Mew Azama
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| Mew Azama |
Mew Azama (安座間美優), born December 26, 1986, in Hiroshima, Japan, is an actress who played Makoto Kino/Sailor Jupiter in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Her given name is pronounced as "myuu" (みゅう) instead of the more usual "miyuu" (みゆう), and was unconventionally romanized as "Mew". The "Mew" rendition comes from the famous song "Yoake no MEW" (夜明けのＭＥＷ ; "MEW of Dawn") by former idol Kyoko Koizumi, of whom her mother is a fan.
She is a former member of the child idol singing group B.B.WAVES (using the stage name "Mimi"), and has undergone some formal artist training, which possibly makes her the most experienced among the actresses playing the Sailor Senshi. Born in the Hiroshima Prefecture, she also grew up as an Okinawan.
While majoring in career design (lifelong learning and career studies) at Hosei University in Tokyo, from which she graduated in 2009, she was a popular model in the SEVENTEEN teen fashion magazine (not to be confused with the English-language magazine of the same name), which also featured Keiko Kitagawa as its top model (both graduated in the latter half of 2006), and was acting in a teen TV drama. After winning the "2006 non-no Model Grand Prix", she started to appear in the same year's December issue of non-no, a popular mainstream young women's fashion magazine, as its exclusive model, making her currently the only Senshi actress to step up in her modelling career. After working for one year at non-no, she moved to another mainstream fashion magazine, CanCam.
In 2007, she became the image girl of JTA, a subsidiary carrier of the national airline JAL, on its 40th Anniversary.
Personal Trivia
- She is the first Senshi actress listed in the annual Japanese new year calendar catalog, among other big-name artists, and was also the only one listed in the consecutive years of 2004 and 2005, before the second one, Ayaka Komatsu, joined in 2006.
- She has mentioned in her blog that she is not quite interested in acting, and that she would like to see the expansion of her modelling work into more diverse fields.
- Her mother was also a model.
- She was trained at the renowned Okinawa Actor's School, which has graduated a number famous artists, most notably the still-active 90s pop queen, Namie Amuro.
- Her birthday is on same day as Yuu Shirota, who played Mamoru Chiba/Tuxedo Mask in several of the Sailor Moon musicals.
