Hiyori Sakurada

From fashion magazines to the sets of Tokyo

Hiyori Sakurada was born in Chiba Prefecture in late 2002. She entered the industry while barely taller than a tabletop, working as a child model under the name Hiyori Narita. But joining the Ken-On agency brought the definitive change of identity.

Her stage name soon brought her the first serious scripts.

In 2014 she appeared in the TV drama Ashita, Mama ga Inai. The series followed children in an orphanage and sparked a national controversy in Japan over its harshness. She played Piami and showed an unusual ability to hold a close-up without blinking.

Three years later came her first major leap into commercial film with the live-action adaptation of Tokyo Ghoul in 2017. She played Hinami Fueguchi. The shoot was demanding because it required interacting with digital elements that weren't there and wearing uncomfortable prosthetics during twelve-hour days.

And the physical effort paid off.

In 2018 she signed an exclusive contract with the magazine Seventeen. It wasn't a step back toward modeling but a strategy to build a young follower base before going after more adult roles. During that period she balanced photo shoots with productions such as Hot Gimmick: Girl Meets Boy in 2019.

Awards and managing the silence

Before turning twenty, she already had an enviable filmography. In 2022 she worked on the series Silent, playing the lead's younger sister. The production reached record viewing numbers on the TVer platform and became a social phenomenon across the Japanese archipelago.

In 2023 she starred in Our Secret Diary. For this role she received the Best New Actress award at the 47 Japan Academy Film Prizes. The film grossed more than 600 million yen in commercial theaters.

The industry stopped seeing her as a youth promise.

Her acting technique is built on restraint. Rather than big gestures, she prefers to work with her eyes and silences. That's why directors started seeking her out for characters who hide secrets or deep family trauma.

The challenge of painting and dubbing

In 2024 she joined the cast of the film adaptation of Blue Period. She played Mori-senpai, an art student with a natural talent for oil painting. To make the scenes convincing, Sakurada had to attend intensive drawing classes before main production began.

There were no stunt doubles for the close-ups in the films.

That same year she tried her luck in animated voice-over work with the film Few Moments of Cheerfulness. Voicing an animated character requires a different energy than conventional film acting. She recorded her dialogue in a Tokyo studio over three marathon sessions under the supervision of top-level sound engineers.

In December 2023, she published her second photo book, titled Hiyori-Biyori. The volume runs 160 pages and was shot entirely in various locations in Vietnam.