Haruka Fukuhara

The curse of the kitchen girl

Haruka Fukuhara spent four years cooking in front of public Japanese television cameras before she knew what a film script was. Between 2009 and 2013, she played Main-chan on the hybrid show Cooking Idol Ai! Mai! Main!. It was a school of physical endurance and forced charisma for a ten-year-old girl who had to sing while chopping vegetables live on air.

And the gamble paid off.

Moving from children's TV to adult drama is often a career graveyard in Tokyo's entertainment industry. But she used her voice as a technical passport. In 2017, she voiced Himari Arisugawa in the animated franchise Kirakira PreCure a la Mode while looking for roles that would erase her image as a cartoon cook. In Japan, being typecast is a professional death sentence that can only be avoided with an aggressive work schedule.

During 2016, she starred in the Netflix adaptation of the manga Good Morning Call. It was a strategic move to gain international visibility beyond the niche anime circuit. The series performed well in Asian markets and allowed her to leave teen fashion magazines such as Pichi Lemon, where she had worked as a model since 2012, for good.

Conquering the Morning Slot

Her real breakthrough came with the school drama 3-nen A-gumi: Ima kara Mina-san wa, Hitojichi desu in 2019. There, she played a student under extreme psychological pressure. It was the first time critics stopped seeing her as a children's marketing product and started analyzing her ability to convey real anguish on screen.

That year she took part in four different projects, including the live-action film adaptation of Kakegurui. Her ability to work tirelessly translated into a constant presence on Japanese movie screens. But the Japanese studio system demands a definitive trial by fire for any actress who aspires to the front ranks.

That audition is the Asadora of the NHK network.

In 2022, she starred in Maiagare! after beating out more than 2,500 hopefuls in a casting call. Playing Mai Iwakura meant entering the living room of every home in Japan for six straight months, every morning. The role required her to learn the basics of flying and mechanics (the plot revolved around building airplane parts). That shoot meant 14-hour days Monday through Friday for nearly a year of nonstop production.

Her success on television did not stop her interest in genre films. In 2023, she shot the film Ano Hana ga Saku Oka de, Kimi to Mata Dearetara, in which she plays a student who time-travels to World War II. The film grossed more than 4,000 million yen at the Japanese box office and stayed in the top ten for nine consecutive weeks.

The international distribution deal for this film closed for an amount that tripled its initial production budget. Principal photography wrapped in Chiba Prefecture after thirty-two days of intensive shooting.