Eiji Akaso

Eiji Akaso (Japanese: 赤楚衛二; born March 1, 1994) is a Japanese actor and former model signed to Tristone Entertainment, known to BL audiences as Adachi Kiyoshi (安達清), the thirty-year-old office worker who wakes up able to read minds by touch, in TV Tokyo’s Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! (2020) and its sequel film Cherry Magic! THE MOVIE (2022).

Akaso was born in Moriguchi, Osaka Prefecture, and spent ages one to four in Wisconsin, United States, where his father was working; the family then settled in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, where he grew up. Japanese industry databases commonly list his hometown as Aichi, reflecting where he was raised rather than where he was born. He played piano from the age of three through junior high school, graduated from Toho High School in Nagoya, and enrolled at university as an English major before withdrawing to pursue entertainment work full time.

He entered the industry in 2010 under the name Mamoru Akaso (赤楚衛), working as a Nagoya-based model and joining the local idol group IKEMENNAGOYA, later renamed BOYS AND MEN. After taking the Grand Prix at a Samantha Thavasa men’s model audition in 2013, he shifted toward acting, signed with Tristone Entertainment, and adopted the stage name Eiji Akaso in January 2015. His first television drama role followed that year in TBS’s Omotesando Koukou Gasshoubu!.

His first major breakthrough came in tokusatsu, playing Ryuga Banjo / Kamen Rider Cross-Z in Kamen Rider Build (2017-2018) after an earlier role in Kamen Rider Amazons Season 2. Cherry Magic followed in 2020 and became the role that carried his name well beyond Japan. The twelve-episode TV Tokyo series and its 2022 film sequel are catalogued on BLGLFLIX as separate title records, and Akaso is credited as main cast on both.

Outside BL he has continued to work across mainstream film and television, including the manga adaptation Love Me, Love Me Not (2020), NHK’s morning drama Soar High! (2022), Netflix’s Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (2023) and the drama Pending Train (2023). In 2025 he received the Newcomer Actor Award at the 48th Japan Academy Film Prize, adding to a Television Drama Academy Award for supporting actor and a Best Dresser Award.