Yu Shirota (城田 優, Shirota Yū, born December 26, 1985) is a Japanese actor and singer, most known for his role as Kagurazaka Makoto in the Japanese television drama live action adaption of Hana-Kimi, Kunimitsu Tezuka in the Prince of Tennis Musicals, Tuxedo Mask in the Sailor Moon Musicals and as Kei Shinjo in Rookies.
According to Shirota, when he was little, his family liked to sing songs, so he would borrow his older sister's keyboard, while his mother taught him piano.
His first official performance as Tuxedo Kamen was on January 2, 2003, in the 2003 Winter Special Mugen Gakuen – Mistress Labyrinth (Kaiteiban).
He also demonstrated his ability to play acoustic guitar on stage live, during the Starlights – Ryuusei Densetsu performances.
That night, on September 5, 2004, after he performed his final rendition of "Prince of Earth", he announced his graduation from the role and received flowers from Kousei Amano who had previously played Tuxedo Kamen in the original 1999 Kaguya Island musical.
Through 2006, Shirota began appearing in a couple dramas and movies including the 2005 Watanabe net drama, Hice Cool,[4] the TV drama special, The Hit Parade,[5] portraying the real-life Mickey Curtis and the June Bride[6] movie in which he played the title character, Natsumi, based on the original manga Jyun Bride by Satoshi Yoshida, resulted in a made for DVD release sequel, Zoku June Bride.
In his third TV drama role of the year, Shirota appeared in the popular adaptation of Hanazakari No Kimitachi e,[10] which began on July 3, 2007, playing the character of Kagurazaka Makoto, a high-jumping rival to Sano Izumi.
The first being Arakure KNIGHT,[11] the live-action movie adaptation of the 1982 to 1988 manga series, Aratanaru Shobaku by Satosi Yoshida.
Next, Shirota starred in Rookies, the successful baseball drama based on the manga of the same name by Morita Masanori, playing Kei Shinjo.
In 2009, Shirota starred in the made-for-television movie, Go Ape, reprised his role as Shinjo Kei in the feature film for Rookies – Sotsugyou, and co-starred with Haruma Miura in Samurai High School as the soft-spoken, Nakamura Tsuyoshi.
For the Japanese edition of his solo debut album, BACK TO ME, Backstreet Boys member Howie D (aka Howard Dorough) sought out Japanese idol Shirota for one of the bonus tracks, "If I Say" which was digitally released as a single on October 12, 2011.
The D-BOYS then starred in their own drama documentary variety show called, DD-Boys[21] in which Shirota's appeared in multiple episodes as himself.
Despite having graduated from the D-BOYS, in December 2009, he was featured in both the sixth DVD release of the D-BOYS' Boy Friend series, called YU Channel and their "Kotoshi no Natsu wa Mainichi Dokoka de D-BOYS ☆Uki-uki♪Yatta♪Hohohoy♪" performance events, resulting in appearances in all three Natsu Doko 2009 CD and DVD releases, as well as appearances for promoting their second tour, Fuyu Doko 2009.
[25] In June 2006, he then visited New York to see five Broadway musicals: The Producers, Rent, Spelling Bee, Sweeney Todd, and The Phantom of the Opera.
[46] The DVD includes an acoustic performance for the song "Natsu no Owari ~ Mou Kako no Koi", for which he had composed and written lyrics.