Kenichiro Teratsuji (寺辻健一郎; ''Teratsuji Kenichiro'', born September 28, 1979 in

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

, Japan), better known by his stage names Kenchi Tachibana (橘ケンチ) or simply KENCHI, is a Japanese dancer and actor. He is a member of

J-Pop J-pop ( ja, ジェイポップ, ''jeipoppu''; often stylized as J-POP; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the ...

groups Exile and

Exile The Second Exile The Second (stylized as EXILE THE SECOND, formerly known as THE SECOND from EXILE), or simply The Second, is a Japanese music group comprising Exile members Kenchi, Keiji, Tetsuya, Nesmith, Shokichi and Akira. Formed in 2012, the grou ...

. He was also member of

J Soul Brothers , formerly simply J Soul Brothers and stylized as Sandaime J Soul Brothers from Exile Tribe, are a J-pop vocal and dance group formed by Exile ex-leader and producer Hiroyuki Igarashi in Japan in 1991. Sandaime J Soul Brothers are managed by Hiro ...

' second generation Nidaime J Soul Brothers until their migration to Exile in 2009. He is represented with LDH and also acts as a representative of LDH Asia.

Biography

Kenchi was born on September 28, 1979, in

, Japan and grew up in

Yokosuka is a city in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. , the city has a population of 409,478, and a population density of . The total area is . Yokosuka is the 11th most populous city in the Greater Tokyo Area, and the 12th in the Kantō region. The city ...

Kanagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Kanagawa Prefecture is the second-most populous prefecture of Japan at 9,221,129 (1 April 2022) and third-densest at . Its geographic area of makes it fifth-smallest. Kanag ...

. He became an active dancer in his youth and joined dance teams such as Poly-3, Fulcrum and Red Blockerz in his early 20s. At the same time, he also started working as an LDH apparel staff. In 2007, he was selected as a member of the group Nidaime J Soul Brothers. They announced their indefinite hiatus after releasing one album in 2009 and all members joined the line-up of Exile shortly after. In July 2012, Kenchi joined the Exile sub-unit

alongside his fellow former Nidaime J Soul Brothers members Nesmith, Shokichi, Keiji and Tetsuya. On December 4, 2015, he was announced as leader of Exile The Second. In 2017, Kenchi entered the literature business by becoming an ambassador for the ''2nd Short Shorts Award''. He also opened his blog ''Tachibana Bookstore'', in which he regularly introduces the books he has read. While attending a business presentation for the ''Future Sake Project (未来の日本酒プロジェクト)'' held in Tokyo on February 21, 2019, he expressed his desire to enter the

Sake Sake, also spelled saké ( ; also referred to as Japanese rice wine), is an alcoholic beverage of Japanese origin made by fermenting rice that has been polished to remove the bran. Despite the name ''Japanese rice wine'', sake, and indee ...

business with a long-term perspective. On September 8 in the same year, Kenchi opened his first

Izakaya An () is a type of informal Japanese bar that serves alcoholic drinks and snacks. are casual places for after-work drinking, similar to a pub, a Spanish tapas bar, or an American saloon or tavern. Etymology The word entered the English l ...

with the name ''LDH Kitchen IZAKAYA AOBADAI'' in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

. The Izakaya is intended to collaborate with local Sake breweries and to hold events related to Sake and Japanese culture every day.

Personal life

Kenchi and Exile members Akira, Tetsuya and Keiji met each other and became friends in the early 2000s, long before entering LDH as artists. On October 1, 2019, Kenchi announced his marriage to a non-celebrity woman in her 30s. They were introduced to each other by mutual friends and had been dating for 3 years. This made him the 8th married member of Exile.

Participating groups

Filmography

※His roles in bold are his starring works

Stage

Films

TV dramas

Internet dramas

TV programmes

Radio

Magazine serials

Others

References

External links

* at Exile Official Website {{DEFAULTSORT:Tachibana, Kenchi 1979 births Living people Japanese male film actors Japanese male television actors Japanese male dancers Male actors from Kanagawa Prefecture LDH (company) artists