Yoshihiko Aramaki
BIOGRAPHY
Yoshihiko Aramaki (Japanese: 荒牧慶彦; born 5 February 1990 in Tokyo) is a Japanese actor who works mainly in 2.5D theatre, the branch of Japanese stage that adapts manga, anime and games for live performance.
He studied economics at university and came into the industry through the group HIROZ, which released the album Samurai Road in 2011. His stage debut followed in 2012, in the second season of the Prince of Tennis musical as Kai Yujiro.
The role he is most associated with is Yamanbagiri Kunihiro in the Touken Ranbu stage series, which he has played across productions from 2016 onward, and which carried over into the 2019 Touken Ranbu film. His other stage work includes Uta no Prince-sama, A3! as Tsukioka Tsumugi, and the Hypnosis Mic productions.
His stage credits before Touken Ranbu are long. After the Prince of Tennis musical he played Jin Kisaragi in the BlazBlue live act in 2014, Yatogami Kuroh in the Stage K productions of 2014 and 2015, and Okita Soji in the Hakuoki stage plays of 2015 and 2016. In 2017 he led a solo piece, Hatsukoi Monster.
Later leads include William James Moriarty in Yukoku no Moriarty in 2020, Takagi Akito in Bakuman The Stage in 2021, Kitaro in Gegege no Kitaro in 2022 and Zhou Yu in Kenseki Engi in 2024. In 2025 he returned to Kitaro and also played Sakuma Ritsuki in the Ensemble Stars! stage production.
On screen he is known for REAL⇄FAKE, which ran from 2019 to 2023, and for the Terebi Engeki Success-so seasons between 2019 and 2021. He appeared in MANKAI MOVIE A3! in 2022.
Among the other screen credits are Makino Nagisa in REAL⇄FAKE and Toshikiya in Prince of Legend, first the 2019 drama and then the 2020 film. He took a part in the 2021 table tennis drama Fake Motion and led the 2024 drama Ubawareta Bokutachi. His voice work includes Uesugi Kagekatsu in Sengoku Night Blood and Vincent van Gogh in Ikemen Vampire, both in 2017.
He has run his own agency, Pasture, as its representative since April 2021, having previously been with Main Cast Production and then Toki Entertainment. In February 2025 he was appointed a director of the Japan 2.5D Musical Association.
He was with Main Cast Production until June 2015 and with Toki Entertainment from October 2015 to March 2019.
In interviews he has said that he wants to change the prejudice that 2.5D theatre still meets as a newer form, and that he is glad when audiences tell him his reading of a character widened their own. He has described Pasture, a name that means a pasture or ranch, as a place where independent members work together like a guild.
Away from performing, he published his first photo book, L.M.N., in May 2017. Kodansha released the photo book if… and the interview collection Cross Roads in September 2019. He lists sword dance, staff techniques, tennis, piano and impressions of historical figures among his skills, and his own interests run to anime, first person shooter games, survival games and driving.
In the stage musical of Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! he plays Kurosawa.
Yoshihiko Aramaki plays Yuichi Kurosawa in Cherry Magic The Musical and runs his own agency.
The musical ran in April 2025 at TOKYO DOME CITY HALL and Aiplaza Toyohashi, with Ryo Matsuda as Kiyoshi Adachi. Aramaki left management companies to become the representative of Pasture in April 2021, and in February 2025, two months before the run, he was appointed a director of the Japan 2.5D Musical Association.
His route into the form began with an economics degree, then the group HIROZ and its 2011 album, then the 2012 musical stage debut. Since 2016 he has played Yamanbagiri Kunihiro across the Touken Ranbu stage productions.
The year 2019 is the densest on his screen list: the Touken Ranbu film, the start of REAL⇄FAKE and the first Terebi Engeki Success-so season all fall there. The Success-so seasons closed in 2021, the year he became his own representative, while REAL⇄FAKE continued until 2023, making it the longest on-screen run listed for him at four years. The Yamanbagiri Kunihiro part, begun in 2016, had been with him nine years by the April 2025 musical, and Kurosawa arrives thirteen years after the Prince of Tennis debut of 2012.
In my view his career reads as one skill widening step by step: bringing characters from manga and games to the stage, then to the camera, then into a company of his own, where he now speaks for the form he works in. Kurosawa in Cherry Magic sits where the stage work, the screen work and the business side meet.
PROFILE DETAILS
- Native Name
- 荒牧慶彦
- Nickname
- Makki
- Pronouns
- he/him
- Born
- (Age 36)
- Birthplace
- Tokyo, Japan
- Gender
- Male
- Western Zodiac
- Aquarius ♒
- Chinese Zodiac
- Horse 🐎
- Height
- 176 cm
- Profession
- Nationality
- Debut
- 2012 · Musical The Prince of Tennis 2nd Season (2012), as Kai Yujiro
- Agency / Label
- Pasture (own agency, representative since April 2021)
- Years Active
- 2011-present
- Languages
- Japanese (native)
- Skills
- Acting, Stage Performance, Singing
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