Yumena Yanai
Yumena Yanai, is a Japanese actress and model. She is signed under the talent agency Irving.
Biography
Yanai was born on June 21, 2000, in Kōriyama City, Fukushima Prefecture. She is the eldest of four siblings, with two younger brothers and one younger sister.Career
In 2016, Yanai participated in the "Miss Seventeen 2016" exclusive model audition for Seventeen magazine, in which she was selected as one of the 20 finalists from a total of 6,103 candidates. In the same year, Yanai was scouted by an entertainment agency while out in Harajuku. In October, she joined the talent agency Irving, and was selected as the cover model for "Fukushima Bishojo Zukan" and for a commercial.In 2017, she again took part in the "Miss Seventeen 2017" pageant and this time became the grand prize winner out of 5,981 candidates and became an exclusive model for the said magazine. A year later in July 2018, she made her debut as an actress in the television drama ' as Honoka Tachibana.
In 2019, she appeared in the thriller and mystery drama ' as a student named Yuki Misaki. Yanai also appeared in the drama ' as Momo Horie. Yanai made her first film appearance in the movie Snow Flower released on February 1 of the same year. On December 8, she made a guest appearance in the ninth episode of the afternoon drama ', playing the role of Yuki Misaki, the character she played in Mr. Hiiragi's Homeroom. In 2020, she launched her own YouTube channel called "Yumena Yanai's Dream".
In 2020, Yanai played the role of Aoi Inuyama in the live-action television adaptation of the manga Laid-Back Camp. This work soon became a big hit with both the television audience and readers of the original work for its "faithful portrayal" of the storyline in the manga, so much so that a special drama was produced in March 2021 and a second season was produced in April of that year. In July, she also appeared in the drama's ' in TV Asahi and Koto no Hana.
In 2021, Yanai was appointed as the "Degawa Girl" of Sekai no Hate Made Itte Q!. In March, she "graduated" as an exclusive model for the women's fashion magazine Seventeen after over three and a half years with the brand. In April of the same year, she played her first leading role in a film in the movie Two in Space, the film was released in theaters two years later in October 2023. Yanai also portrayed the lead role of Hana Morimura in the serial teen drama '.
In April 2023, she appeared in the Sunday drama Passion for Punchlines as the protagonist's older sister, Mai Wakabayashi, marking her second prime-time drama appearance in four years since Where Did My Skirt Go? in 2019. In October of the same year, she appeared in the Tuesday drama My Second Aoharu as the main lead's classmate, Sumika Asada, also making her first attempt in portraying a gal role.
In April 2024, Yanai played the role of Nishio Futaba in the television drama 9 Border. In the following year in May 2025, she played her first lead role as Kotori Ogata in the drama I Fell in Love With The Hypothermic Boy.