Kodai Asaka

Kodai Asaka (Japanese: 浅香航大; born August 24, 1992) is a Japanese actor and stage actor signed to Tristone Entertainment, best known to BL audiences as Tsuge Masato (柘植将人), the romance novelist who is Adachi’s oldest friend, 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).

Asaka was born in Atsugi, Kanagawa Prefecture. He entered the entertainment industry as a child, auditioning for Johnny’s Entertainment in December 2002 and being placed in the junior unit J.J.Express in 2004. He later moved to the unit M.A.D. in 2007 before leaving the agency in the spring of 2008 to pursue acting as his primary career.

His early professional work was concentrated on the stage, and he continued to build a theatre career alongside screen work. His television drama debut came in 2011 with Fuji TV’s Hanazakari no Kimitachi e ~IkemenParadise~ 2011. Wider recognition followed through NHK’s morning dramas, including Massan (2014-2015) as Eiichiro Kamoi and Hiyokko (2017), and through films such as The Kirishima Thing (2012) and She Was Pretty Much a Liar (2013).

In Cherry Magic! Asaka plays Tsuge, a writer of love stories who dispenses romantic advice while concealing how little experience he has himself, and who takes in an abandoned cat named Udon. The character anchors the series’ second romance, opposite the delivery driver Wataya Minato. Asaka is credited as supporting cast on both the twelve-episode TV Tokyo series and its 2022 film sequel.

Beyond BL he has continued to work steadily across television, film and theatre, taking the lead in Konya wa Ko no Ji de (2020-2022) and appearing in the mystery drama Anata no Ban desu (2019) as Masato Kamiya. In April 2024 his long-time agency, A-team, suspended its talent-management operations, and later that month he announced that he had transferred to Tristone Entertainment, where he remains represented.