is a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...

and

gravure idol A model is a person with a role either to promote, display or advertise commercial products (notably fashion clothing in fashion shows) or to serve as a visual aid for people who are creating works of art or to pose for photography. Though mo ...

best known for her role as Kaoru Mitsuki in the ''

Garo Garo may refer to: People and languages * Garo people, a tribal people in India ** Garo language, the language spoken by the Garo tribe Places * Kingdom of Garo, a former kingdom in southern Ethiopia * Garo, Colorado * Garo Hills, part of the Ga ...

'' series. She is also known in the western world for her role as Namiko Takeda in the 2009 martial arts film ''

Ninja A or was a covert agent or mercenary in feudal Japan. The functions of a ninja included reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enem ...

'' and its 2013 sequel '' Ninja: Shadow of a Tear''. Mika Hijii is affiliated with

Stardust Promotion is a leading Japanese talent agency, headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo. It was founded in 1979 and invests in entertainment forms including music, cinema, and modelling. The agency has a dominant share in the management of actresses. For example, ...

. She holds a bachelor's degree in business administration from

Hosei University is a private university based in Tokyo, Japan. The university originated in a school of law, Tōkyō Hōgakusha (, i.e. Tokyo association of law), established in 1880, and the following year renamed Tōkyō Hōgakkō (, i.e. Tokyo school of law ...

. Hijii is an avid practitioner of

Kung fu Chinese martial arts, often called by the umbrella terms kung fu (; ), kuoshu () or wushu (), are multiple fighting styles that have developed over the centuries in Greater China. These fighting styles are often classified according to common ...

. In 2011, she participated in the team division of the 28th All Japan Wushu Tai Chi Championship. She and Yayoi Kumada, a stunt actress whose work includes ''Garo,'' placed fourth. Hijii speaks fluent English. She studied abroad in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

from July 2013 to January 2014 and has appeared in English-language education programs on

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestri ...

. She has also worked as a reporter for English-language outlets. In 2019, she married a man who is not in the entertainment industry. The marriage was timed to coincide with the start of Japan's

Reiwa is the current era of Japan's official calendar. It began on 1 May 2019, the day on which Emperor Akihito's elder son, Naruhito, ascended the throne as the 126th Emperor of Japan. The day before, Emperor Akihito abdicated the Chrysanthemum ...

era. She wrote on social media that she and her husband wanted to “cherish the joy of being able to build a relationship in a new way in the beginning of the new generation.” In June 2020, she changed her stage name, spelling her

given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a fa ...

in phonetic

katakana is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...

rather than

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

Filmography

TV Drama

*''Doll House'' (2004) *''

Kamen Rider Blade , is a Japanese media, Japanese tokusatsu superhero television series. It is the fourteenth installment in the Kamen Rider Series. It aired on TV Asahi from January 25, 2004 to January 23, 2005. It is a joint collaboration between Ishimori Product ...

'' (2004) as Miyuki Yoshinaga/

Orchid Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

Undead (eps. 20–25) *''Soleá of Love'' as Tomoko Tadokoro (2004) *''

'' (2005) as Kaoru Mitsuki *''Fukuoka Ren'ai wa Kusho'' (2006) *'' Garo Special: Byakuya no Maju'' (2006) as Kaoru Mitsuki *''Kin'iru no Tsubasa'' (2007) *''

Aibō is a Japanese television detective series that first aired on TV Asahi on June 3, 2000. It has been adapted into six films: '' AIBOU: The Movie'' (2008), ''AIBOU: CSI Files'' (2009), '' AIBOU: The Movie II'' (2010), ''AIBOU: X-DAY'' (2013), '' A ...

'' (2010) as Natsuki Nanjo (season 8 ep. 11) *''Arienai!'' (2010) as Saya (ep. 10) *''Tokyo Little Love'' (2010) as Misaki Nakajima *'' Kudo Shinichi he no Chosenjo'' (2011) as Kaori Kisaragi (ep. 5) *'' Garo: Makai Senki'' (2011) as Kaoru Mitsuki *''Taburakashi -Daigō Joyū-gyō Maki-'' (2012) as Saori (ep. 2) *''Mikeneko Hōmuzu no Suiri'' (2012) as Yukari Fujita

Films

*''Chicken Is Barefoot'' (2004) as Naoko Sakurai *''Cherry Pie'' (2006) as Chiharu Kinoshita *''Bokura no Hōteishiki'' (2008) *''

Happy Flight is a Japanese comedy film directed by Shinobu Yaguchi about pilots and flight attendants. All Nippon Airways (ANA) backed the creation of the film. The airline sponsored a giveaway of ''Happy Flight'' DVDs and other items to certain members of ANA ...

'' (2008) as Shiori Nakajima *''Rogue Ninja'' (2009) as Ukagami *''

'' (2009) as Namiko Takeda *'' Time Traveller: The Girl Who Leapt Through Time'' (2010) as Nurse *'' Garo: Red Requiem'' (2010) as Karma (voice only) *''

Alien vs Ninja , also known as ''AvN'', is a 2010 Japanese martial arts science-fiction comedy film written and directed by Seiji Chiba. Produced by Nikkatsu studios, the film was slated for release in July 2010. The US DVD and Blu-ray were released February 22 ...

'' (2010) as Rin *'' Cheerfu11y'' (2011) as Rin Ishikawa *'' Ninja: Shadow of a Tear'' (2013) as Namiko Takeda

V-Cinema

*'' Kiba Gaiden'' (2011) as Kaoru Mitsuki/Messiah

References

External links

Official profile
at

Official blog
at Ameba * * 1982 births Living people Actors from Fukuoka Prefecture Japanese idols 21st-century Japanese actresses Stardust Promotion artists Models from Fukuoka Prefecture {{Japan-actor-stub