Minami Hamabe

Minami Hamabe is a Japanese actress whose screen career began in childhood and developed into one of the most visible young careers in contemporary Japanese film and television. Born on August 29, 2000, in Ishikawa Prefecture, she entered the entertainment industry after winning the New Generation Award at the Toho Cinderella Audition. That connection with Toho proved important: she became part of a studio ecosystem that placed her in youth dramas, manga adaptations, prestige television and eventually international genre cinema.

Hamabe’s early work established her as a young performer suited to emotionally direct roles. She gained national attention as Meiko “Menma” Honma in the live-action television adaptation of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day, then broke through with the 2017 film Let Me Eat Your Pancreas. Playing Sakura Yamauchi, a terminally ill high-school student whose warmth changes the life of a classmate, Hamabe became associated with a mixture of innocence, composure and emotional transparency. The role brought her Newcomer of the Year recognition at the Japan Academy Film Prize and made her a major name among younger Japanese actors.

After that breakthrough she worked across adaptations of well-known Japanese properties. She played Yumeko Jabami in the live-action Kakegurui projects, Saki Miyanaga in Saki, Emma in The Promised Neverland and Ruriko Midorikawa in Shin Kamen Rider. These roles required a heightened screen style: some were comic and stylized, others action-oriented or melodramatic. Hamabe also appeared in The Great War of Archimedes, Ajin: Demi-Human, Murders at the House of Death, Love Me, Love Me Not and One Day, You Will Reach the Sea, gradually building a filmography that mixed popular entertainment with mainstream drama.