Junichi Okada
Junichi Okada is an actor, fight choreographer and a former member of Japanese boy band V6.
Early life
Okada and his sister were raised by their mother, a piano teacher, after their parents divorce, when he was in second grade in Elementary School. Since she gave classes until late at night, Okada felt lonely. He continued searching for a father-figure in all around him. When he turned 14, his mother told him, "I don't intend to rely on you for my care when I get older. So you too should become a man who can survive on your own." Growing up in a fatherless household, her words resonated deeply with him, and, in the summer of his third year of junior high school, in 1995, they were put to the test. Thanks to his mother, Okada participated in Johnny's Pre-School, part of the NTV program Tensai, Takeshi no Genki ga Deru Terebi.Career
Music career
Okada, who was now living on his own in Tokyo, three months after the audition for the program that got him in Johnny & Associates at the age of 14, was chosen by Johnny Kitagawa, adding him to the soon–to–become idol group V6, of which he would be the youngest member. Unlike the rest of the members in the group, he did not have much experience as a Johnny's Jr., and the feeeling he could not advance, even with the help of the others, frustrated him. The first time that he had been on a music program was after the debut of V6. Their debut song was "Music For the People".Okada can play the guitar, as well as the piano. His voice is in the middle range. His solos usually included slower ballads. Later in his career as member of V6, he was given longer solo songs, such as "Way of Life". He also revealed that during V6's 2008 concert Vibes, he was directing most of the lightning, staging, and costumes.
Acting career
Dramas
In a Shounen Club ''Premium interview on May 7, 2009, he said that the Japanese drama Kisarazu Cat's Eye caught the attention of viewers and directors, and made them aware of his acting ability. The success of the drama led to the making of two movie sequels, Kisarazu Cat's Eye: Nihon Series and Kisarazu Cat's Eye: World Series. His other notable dramas include Tiger & Dragon, a comedy drama about rakugo, a form of Japanese comedy acted only by one person telling that story. and SP, an action suspense drama about a team of security police bodyguards in charge of protecting important people in the government. With Shinichi Tsutsumi as his co-star, the drama drew in overall ratings of 15.35% despite its Saturday 11:00 p.m. time slot; its special episode broadcast in 2008 also received a viewership rating of 21.5%.After several years of "drama hiatus", Okada played the main character, Kuroda Kanbei, in the January 2014 NHK historical drama, Gunshi Kanbei''. Kanbei was a man of ambition who served as the chief strategist under Toyotomi Hideyoshi in the Sengoku period.
Movies
He made a big leap in his movie career with Tokyo Tower in 2005. In the movie he portrayed a young college student torn between his love for a lady twenty years his senior and the views society has on these kinds of relationship. After that came Hana, directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. In the movie, Okada portrayed Sōza, a samurai uninterested in killing his enemy and focused on what he could do today to be a better person instead. The movie earned him a nomination for the Blue Ribbon Awards, but he declined this nomination. Nevertheless, he was awarded the Ishihara Yujiro New Actor Award at Nikkan Sports Film Award for his role in Hana. Later, he was involved in movies such as Flowers in the Shadows, portraying a young man in debt because of pachinko, and Otonari, an unconventional love story between two neighbors who have never met each other and only follow the other person's life through the sounds they hear from the other side of the wall.In 2012, Okada played the role of Shibukawa Shunkai, an astronomer who invented the Jōkyō calendar used for many decades, in the movie Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer, directed by Yōjirō Takita. The director has previously won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, Departures, in 2009. Later that year, it was announced that Okada would appear in another film set for a spring 2013 release, The Eternal Zero, directed by Takashi Yamazaki. The film follows the journey of a kamikaze pilot named Kyuzo Miyabe, a man described as a coward who volunteered to die for his country.
On October 2, 2023, it was announced that Okada would be leaving Johnny's on November 30.
Personal life
He married actress Aoi Miyazaki on 23 December 2017. In May 2018, it was announced that he and his wife were expecting their first child. It was announced via fax message that their son was born in October 2018. In August 2025, his wife revealed in an interview with Josei Seven that she had given birth to their fourth child earlier that year. She also stated that she chose not to announce her second, third, and fourth pregnancies to avoid media attention.Martial arts practitioner
In 2010, Okada had reported in a press conference that he is certified to teach Jeet Kune Do and Kali in Japan, the latter was used by him as his main martial art when the SP series was filmed. Trained under USA Shooto instructor Yorinaga Nakamura.While filming for The Fable: The Killer Who Doesn't Kill, Okada trained for a fight scene using jiu-jitsu. He continued training under jiu-jitsu artist Tomoyuki Hashimoto, getting a brown belt in 2022. Okada participated for the first time in a public match in the International Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Federation World Master 2023 in Las Vegas, USA, on 31 August 2023, in the Master 3 Brown Belt Light Featherweight Division, winning his first round, but losing on the quarterfinals against Andrew Steve Slackta.
On October 27, 2024, it was reported that Okada had reached a significant milestone by earning his fifth black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. The news was reported by the Carpe Diem Hiroo gym, to which he belongs.