Still Our Baby-Faced Girl: The Resilient Ms. Nagasaku!
Of all the former idol/singers that have come out of the legendary Pony Canyon PARADISE GOGO “stable of Stars”, probably the most successful is the center girl singer of pop trio RIBBON, the talented actress HIROMI NAGASAKU!
In the 80's j-pop experienced a sort of idol group "boom"and it was here that Pony Canyon unleashed a whole stable of soon-to-be-fave groups emerging from their Idol Group show PARADISE GOGO, with acts like CoCo,Qlair and a rambuntious trio of girls in a unit called RIBBON. Featuring Matsuno Arimi, Aiko Sato and a "round-headed kid" girl named Nagasaku Hiromi, these gals really put the FUN in j-pop! Where most groups simply stated the statements they were required to make,(i.e. "Konnichiwa, CoCo Desu") Ribbon were the kind of girls that always added something to the mix! Needless to say, I instantly and utterly fell in love with them! And yeah, I know it's supposed to be spelled with a lower case "r". For about four or five years Ribbon (and the rest of the Paradise Gogo artists) lead the way for cute girl groups with catchy pop tunes, till around 1994 when Pony Canyon decided to dissolve their idol franchise. Though popular group CoCo got a farewell album and Final Concert, I never saw anything of the sort for ribbon, who were more or less allowed to simply fade out! Would we be seeing any of them performing again any time soon? well, yes and no!
In an ironic turn of events, it was JUST at that time that local Japanese television station KIKU began broadcasting the Toyokawa Etsushi drama AOITORI (below), and I remember watching it and telling a friend after that evening’s episode, “I SWEAR the girl that plays Toyokawa’s childhood friend is that baby-faced singer from Ribbon!” Doing some research I found that this girl Nagasaku Hiromi was INDEED the one and same person!
As Akimoto Mikiko, the martyr of unrequited love on the behalf of Tokoyawa’s Shibata character, (in a situation where he’s rebuffed her time and again but still relies on her whenever in a scrape) she really made you sympathetic towards her, and I found myself impressed by how well she could act! Having seen other idols eke out an existence playing only bit parts in dramas forever, I hoped she would be moving on to bigger and better parts as her talents deserved!
Well, the next drama I saw Hiromi in was the Tokiwa Takako/Takahashi Katsunori drama HITORIGURASHI (below), and though Hiro-chan DID get kind of a top billed ”Co-starring” role, it was a very strange show that did little to promote her in a good light!
Conceived as a sort of “Single White Female” situation, (where a seemingly innocent roommate begins stalking her fellow tenant) Hitorigurashi had Hiromi’s Kyoko character obsessing over Tokiwa’s Miho character, from wearing her clothes, using her name and even drugging and undressing her! Though bizarre at the time, I’ve recently re-watched this and was surprised how touching and sad her character actually was. Watching it now, it seems more like a story of a lonely girl who really and deeply loved her friend and treated her like she was the most important thing in her life.
Things turned brighter for Hiromi’s career in the next drama I saw her in, the upbeat and positive Hitoribocchi Kimi Ni, a drama starring Hamada Masatoshi (of DOWNTOWN fame) and Hiromi as two adults who find an abandoned little boy and begin caring for him. I really dug this drama though I spent most of the time praying that I wasn’t gonna have to see Hiro kissing Hamada, (yeg!) a direction the writers thankfully sidestepped. I wanted Hiro to grow as a rom-com top biller, but not like this! AAHAHAHA!
The next show I saw Nagasaku in was a return to the darkness of Hitorigurashi in the VERY black drama SHUMATSUKON, the story of a willful woman who is so jealous of her sister’s good fortune that she makes a career out of sabotaging every bright spot that comes her way. When I first read the synopsis, I though it was going to be HIROMI playing the assailant, and was very surprised to see her playing the sweet and meek “good” daughter. Too meek for my tastes, I spent this drama lusting after Ayako Kawahara instead. Sorry, Hiro-chan!
