Maki Horikita

Maki Horikita
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Native name	堀北 真希
Born	原 麻里奈 (1988-10-06) October 6, 1988 Kiyose, Tokyo, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Occupation	Actress, voice actress
Years active	2003 (2003)–present
Agent	Sweet Power
Spouse(s)	Koji Yamamoto (m. 2015)
Website	www.horikita-collection.com

Maki Horikita (堀北 真希, Horikita Maki, born October 6, 1988) is a Japanese actress. She debuted in 2003, and has starred in numerous Japanese television dramas, television and magazine advertisements, and movies. Horikita's popular roles include the introverted high school student Nobuko Kotani in Nobuta wo Produce, the cross-dressing sports fan Mizuki Ashiya in Hanazakari no Kimitachi e, and a town doctor during Japan's post-war era Umeko Shimomura in Umechan Sensei.

Early life

Maki Horikita (whose real name is Marina Hara) was born on October 6, 1988 in Kiyose, Tokyo, Japan. She is the eldest of three daughters. Considered a tomboy in her childhood, Horikita enjoyed playing basketball and baseball. She even became the vice-captain of their basketball club in junior high. Despite her boyishness, Horikita looked up to her mother. This was revealed when she appeared in an episode of KAT-TUN's now-defunct variety show Cartoon KAT-TUN where she mentioned that she liked imitating her mother when she was younger.

Career

Print & TV endorsement

Apart from modeling for photobooks, Horikita appeared in magazines and television advertisements. She is best remembered for her television commercials for Fujifilm (where she appeared alongside Japanese idol Tomoya Nagase) and Lotte. She is also a staple image endorser for Suntory and NTT DoCoMo. In 2008, Nihon Monitor recognized Horikita as one of Japan's top endorsers during its annual Most Popular Personality in TV CMs.

Movies and television

Horikita had been casted in several drama series and movies since 2003 but her roles in Densha Otoko and Nobuta wo Produce became her breakthrough performances. Her promising portrayal of the titular character in Nobuta wo Produce won her a Best Supporting Actress award from Japan's Television Academy Awards. It was also around this time that she won the Newcomer Award from Japan Academy Awards for her role as a student apprentice in Always: Sunset on Third Street.

In the following year, she won her second Best Supporting Actress award for her role in Kurosagi. Months later, she was given the lead role for Teppan Shoujo Akane and the role of a bully who is behind a class rebellion in Seito Shokun! where she co-starred with her agency senior Rina Uchiyama. She was also cast in the horror movie, One Missed Call: Final, the last installment of the One Missed Call franchise with agency colleague and best friend Meisa Kuroki and South Korean actor Jang Keun-suk.

Soon after, Horikita was awarded her first Best Actress award for her role as Mizuki Ashiya in the Japanese drama adaptation of the gender-bender manga Hana-Kimi, or Hanazakari no Kimitachi e. In the same year that Hana Kimi was filmed, Horikita also starred in the Taiga drama Atsuhime with Aoi Miyazaki. In the same year, she played the lead character who has multiple personality disorder in the suspense movie Tokyo Shōnen and reprised her role as a student apprentice in Always: Zoku Sanchome no Yuhi, the sequel to her breakthrough movie. Horikita's exceptional work was recognized by Vogue Nippon which identified her as one of the eleven Women of the Year in 2007.

On October of the following year, she was once again seen on television opposite Yuzu's lead vocalist Yujin Kitagawa, leading the cast of Fuji TV's golden time slot in the drama Innocent Love. Towards the end of the year, she had been cast as Naomi, the female protagonist of Dareka ga Watashi ni Kiss wo Shite or DareKiss (based on Gabrielle Zevin's popular novel, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac) a Hollywood-Japan collaboration film directed by internationally acclaimed director and self-confessed Japanese culture fanatic Hans Canosa. It was revealed that one-third of her lines in the movie were in English.

As soon as the filming for DareKiss ended, Horikita had gone on to appear in two television dramas: Atashinchi no Danshi in 2009 as an adoptive mother of six young men (played by Jun Kaname and Mukai Osamu among others) and Tokujo Kabachi!! in 2010 as an administrative scrivener opposite Arashi's Sho Sakurai.

