11 Facts About Masato Hagiwara

Masato Hagiwara is a Japanese actor, voice actor, narrator and professional mahjong player.

When Hagiwara was three years old, his parents divorced and he was taken in by his father.

Masato Hagiwara enrolled in the part-time program at Tokyo Metropolitan Toyama High School, but dropped out after only one week.

Masato Hagiwara has appeared in many films as a minor role, but it was his role as Naojiro Matsuoka in the 1990 TV drama High School Rakugaki 2 that brought him to prominence.

Masato Hagiwara later established a fanclub in 1993, which disbanded three years later in July 1996.

Masato Hagiwara claimed to have an alibi, saying that he was meeting someone at the time of the crime, but refused to reveal the name of the person who could prove it, because it would be a nuisance to the person.

Later the case was dismissed on the grounds that the accuser's testimony contained many inconsistencies and it was just an accusation that Masato Hagiwara resembled the killer.

Masato Hagiwara co-starred in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure with Koji Yakusho and appeared in Hou Hsiao-hsien's Cafe Lumiere.

Masato Hagiwara was supposed to perform in the play "Shinjo Afururu Keihakusa 2001" at Theatre Cocoon in January 2001, but was forced to cancel his performance in December 2000 due to a sensorineural hearing loss that left him temporarily deaf.

Masato Hagiwara had a starring role as a vocalist and saxophonist in a jazz band in Junji Sakamoto's Out of This World.

In November 1995, Masato Hagiwara married actress Emi Wakui, with whom he co-starred in the TV drama Natsuko no Sake.