Also known as : Shokotan, ShokotasuBorn : May 5, 1985 (1985-05-05) (age 23)
Origin : Tokyo, Japan
Genre(s) : Japanese Pop
Occupation(s) : idol / model / Comedienne / Singer / TV Personality / Presenter
Years active : 2001-present
Label(s) : Sony Records
Website : http://www.nakagawashoko.com/
Intro
| Shoko Nakagawa (中川 翔子, Nakagawa Shōko, born May 5, 1985 in Tokyo as Shiyoko Nakagawa (中川 しようこ, Nakagawa Shiyōko)) is a Japanese idol and tarento (an actress, seiyū (voice actor), illustrator, and singer). She is the daughter of Katsuhiko Nakagawa, a celebrity in Japan in the 1980s.She is represented by the Watanabe Entertainment talent agency. Her nickname is Shokotan. (In the blog by Mika Kaneda, who appeared with her on “Ōsama no Brunch”, she is called Shokotasu). |
Life
| In 1994, when Shoko Nakagawa was nine, her father, 1980s celebrity Katsuhiko Nakagawa, died of leukaemia at the age of 32.[citation needed] She was then raised by her mother. She made her entertainment debut in 2001, winning the Grand Prix award at the Popolo Girl Audition and representing the Jackie Chan talent agency. Later, on the “Yume-Ga-Oka Residence” programme on SKY PerfecTV!, she was given a Jackie Chan photobook by Midorikawa Shobō, who were guests on the show. She commented “I thought he was an enemy of Bruce Lee’s”, apparently referring to Enter the Dragon. In 2002, she was chosen as Miss Shōnen Magazine. She appeared in a brief section of “Kangaeru Hito” (”People who think”) on the Fuji TV network in 2004 and showed her ability as an illustrator; this won her a regular place on the later version of the programme which started with minor changes in early 2005, “Kangaeru Hitokoma” (”Thinking about one frame [of a cartoon strip]“). For one year starting in May 2005, she appeared as a regular on the TBS programme “Ōsama no Brunch”, which made her well-known among the general public. In July 2006, she released her debut CD, “Brilliant Dream”. It entered the Oricon chart at number 29, with initial sales of 6313 CDs. Nakagawa performed at Anime Expo 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 3 till July 6. |
Personality
| As she is active in a variety of areas, including acting, manga, singing and blogging, she is known as a multi-talented entertainer or “multi-tarento”, as opposed to simply an “idol” or “tarento”.She is highly knowledgeable about otaku culture. She says that this is because of the influence of her father, Katsuhiko Nakagawa.[citation needed] He did things like giving her full sets of comics such as Ge Ge Ge no Kitarō or Akanbō Shōjo, saying “You can’t become an adult unless you read these.” Perhaps because of this education, she knows more about relatively older anime, 80’s idol songs and retrogaming than is common for people of her age. She also loves Dragon Ball. She even sang a remix to the original ending theme, Romantic Ageru Yo.
