Japan cm of the week - Kiko looking sharp

This is the new Maquillage commercial for their Essence Glamorous Rouge Neo lipstick (doesn't exactly roll of the tongue there, does it), featuring the always interesting, lovely Kiko Mizuhara.

I've been a fan of hers for a while. In addition to modelling work, Kiko is also a good actress and has done some good stuff in her career so far. She did a fantastic job in the Mika Ninagawa fashion shocker film Helter Skelter and more recently played the small but important role of Sutematsu in NHK's Yae no Sakura.

She is a Korean American from Texas, but spent most of her life growing up in Japan and of course speaks Japanese fluently, but because of her background she is often thrust into "other" roles - playing someone with a different background from the other characters, playing a foreigner working in Japan, or someone who's just come back from spending a long time abroad. Which makes it a little harder for her to get the big roles, I would say, because she's been typecast as the "almost outisder." For more info check out the TV Trope But Not Too Foreign. And if you read that, read around the TV Tropes page a bit more - there's a ton of insight into TV and anime in Japan as well as other countries' shows.

OK, that went off on a bit of a tangent. Anyway, I wish her only the best and hope she gets the big break she deserves.

For more of Kiko, check out the Kiko Mizuhara Official Blog. She seems to post a lot, especially filtered pics of her trips and stuff.

Or check out Shiseido's page for Maquillage here: MAQuillAGE 資生堂. More commercials are in their commercial gallery. CMギャラリー.