In January 2011, Horikita starred in the movie adaptation of Into the White Night, a widely read novel that was adapted into a television drama in 2006 starring Haruka Ayase and Takayuki Yamada. Produced by WOWOW FILMS, the movie was screened at the Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama category.

In 2012, Horikita was offered to lead the cast of an NHK asadora named Umechan Sensei . The morning drama featured Horikita as Umeko Shimomura in her carefree teenage years until she blossomed into a dependable town doctor during the Showa era. For the first time in nine years, NHK recorded an average audience rating past 20% for an asadora time slot when Umechan Sensei garnered an average audience rating of 20.7%.

After the success of her asadora, Horikita has continued accepting lead roles in more television and movie projects like in the evening dramas Miss Pilot in 2013 and Masshiro in 2015 as well as in the film Mugiko-san to in 2013.

Radio and voice acting

Horikita was one of the six female celebrities taking turns to host Girls Locks!, a segment of the Japanese radio program School of Locks from the radio network Tokyo FM. When she was the host, Horikita provided book recommendations to her listeners and called selected letter-senders to discuss the questions they wrote in their letters. Her stint was at ten in the evening, every third or fourth week of the month. She took turns with Erika Toda, Yui Aragaki, Chiaki Kuriyama, Nana Eikura, and Kii Kitano until she left the program in 2009.

Horikita had also ventured into voice acting, debuting as an anime voice actress for one of the characters in Nobita and the Green Giant Legend 2008. Her highly featured project as a voice actress was for Professor Layton in which she provided the voice of the main character Luke.

In early 2009, she also dubbed a character from the Belgian 3D animated movie Nat's Space Adventure 3D/Fly Me to the Moon. She dubbed the voice of the protagonist who is a young male fly who was determined to explore outer space.

Personal life

On 22 August 2015 Horikita's management agency announced that she had married actor Koji Yamamoto earlier that day. The couple became close in May 2015 when playing the role of lovers in the theatrical production Arashi ga Oka (Wuthering Heights) and had commenced dating in June.

Filmography

TV dramas

Year	Title	Role	Network
2003	Dōbutsu no Oisha-san	Tamako Anzai	TV Asahi
	Keitai Deka Zenigata Mai	Mai Zenigata	TBS
	Koi Suru Nichiyōbi "Densha"	Chikako Imamoto	BS-i
2004	Ningen no Shōmei	Sayaka Koori	Fuji TV
	Kaidan Shin Mimibukuro	Misuzu Inamine	TBS
	Division 1 Houkago	Mayuko Michida	Fuji TV
	Honto ni Atta Kowai Hanashi	Yuka Tamura	Fuji TV
2005	Nobuta wo Produce	Nobuko Kotani	NTV
	Densha Otoko	Aoi Yamada	Fuji TV
	Akechi Kogoro VS Kindaichi Kosuke	Marina Saegusa	TV Asahi
2006	Teppan Shoujo Akane!!	Akane Kagura	TBS
	Densha Otoko Deluxe	Aoi Yamada	Fuji TV
	Kurosagi	Tsurara Yoshikawa	TBS
	Tsubasa no Oreta Tenshitachi	Yuna	Fuji TV
	Honto ni Atta Kowai Hanashi	Arisa Kubo	Fuji TV
2007	Koi no Kara Sawagi Drama Special:Love Stories IV		NTV
	Galileo	Remi Morisaki	Fuji TV
	Deru Toko Demasho!	Kamei Shizuka	Fuji TV
	Hanazakari no Kimitachi e	Mizuki Ashiya	Fuji TV
	Seito Shokun!	Juria Kimura	TV Asahi
2008	Danso no Reijin	Yoshiko Yamaguchi/Ri Kouran	TV Asahi
	Innocent Love	Kanon Akiyama	Fuji TV
	Hanazakari no Kimitachi e SP	Mizuki Ashiya	Fuji TV
	Tokyo Daikūshū	Haruko Sakuragi	NTV
	Atsuhime	Chikako Kazunomiya	NHK
2009	Atashinchi no Danshi	Chisato Mineta	Fuji TV
	Chance!	Tamaki Kawamura	Fuji TV
2010	Kikoku	Youko Kasai	TBS
	Wagaya no Rekishi	Namiko Yame	Fuji TV
	Tokujo Kabachi!!	Misuzu Sumiyoshi	TBS
2011	Umareru	Manami Hayashida	TBS
2012	Umechan Sensei	Umeko Shimomura	NHK
2013	Miss Pilot	Tezuka Haru	Fuji TV
2014	Oyaji no Senaka Episode 5	Mifuyu Marui	TBS
2014	Matsumoto Seichō Drama Special: Kiri no Hata	Kiriko Yanagida	TV Asahi
2015	Masshiro	Akari Arimura	TBS
2016	Higanbana	Kurumiya Nagisa	NTV

