Junko Abe

Abe was born on May 7, 1993, in Osaka. She attended at the Osaka Prefectural Kitano High School, where she was part of the Aikido team. While in high school, she was involved in Japanese dance, scuba diving and playing piano. She was also part of the high school brass band, where she played flute. In March 2017, she graduated from the Faculty of Environment and Information Studies at Keio University in Tokyo.^[1][2][3]

While at elementary school, she was discovered and signed on by an agent. She made her debut as an advertising model for Hankyu Department Store. In middle school, she worked as a model for a fashion magazine and later worked as an image character for the Fuji TV anime series Shion no Ō.^[3]

In 2010, she made her acting debut in the movie The Chasing World 2 (リアル鬼ごっこ2), as the heroine. She started using her stage name Jun Yoshinaga. In 2012, she played as one of the main casts in the Japanese comedy-drama television series Perfect Son. As a result of her role in the series, she garnered attention and the number of access to her official blog grew.^[4]

In 2014, she starred in the movie Still the Water directed by Naomi Kawase. She was selected as the cast for the movie, due to her experience in scuba diving during her time in high school, at "the beauty of swimming" audition in Amami Ōshima. For her performance in the movie, she received the Best Actress Award at the Sakhalin International Film Festival and Best New Actress Award at the Takasaki Film Festival.^[5][6]

In August 2014, Abe took a career break and quit her acting agency to head to the United States for a year to study English and Drama at New York University. While studying at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, she met her acting agency staff and returned to Japan in 2015. Following her return to Japan, she started to use her birth name as stage name. Abe auditioned for NHK TV serial Toto Neechan and was cast for the role of heroine's friend, Aya Nakada.^[7]

In 2019, she starred in movie The Prisoner of Sakura, a Japan-Russia co-production, which was based on the true story of a war prison in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, during the Russo-Japanese War. In the movie, she has a dual role.^[8][9]