She likes the tokusatsu Super Sentai series, and in particular looks up to Yūri, “Time Pink” of the Mirai Sentai Timeranger team as a “god”. At the time she stood in line all night to watch the live Timeranger show at Kōrakuen Fairground (now Tokyo Dome City Attractions) in the front row. In 2004, she achieved a longstanding ambition by putting in a guest appearance in the 38th episode of Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger. (She also appeared as a child in Chikyuu Sentai Fiveman.) She has always wanted to become the next Pink Ranger, and has gone out for auditions four times, but failed each time because “she doesn’t have good athletic ability.” She has said that she was drawn to the entertainment world out of admiration not for her father but for Mika Katsumura, who played the role of Yūri, and that during gravure work she uses Katsumura’s photobooks and DVDs as a guide. She later appeared together with Katsumura on Men B, and the two are now as friendly as if they were sisters. She is also a fan of the Metal Heroes and Heisei Kamen Rider Series and sees Shigeki Hosokawa who played the titular character of Kamen Rider Hibiki as the ideal man. She is skilled as a manga cartoonist and illustrator.[citation needed] She worships Kazuo Umezu, and wants to become a mangaka. On the Fuji TV show Kangaeru Hitokoma, on which she is a semi-regular guest, she showed this side of herself by drawing in the style of Kazuo Umezu. Some of her work was shown on the May 11, 2006 edition of Downtown Deluxe on the Nippon TV network, and was much praised. As of 2006, her manga “SHOCOTAN * QUEST” is being serialised on her official website. The fact that even after becoming a celebrity she has not given up on drawing led to her being selected as a member of the judging panel in the “Jump Damashii” section of the Shūeisha publication Weekly Shōnen Jump, starting from Jump number 13 of 2006. Shoko is also enthusiastic about the Wikipedia Project. In a blog entry dated November 25, 2006 she praised the free online encyclopaedia for its articles, especially those related to the otaku culture. She is especially fond of the collaborative writing aspect the project incorporates and has even jokingly said she wanted to jumble her own article. |
Cosplay
| She is also known for loving cosplay, and buys up many clothes at auction, (particularly costumes for Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Final Fantasy series and Sailor Moon). This hobby has helped her in her role as a gravure idol.She often cosplays alone, but it has been confirmed that her friends Ayaka Itō and Chiaki Kyan also join her in cosplay when they visit her home. When they do, Nakagawa usually takes the role of long-haired characters, with Itō or Kyan playing short-haired characters. (For example, if they play characters from Sailor Moon, Nakagawa might play Usagi, with Itō being Ami, for Evangelion, Nakagawa might be Asuka, and Itō Rei, and for Pretty Cure, Nakagawa might be Honoka, and Itō Nagisa.) On days when she cosplays, she always updates her blog more than usual. |
Blog
| Her official blog, Shokotan * Blog, opened in 2004, and by April 2006 it had received a total of 100 million hits. On February 2nd, 2008, the daily Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported that her blog had been accessed 1 billion times. As one might expect from her personality, there are very many otaku-style entries, and she updates it extremely regularly, perhaps because of a compulsive streak in her personality, or perhaps, as she admitted in an interview, because she uses it as a kind of notepad. In the month of April 2005, there were 600 updates, and on January 28, 2006, there were 70 updates, a record number for a single day. It is likely that she holds the record for the greatest number of blog updates by an idol. She has become known as the “New Queen of the Blog”, after the original “Queen of the Blog”, Kaori Manabe. Due to her blog’s popularity, in September 2005, Koma Books released a compilation of her blog entries, also entitled Shokotan * Blog. |
TV appearances
| * Pokémon☆Sunday (ポケモン☆サンデー, Pokemon☆Sandē) * Waraiga Ichiban (笑いがいちばん, Waraiga Ichiban) * Weekend’s Cinderella World! Bullet Traveler (週末のシンデレラ 世界!弾丸トラベラー, Shūmatsuno-shinderera Sekai!DanganToraberā) |
Singles
| 1 “Brilliant Dream” July 5, 2006 Sony Records First single2 “Strawberry Melody” (ストロベリmelody, Sutoroberi Merodi) February 14, 2007 Sony Records 3 “Sky-Colored Days” 4 “snow tears” 5 “Shiny Gate” 6 “The World Continues”(続く世界, Tsuzuku Sekai) |
Mini-Albums
| 1 Shoko-tan Cover ~Falling in Love with Anime Songs~(しょこたん☆かばー ～アニソンに恋をして。～, Shokotan Kabā ~Anison ni Koi o shite.~) May 2, 2007 Sony Records2 Shoko-tan Cover Cover ~Falling in Love with Anime Songs~(しょこたん☆かばー×2 ～アニソンに愛を込めて!!～, Shokotan Kabā Kabā ~Anison ni Ai o komete~) September 19, 2007 Sony Records |
Albums
| 1 Big☆Bang!!! March 19, 2008 Sony Records |
More Information
Web page by Watanabe Entertainment (Japanese)
Official web page Shokotime (Japanese)
Shokotan blog (Japanese)
Shokotan blog (English)
Wikipedia
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