Movies

• Cosmic Rescue (2003)
• Seventh Anniversary (2003)
• Shibuya Kaidan (2004)
• Shibuya Kaidan 2 (2004)
• Sekai no Chuushin de Ai o Sakebu (2004)
• Hirakata (2004)
• Yogen (2005)
• Gyakkyou Nine (2005)
• Hinokio (2005)
• Shinku (2005)
• Always Sanchōme no Yūhi (2005)
• Haru no Ibasho (2006)
• Trick Movie 2 (2006)
• Keitai Deka The Movie (2006)
• Chakusin Ari Final / One Missed Call: Final (2006)
• Argentine Baba (2007)
• Koisuru Nichiyoubi Watashi Koishita (2007)
• Always Zoku Sanchōme no Yūhi (2007)
• Kurosagi (2008)
• Tokyo Shonen (2008)
• Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (2009)
• Ōoku (2010)
• Into the White Night (2011)
• Korede Iinoda!! Eiga Akatsuka Fujio (2011)
• Always Sanchōme no Yūhi '64 (2012)
• Kenchou Omotenashi Ka (2013)
• Mugiko-san to (2013)
• A Samurai Chronicle (2014)

Games

• Professor Layton series (Japanese) - Luke Triton
• Professor Layton vs. Ace Attorney - Luke Triton

Accolades

Year	Award	Category	Notable Works	Result	Ref.
2005	27th Yokohama Film Festival	Best New Talent	Always: Sunset on Third Street	Won
2006	47th Television Drama Academy Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Nobuta wo Produce	Won
	Elan d'or Awards	Newcomer Award	Herself	Won
	10th Internet Movie Awards	Best Newcomer	Always: Sunset on Third Street	Won
	15th TV Life Annual Drama Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Nobuta wo Produce	Won
	TV Navi Drama Awards	Best Newcomer		Won
	29th Japan Academy Awards	Rookie of the Year	Always: Sunset on Third Street	Won
	43rd Golden Arrow Award	Newcomer Award	Herself	Won
	48th Blue Ribbon Awards	Best Supporting Actress	Always: Sunset on Third Street	Nominated
	49th Television Drama Academy Awards		Kurosagi	Won
	MTV Student Voice Awards	Best Teen Actress	Herself	Won
2007	54th Television Drama Academy Awards	Best Actress	Hanazakari no Kimitachi E	Won
	4th Beauty Week Award	The Best of Beauty	Herself	Won
	Vogue Nippon Awards	Women of the Year		Won
2008	17th TV Life Awards	Best Actress	Hanazakari no Kimitachi E	Won
	11th Nikkan Sports Annual Drama Grand Prix			Won
	31st Japan Academy Awards	Outstanding Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role	Always: Sunset on Third Street 2	Nominated
	5th Cotton USA Awards	Miss Cotton USA	Herself	Won
	19th Japan Best Jewellery Wearer Awards	Best Jewellery Wearer		Nominated
2009	Vogue Nippon Awards	Best Leathernist		Won
2010	9th Ms. Lily Awards	Miss Lily 2010		Won
	Gold Dream Awards	Culture & Entertainment Category		Won
2012	16th Nikkan Sports Annual Drama Grand Prix	Best Actress	Umechan Sensei	Won
	16th Nikkan Sports Spring Drama Grand Prix			Won
	16th Nikkan Sports Summer Drama Grand Prix			Won
	74th Television Drama Academy Awards			Won
	Fountain Pen Best Coordinate Award 2012	Fountain Pen Best Coordinate Award	Herself	Won
2013	2nd Best Beautist Awards	Actress Category		Won

External links

• Official website (Japanese)
• Agency profile
• Maki Horikita at Nippon Cinema
• Maki Horikita at the Internet Movie Database
• Maki Horikita at Anime News Network's encyclopedia