After that, I didn’t see Hiromi in just about anything; though Dramawiki shows me that she’d been continuously putting out new dramas like clockwork, none of them made it to Hawaii through either NGN or KIKU. At the time, I’d sadly figured that Hiromi had given up the drama route. Still, there were other Nagasaku things to keep me interested, like SHASHINSHUUS! Yep, Hiromi had continued to make them, and it was here that she released probably her best photobook yet, the VERY sexy and sizzling U.K. ASAGAN, where we got to see just how bad she could be! From then she continued to make periodic covers of magazines like FRI and the mightly WEEKLY PLAYBOY, but there was a new career direction for Hiromi just on the horizon!
By 2006, though Hirochan had headlined several dramas like Pure Soul and Kongai Renai, I was oblivious to their existence (people should REALLY appreciate sites like D-Addicts and Dramawiki that keep j-drama fans abreast of ALL new shows!) and so was EXTREMELY HAPPY to see Hiromi appearing in a new Aoi Miyazaki/Eita movie called SU-KI-DA. So HERE Hiromi was- she’d slowly made the progression over to the BIG screen! And though (truthfully) Su-Ki-Da was less than thrilling for me, I was excited to get behind Hiromi’s new Cinematic move!
From here, aside from a part in the NHK Taiga Drama KOMYA GA TSUGI, the only things I saw her in were movies- and what great movies they were! While waiting in anticipation for Hiromi’s upcoming movie Hito No Sex O Warauna, (which would TOTALLY KICK-ASS, BTW) I read a review by writer Mark Schilling who had only the UTMOST praise for Hiromi, citing her good acting sensibilities and habit of stealing the show as reasons she was a star to watch!!! Besides giving me the urge to see another of Hiro’s movies (the INSANELY AWESOME Funuke Domo~Show Some Love, You Losers), Schilling even suggested that it was high time somebody constructed a drama for Hiromi built around her strengths as the wacky-powerhouse bundle of energy type of woman she’d come to EXCEL playing!
As if to validate those suggestions, Hiromi recently returned to the “Small” screen co-starring in Kanno Miho’s new Drama MAGERARENAI ONNA (The Unbending Woman) playing Hasumi Riko, a -what else? - eccentric housewife who bustles with energy playing the perfect, bubbly wife while masking her true sadness caught in a loveless marriage. Along with Tanihara Shosuke as a womanizing Police Officer, the scenes with Kanno, Nagasaku and Tanihara are just electric!
I’m just about halfway through the show, and besides bringing her AWESOME acting to the table, Hiromi is looking as beautiful as ever! She even made the cover of the latest IN RED magazine, (an issue I didn’t hesitate to order, I must say) and the photos tell me her looks in the drama are no fluke- though a bit older, when Hiromi smiles that smile, she still looks like that sweet baby-faced girl we all fell in love with all those years ago from her innocent ribbon days! Girl, You STILL ROCK THE HOUSE!
In an ironic turn of events, it was JUST at that time that local Japanese television station KIKU began broadcasting the Toyokawa Etsushi drama AOITORI (below), and I remember watching it and telling a friend after that evening’s episode, “I SWEAR the girl that plays Toyokawa’s childhood friend is that baby-faced singer from Ribbon!” Doing some research I found that this girl Nagasaku Hiromi was INDEED the one and same person!
As Akimoto Mikiko, the martyr of unrequited love on the behalf of Tokoyawa’s Shibata character, (in a situation where he’s rebuffed her time and again but still relies on her whenever in a scrape) she really made you sympathetic towards her, and I found myself impressed by how well she could act! Having seen other idols eke out an existence playing only bit parts in dramas forever, I hoped she would be moving on to bigger and better parts as her talents deserved!
Well, the next drama I saw Hiromi in was the Tokiwa Takako/Takahashi Katsunori drama HITORIGURASHI (below), and though Hiro-chan DID get kind of a top billed ”Co-starring” role, it was a very strange show that did little to promote her in a good light!
