Asuka Saitō


Asuka Saitō is a Japanese-Burmese idol singer, actress and fashion model. She is a first generation member of the Japanese girl group Nogizaka46, and a regular model for the fashion magazine sweet.

Early life

Saito was born on August 10, 1998 in Tokyo. Her father is from Japan and her mother is from Myanmar. Saitō debuted as an actress in 2007 in the film Sakuran, playing the protagonist as a child.

Career

In 2011, encouraged by her mother, she successfully passed the audition for the first generation of idol group Nogizaka46, debuting as an idol on the group's first single "Guruguru Curtain" in February 2012. Saitō became the center member on the 15th Nogizaka46 single, "Hadashi de Summer", in 2016.
Saitō is active as an actress and model outside of Nogizaka46. She has played lead roles in the Japanese remake of the Taiwanese film You Are the Apple of My Eye and the NTV horror drama Zambi. In 2015, Saitō became the exclusive model for the fashion magazine CUTiE published by Takarajimasha, which stopped publication in the same year. Saitō then became a regular model for another fashion magazine from the same publisher, sweet, as the magazine's youngest model since its publication.
In 2017, Gentosha published Saitō's first photobook. Titled Shiosai, the photobook sold 58,215 copies in the first week. As of December 2018, the photobook has sold over 200 thousand copies.

Photobooks