Aya Ueto

Aya Ueto (上戸 彩) is a Japanese actress, singer and television personality.

In 1997, Ueto participated in the seventh Japan Bishōjo Contest, where she won the special jury prize.

Soon thereafter, Ueto joined the talent agency Oscar Promotion and began taking singing, dancing and acting lessons.

In July 1998, Ueto joined the idol group Z-1.

The group landed a regular spot on the variety shows ''Kaishingeki TV!

Utaemon and The Yoru mo Hippare'', and debuted on Toshiba EMI a year later with the single "Vibe!"

In 1999, she formed the girl group Z-1 with three fellow Japan Bishōjo Contest participants.

At the age of thirteen, Ueto made her acting debut in the 1999 thriller Satsujinsha: Killer of Paraiso.

In 1999, Ueto obtained her first role in the film Satsujinsha: Killer of Paraiso, in which her lines were entirely in English.

In 2000, Ueto portrayed the supporting role of Momo Fuchigami in the Fuji TV drama Namida o Fuite, starring Yōsuke Eguchi.

The drama garnered strong ratings and gave Ueto her biggest exposure yet.

In 2001, Ueto appeared in the sixth season of the TBS drama 3-nen B-gumi Kinpachi-sensei.

Her portrayal of a high school student with gender dysphoria garnered critical acclaim and led to several leading roles and advertising endorsements, establishing Ueto as one of Japan's most recognizable faces.

In 2001, Ueto appeared on the annual Victor Kōshien poster, which, in the past, kick-started the careers of Noriko Sakai and Miho Kanno.

Later that year, she was cast in the role of Nao Tsurumoto, a student suffering from gender identity disorder (GID), in the sixth season of the TBS drama 3-nen B-gumi Kinpachi-sensei.

The role propelled her to stardom and earned her a Golden Arrow Award for Best Newcomer.

The group disbanded in 2002 and later that year, Ueto signed with Pony Canyon and released "Pureness", her debut single as a lead artist.

She has since released five studio albums which have spawned ten Oricon top-ten singles.

In January 2002, it was announced that Ueto would continue her music career as a solo artist under Pony Canyon subsidiary label, Flight Master.

During her summer break from school, she appeared in a 5-episode arc of the long-running drama Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari, and starred alongside Akiko Yada and Hiroshi Abe in the TBS drama My Little Chef.

Ueto released her first solo single, "Pureness," in August 2002.

The song debuted at number 4 on the Oricon Weekly Singles chart, making it the first debut single by a female artist with no commercial tie-in to enter the top five in three years.

In between filming her first feature film, Azumi, Ueto released her second single, "Kizuna," and launched Seventeen's Map, a radio show on Nippon Hōsō.

Ueto ventured onto the big screen as the lead in Ryuhei Kitamura's 2003 blockbuster Azumi, which earned her a nomination for a Japan Academy Award for Best Actress.

Since 2004, Ueto has held the annual title of CM Queen five times.

Ueto has won two Television Drama Academy Awards – one for Best Actress for her performance in the sports drama series Ace o Nerae! (2004) and one for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the human drama Nagareboshi (2010).

She went on to star in its sequel, Azumi 2: Death or Love (2005), and Thermae Romae (2012), the adaptation of Mari Yamazaki's manga series of the same name.

She subsequently starred in the remake of Attention Please (2006), the banking drama Hanzawa Naoki (2013) and Hirugao: Love Affairs in the Afternoon (2014).

In 2017, Ueto starred in the feature film adaptation of the drama series Hirugao.

Aya Ueto was born in Nerima, Tokyo.

Her father is from Suttsu, Hokkaido, while her mother is from Ishigaki Island, Okinawa.

Her parents divorced shortly after Ueto's debut.

She is the middle of three children with an older brother, Shun, and younger brother Makoto.

Despite growing up in a relatively poor household, Ueto studied piano, modern ballet, swimming and gymnastics.

She originally had no ambitions to become an entertainer; she instead wanted to become a pre-school teacher.

After hearing about one of her friends' experience as an extra on a TV drama, she decided she too "wanted to appear on TV."

Unbeknownst to her daughter, Ueto's mother entered her into the 7th Japan Bishōjo Contest.

When she was twelve years old, Ueto won the special jury prize at the contest.

She revealed later on that her real motivation for doing well was to "win the two million yen cash prize to buy a house for her family," however because what she won was an ad hoc prize decided that day, there was no monetary reward.

After Ueto's discovery, she joined the talent agency Oscar Promotion and began acting and singing lessons.