ikechan and Me, a live action adaptation of the picture book of the same name by Rieko Saibara, was released. In it she is lending her voice to Ikechan, as well as playing supporting roles in Honokaa Boy and Younger Brother by Yoji Yamada.

Awards

Aoi has won numerous awards, including the prestigious Japan Academy Prize for best supporting actress in 2007, for her portrayal of Kimiko Tanigawa in Hula Girls, for which she was critically acclaimed.

During the same year, she also received both the Blue Ribbon Award and the Yokohama Film Festival award for best actress, both for her performance in Hula Girls and her portrayal of Hagumi Hanamoto in the Honey and Clover live action movie. She also received the Hochi Film Award, the Kinema Junpo Award and the Mainichi Film Concours for best supporting actress for her performances in Hula Girls, Honey and Clover and Rainbow Song. She also received the Nikkan Sports Film Award for best new talent for her performance in Hula Girls.

Earlier, in 2005, she had also won the Japanese Professional Movie Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Tetsuko (Alice) Arisugawa in Hana and Alice.

Filmography

Movies

TV drama

• Ao to Shiro to Mizuiro (2001) as Kimiko Shiina
• Ukiwa - Shōnen-tachi no Natsu (2002) as Miyuki Yamashita
• Shin Zukkoke Sanningumi (2002)
• Kōkōkyōshi (2003)
• Engimono (2003)
• 14kagetsu (2003)
• Ichiban taisetsu na Dēto Tokyo no Sora- Shanghai no Yume (2004)
• Yo ni mo Kimyō na Monogatari: Kako kara no Nikki (2004)
• Nanako to Nanao (2004)
• Tiger & Dragon (2005)
• Nijūyon no Hitomi (2005)
• Dr. Koto Shinryojo 2006 (2006)
• Aoi Yū x 4tsu no Uso Camouflage (2008)
• Osen (2008)
• Ryōmaden (2010)

References

External links

• Official website
• Yū Aoi at the Internet Movie Database
• JMDb Profile (in Japanese)