Conceived as a sort of “Single White Female” situation, (where a seemingly innocent roommate begins stalking her fellow tenant) Hitorigurashi had Hiromi’s Kyoko character obsessing over Tokiwa’s Miho character, from wearing her clothes, using her name and even drugging and undressing her! Though bizarre at the time, I’ve recently re-watched this and was surprised how touching and sad her character actually was. Watching it now, it seems more like a story of a lonely girl who really and deeply loved her friend and treated her like she was the most important thing in her life.Things turned brighter for Hiromi’s career in the next drama I saw her in, the upbeat and positive Hitoribocchi Kimi Ni, a drama starring Hamada Masatoshi (of DOWNTOWN fame) and Hiromi as two adults who find an abandoned little boy and begin caring for him. I really dug this drama though I spent most of the time praying that I wasn’t gonna have to see Hiro kissing Hamada, (yeg!) a direction the writers thankfully sidestepped. I wanted Hiro to grow as a rom-com top biller, but not like this! AAHAHAHA!
The next show I saw Nagasaku in was a return to the darkness of Hitorigurashi in the VERY black drama SHUMATSUKON, the story of a willful woman who is so jealous of her sister’s good fortune that she makes a career out of sabotaging every bright spot that comes her way. When I first read the synopsis, I though it was going to be HIROMI playing the assailant, and was very surprised to see her playing the sweet and meek “good” daughter. Too meek for my tastes, I spent this drama lusting after Ayako Kawahara instead. Sorry, Hiro-chan!
After that, I didn’t see Hiromi in just about anything; though Dramawiki shows me that she’d been continuously putting out new dramas like clockwork, none of them made it to Hawaii through either NGN or KIKU. At the time, I’d sadly figured that Hiromi had given up the drama route. Still, there were other Nagasaku things to keep me interested, like SHASHINSHUUS! Yep, Hiromi had continued to make them, and it was here that she released probably her best photobook yet, the VERY sexy and sizzling U.K. ASAGAN, where we got to see just how bad she could be! From then she continued to make periodic covers of magazines like FRI and the mightly WEEKLY PLAYBOY, but there was a new career direction for Hiromi just on the horizon!
By 2006, though Hirochan had headlined several dramas like Pure Soul and Kongai Renai, I was oblivious to their existence (people should REALLY appreciate sites like D-Addicts and Dramawiki that keep j-drama fans abreast of ALL new shows!) and so was EXTREMELY HAPPY to see Hiromi appearing in a new Aoi Miyazaki/Eita movie called SU-KI-DA. So HERE Hiromi was- she’d slowly made the progression over to the BIG screen! And though (truthfully) Su-Ki-Da was less than thrilling for me, I was excited to get behind Hiromi’s new Cinematic move!
From here, aside from a part in the NHK Taiga Drama KOMYA GA TSUGI, the only things I saw her in were movies- and what great movies they were! While waiting in anticipation for Hiromi’s upcoming movie Hito No Sex O Warauna, (which would TOTALLY KICK-ASS, BTW) I read a review by writer Mark Schilling who had only the UTMOST praise for Hiromi, citing her good acting sensibilities and habit of stealing the show as reasons she was a star to watch!!! Besides giving me the urge to see another of Hiro’s movies (the INSANELY AWESOME Funuke Domo~Show Some Love, You Losers), Schilling even suggested that it was high time somebody constructed a drama for Hiromi built around her strengths as the wacky-powerhouse bundle of energy type of woman she’d come to EXCEL playing!
As if to validate those suggestions, Hiromi recently returned to the “Small” screen co-starring in Kanno Miho’s new Drama MAGERARENAI ONNA (The Unbending Woman) playing Hasumi Riko, a -what else? - eccentric housewife who bustles with energy playing the perfect, bubbly wife while masking her true sadness caught in a loveless marriage. Along with Tanihara Shosuke as a womanizing Police Officer, the scenes with Kanno, Nagasaku and Tanihara are just electric!
I’m just about halfway through the show, and besides bringing her AWESOME acting to the table, Hiromi is looking as beautiful as ever! She even made the cover of the latest IN RED magazine, (an issue I didn’t hesitate to order, I must say) and the photos tell me her looks in the drama are no fluke- though a bit older, when Hiromi smiles that smile, she still looks like that sweet baby-faced girl we all fell in love with all those years ago from her innocent ribbon days! Girl, You STILL ROCK THE HOUSE!
