Kentaro Ito

Kentaro Ito entered the Japanese industry without a famous surname. In 2014, he made his debut in the TV drama Hirugao: Heijitsu Gogo 3-ji no Koibito-tachi, and his rough yet magnetic physical presence immediately caught the attention of casting directors.

Before turning twenty, he had already built up appearances in high-profile projects. But it was his role in Kyo Kara Ore Wa!! in 2018 that brought him massive visibility in Japan. He played Shinji Ito with an impossible hairstyle that defied the laws of physics and mannerisms reminiscent of the original manga.

That role led him to adopt his real surname as his stage name.

And the gamble paid off. The series drew an audience of millions of viewers and spawned a 2020 movie that topped the box office for weeks. Throughout that period, Ito never slowed down. He alternated teen comedies with more dramatically weighty roles in films such as Museum from 2016 and the two-film Sagrada Reset series in 2017.

The Impact of Reality

In October 2020, Ito's career came to an abrupt halt. A traffic incident he was involved in led to a police detention that made the front pages of every Japanese newspaper. The Japanese industry rarely forgives public mistakes made by its young stars.

The result was the immediate cancellation of all his endorsement contracts and the removal of his image from several projects that were in post-production. Car and cosmetics brands he had worked with ended their contracts in less than twenty-four hours.

The ostracism was total for months.

He spent nearly a year out of the spotlight while his agency handled multimillion-yen compensation payments stemming from the suspension of his work. In June 2021, he quietly resurfaced in a stage play titled Soshite Boku wa Tojo ni Mayou. It was the first step in rebuilding his image on stage, far from television cameras.

Maturity after the break

In 2022, he returned to film with Streetwise. The tone of his projects changed after the incident, and he began seeking scripts with a darker or more realistic edge. But the public hadn't entirely forgotten him, and his comeback was closely watched by Tokyo's film critics.

It was a bet on gritty realism.

In 2023, he starred in The Quiet Don, an adaptation of a classic yakuza manga in which Ito played a lingerie designer who inherits a criminal empire. That same year, he appeared in Ano Hana ga Saku Oka de, Kimi to Mata Dearetara, a war drama that earned 4,000 million yen at the domestic box office.

By 2024, his schedule had returned to its pace before the break, with filming for the sequel to The Quiet Don. The production confirmed a budget in line with Japanese independent film standards, with a shoot plan of twenty-two consecutive days.