Koji Yamamoto

Koji Yamamoto
Native name	山本 耕史
Romanized	Yamamoto Kōji
Nationality	Japanese
Born	October 31, 1976 (age 44) Tokyo, Japan
Occupations	Actor, singer
Voice of	Rui Hanazawa

Koji Yamamoto (山本 耕史 (やまもと こうじ) , Yamamoto Kōji, born October 31, 1976 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese actor, who voiced Rui Hanazawa in Hana Yori Dango and Hana Yori Dango: The Movie. He is well known for his role as Hijikata Toshizo in Shinsengumi!.

He has appeared in many television dramas since debuting in 1993 with Hitotsu Yane no Shita. Yamamoto married actress, Maki Horikita in 2015.

Biography

Early life

Yamamoto was born on October 31, 1976 in Tokyo, Japan. He began modeling as a baby and made his stage debut in 1987 at the age of ten in Les Misérables.

Career

In 1993, Yamamoto played Fumiya Kashiwagi in the successful television drama, Hitotsu Yane no Shita. He voiced Rui Hanazawa in Boys Over Flowers (1996), his voice-acting debut. Yamamoto portrayed Hijikata Toshizo in his first major role in 2003's Shinsengumi!. Yamamoto has also appeared in Kagerō no Tsuji Inemuri Iwane Edo Zoshi (2007), I Just Didn't Do It (2007), and Asa ga Kita (2015),

Personal life

He married actress, Maki Horikita, on August 22, 2015. They played lovers in the stage production Arashi no Oka in May 2015, and began dating the following month. She gave birth to their first child in December 2016. In February 2017, Horikita announced her retirement from show business.

Selected filmography

Voice

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Boys Over Flowers	Rui Hanazawa
1997	Hana Yori Dango: The Movie
2003	Ashita no Nadja	Raphael
2007	Pokémon: The Rise of Darkrai	Tonio

Television dramas

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1993	Hitotsu Yane no Shita	Fumiya Kashiwagi
1996	Shokutaku no Aru Fukei	Makoto Yamane	Television film
1997	Aji Ichimonme	Yasunori Yoshioka	Television film
1997	Hitotsu Yane no Shita 2	Fumiya Kashiwagi
2000	Ashita wo Dakishimete	Masayuki Takahashi
2004	Shinsengumi!	Hijikata Toshizō
2005	Koi ni Ochitara: Boku no Seiko no Himitsu	Ryuta Ando
2007	Karei Naru Ichizoku	Ginpei Manpyo
2008	Sasaki Fusai no Jingi Naki Tatakai	Shinji Ogawa
	Pandora	Haruo Tachikawa
	The Quiz Show	Ryuichiro Murase
2009	Atashinchi no Danshi	Shuji Tokita
	Hi to Shio	Gen Towa
2010	Wagaya no Rekishi	Mitsunari Ano
	Mother	Shunsuke Fujiyoshi
2011	Shikei Kijun	Yusuke Mito
2012	Hakuoki	Tenzen Tange
2013	Lady Joker	Yoshinobu Yashiro
	Gekiryu: Watashi wo Oboete Imasu ka?	Yutaka Sabashima
	Pintokona	Kanjiro Sagata
2014	Kagemusha Tokugawa Ieyasu	Hidetada Tokugawa
	Kono Mystery ga Sugoi!	Kazuya Myojin	Television film
2015	Napoleon no Mura	Makoto Togawa
	Kyohansha	Takeharu Machida
2016	Sanada Maru	Ishida Mitsunari

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1996	Kiri no Shigosen	Mitsuo Torikai
2006	Miracle Banana	Kyosuke Nakata
2007	Yumejūya	Natsume Sōseki
	I Just Didn't Do It	Tatsuo Saito
2008	The Magic Hour
2010	Higanjima	Miyabi
2011	Nintama Rantaro	Shinzaemon Tobe
	Hayabusa	Manabu Tajima
	Suteki na Kanashibari	Tsutomu Hino
2012	Taburakashi	Monzo Mizutori
	Kuro Neko Lucy	Akira Kamoshida
2015	Galaxy Turnpike

Notes

• General
• Connections

• When author Yoko Kamio first met Yamamoto, she thought of him as "reticent." However, she later thought of him as a talkative and funny sort of person. She wrote an example of his sense of humor in volume sixteen, in which she also writes about meeting him, Mochida, and Miyashita for lunch.
• Yamamoto participated with Kamio, Maki Mochida, Naoki Miyashita, and Tomohiko Kikuta in an audience preview of the Boys Over Flowers anime in 1996.
• In 2006, Yamamoto, Miyashita, and Mochida gave an interview together for the DVD release of the Boys Over Flowers anime.

Yamamoto and Yuki Uchida played supporting roles in the drama, Hitotsu Yane no Shita (1993).

He appeared with Shun Oguri in Ashita wo Dakishimete (2000) and Galaxy Turnpike (2015).

Yamamoto played a supporting role in Wagaya no Rekishi (2010), which starred his future wife Maki Horikita and Jun Matsumoto.

External links

• Koji Yamamoto on Wikipedia
• Koji Yamamoto on Japanese Wikipedia
• Koji Yamamoto at the Anime News Network
• Koji Yamamoto at the Internet Movie Database