Tsubasa Imai

TSUBASA PROFILE

Imai Tsubasa is a 28 year old male Japanese artist who is part of a two-man J-POP unit called Tackey & Tsubasa. Both Tsubasa and Tackey are best friends and entertainers from the idol talent agency Johnny & Associates. They both CD debuted on Sept. 11, 2002 with the album Hatachi (which means 20-years old in english). Since their debut, they have racked up 5 #1 singles on Japan’s Oricon charts and toured across Japan several times. Tsubasa has also had national solo tours in 2005, 2006, 2009, and starting in 2007, is lead in a dance musical named after him called World’s Wing Tsubasa Premium.
Tsubasa usually only releases unit CDs with his partner Tackey, but on February 24, 2010, he released his very first solo single “Backborn” which came in at #2 for its opening week.

Tsubasa first joined Johnny & Associates on April 23, 1995 at the young age of 13. As a Johnny’s Junior for 8 years, he has acted and appeared in dramas like Summer Snow,Neverland, Saigo no Bengonin, and most recently NHK’s 80th anniversary drama special Haru to Natsu in which he had to learn Portuguese for his role. He has also been a regular on variety shows like 8 Ji Da J, Music Jump and has performed many times on popular music shows like Music Station and Pop Jam. He and his partner Takki have also performed concerts together in Thailand and Taiwan all prior to even releasing a single CD.

The fundamentals of a Johnny’s Junior is to backdance for the other debuted artists within the agency, and Tsubasa has done his fair share of backdancing for groups from Shonentai all the way up to V6 and Kinki Kids. All of this stage experience pre-CD debut has helped solidify his professionalism and skills, and has caught the attention of media and fans alike to his sharp, sexy, and elegant dancing; a style that is all his own. And because of his excellent dancing skills and finesse, he was cast in the popular musicalMillenium Shock in 2000, and labeled one of Johnny’s all-time “Four Great Dancing Kings”. In 2004, Tsubasa also performed at Taiwan’s biggest music awards show, theGolden Melody Awards. He has also been to New York City numerous times to take more dance and vocal lessons to improve his skills. In 2008 he went to Seville, Spain to study Flamenco with the renowned maestro Manuel Betanzos. [ NOTE: Tsubasa is currently learning Spanish, English, a little Portuguese, and has a Hawaii driver's license. ]And in December 2010, he made his flamenco debut at a bar in Hinojares, Spain, while participating in a 5-day homestay program there for NHK TV.

Starting in end of 2008, Tsubasa decided to embrace the other important part of his roots besides dancing–ROCK. In 2009, Tsubasa became a guest member of J Rock Family, which is a group of 9 artists in the Johnnys company who like singing and performing rock songs live¹. His solo tour in 2009, called the Dance & Rock Tour, featured him dancing in the first half, and singing all live in the second half. He then concluded 2009 with another dance-rock tour, this time performing in all livehouse venues.

Besides dance and vocals, he has also been frequently praised by the media and his peers for his keen sense of fashion and for his excellent style. He designs and does a lot of the styling for the clothes he wears during his concerts, and also coordinates a lot of his own outfits as well as for his own backdancers.

Tsubasa’s talents are plentiful as he is not only musical, but artistic and creative as well. He believes that “Simple is Best” and this philosophy can be seen in most of his clothing and performances where he likes to stay away from flashy and elaborate compositions, and instead deliver performances that are simple, real, raw, and from the heart. Personality-wise, he is also very shy and polite, and extremely naive and pure for someone who’s already been in the entertainment industry for such a long time. And while he prefers to do things in his own pace rather than rush to be at the top of the class immediately, he is like the tortoise in the race: slow at the beginning, but in a few years, as he matures and grows taking in everything that he learns, he will be one to watch as he crosses the finish line.