is Mao Inoue, (井上 真央 Inoue Mao?, born January 9, 1987 in Yokohama) is a Japanese actress. She was a popular U-15 idol from 1999; she was well known for her role as Imai Akane in the drama Kids War. Since the age of five she had parts in several dramas, but it wasn’t until the debut of Kids War in 1999 that Japanese audiences took notice of Inoue.
In 2005, she was cast as the star of Hana Yori Dango on TBS. Inoue played Makino Tsukushi in the live-action adaptation of the manga and anime, a lower middle-class girl who is trying to survive unnoticed in an elite high school full of playboys and rich snobs. A sequel to the 2005 drama, Hana Yori Dango 2, was aired in the winter 2007 season.
At 19, Inoue was enrolled in Meiji University, studying theater and literature, with her second major is Chinese. In 2006 she co-starred in the movie Check It Out, Yo! with Ichihara Hayato, Hiraoka Yuta, and Emoto Tasuku. The film was in theaters April 22, 2006. Inoue also co-starred in the summer 2007 drama First Kiss with “Check It Out, Yo!” co-star Hiraoka.
After the success of the two Hana Yori Dango dramas, a film was announced in August 2007, just months after the end of the 2007 sequel. It will be Inoue’s first starring role in a movie, which is to be called Hana Yori Dango Final. Hana Yori Dango Final was a successful movie, opening in Beijing on June 28, 2008 in China to packed crowds and is expected to gross 10 billion yen.
