Hokuto Matsumura, the SixTONES singer who outgrew the idol script without leaving the band

Hokuto Matsumura

Photo via The Movie Database (TMDB)

Born	June 18, 1995 Shimada, Shizuoka, Japan
Occupation	Singer, actor
Known for	Suzume
Awards	2 Japan Gold Disc · MTV Video Music Award

Hokuto Matsumura has a habit most actors would envy and most singers would find strange: when he takes a lead role, his own band often supplies the song. SixTONES, the six-man group he sings with, recorded the theme to his romantic comedy Liar×Liar, an insert song for a romance drama he appeared in, the opening theme to his mystery series and, this summer, “My Only” for the first network drama built entirely around him. Critics now hand him best-actor prizes while the group fills arenas, and the open question is how long one career can carry both weights without one of them giving way.

He grew up in Shimada, in Shizuoka Prefecture, where he was born in June 1995 and spent his childhood in a karate dojo, earning a black belt and competing nationally. Television pulled him the other way. Tomohisa Yamashita in the drama Kurosagi made him want to join Yamashita’s agency, Johnny & Associates. He mailed his résumé twice without reply; the third, sent with a deadline he had set for himself, brought an audition. He joined as a trainee in February 2009, and the day after his audition he was already on set at the NHK music show The Shōnen Club. He later graduated in business administration from Asia University while working.

The first record came almost at once. In July 2009 he made his CD debut in two temporary units, Yuma Nakayama w/B.I.Shadow and NYC boys, with the double A-side “Akuma na Koi/NYC”, and that New Year’s Eve he stood on the stage of NHK’s Kōhaku Uta Gassen at fourteen. Two years later the unit ended in practice when two of its members, Kento Nakajima and Fuma Kikuchi, were chosen for the debut of Sexy Zone. He was left with almost no work. Out of stubbornness, by his own account, he went back to dancing behind senior acts, and a performance of KinKi Kids songs caught the eye of a producer casting the school drama Shiritsu Bakaleya Kōkō.

Six trainees and a split single

That 2012 drama turned out to be the founding document of his band. Its trainee cast, Jesse, Taiga Kyomoto, Juri Tanaka, Shintaro Morimoto, Yugo Kochi and Matsumura, won a concert of their own from Johnny Kitagawa, then were split up: from 2013 Matsumura was paired with Jesse as a duo while the other four struggled for airtime, and several of them later admitted they had been close to quitting. It was Jesse who pushed the six back together. On May 1, 2015, at the Theatre Crea in Tokyo, they were announced as SixTONES. Their CD debut was announced at Tokyo Dome in August 2019.

The debut, in January 2020, was a split single with Snow Man. SixTONES’ side, “Imitation Rain”, was written and arranged by X Japan’s Yoshiki. It passed a million copies within three days and won Single of the Year at the Japan Gold Disc Awards. The albums have arrived every January since: 1ST in 2021, which sold over 467,000 copies in its first week, then CITY, Koe, THE VIBES and GOLD. The sound leans harder toward rock and hip-hop than the agency’s older acts, with outside writers such as King Gnu’s Daiki Tsuneta, who wrote “Mascara”.

Matsumura’s screen work and the group’s catalogue began feeding each other early. “Boku ga Boku ja Nai Mitai da”, the 2021 single, was the theme of Liar×Liar, the film in which he co-starred with Nana Mori. “Watashi” (2022) played inside Koi Nante Honki de Yatte Dō Suru no?, a Fuji TV drama in his filmography, and “CREAK” (2023) opened Knockin’ on Locked Door, the mystery series he led with Daigo Nishihata. Tie-ins are how Japanese pop sells singles; here the song and the role belong to the same man.

The actor the critics found

The acting no longer needs the songs. As Minoru Kijima, the gentle eldest son who goes to war in NHK’s morning serial Come Come Everybody (2021–22), he reached a national daytime audience. Makoto Shinkai cast him as the voice of Souta Munakata, the young man trapped in the shape of a three-legged child’s chair, in Suzume (2022), a role that brought him an Annie Award nomination. Then came All the Long Nights (2024), Sho Miyake’s quiet film about two co-workers living with panic disorder and premenstrual syndrome, adapted from a Maiko Seo novel he had named among his favourite books years before he was cast. It earned him Best Actor at the Kinema Junpo Best Ten, one of the oldest film awards in Japan.

His rise has never been separate from the system that built it. Matsumura’s own origin story features Johnny Kitagawa personally urging him on, and in 2023 the agency Kitagawa founded acknowledged that he had sexually abused young trainees over decades. The company stopped managing artists, and SixTONES moved to the newly created STARTO ENTERTAINMENT. The revelations recast every fond anecdote from that era, his included. The second tension is quieter: his acting prizes sit beside magazine “most handsome” rankings that he keeps topping. In 2026 the Japan Academy Film Prize gave him two Awards of Excellence, as lead in the live-action 5 Centimeters per Second and in support for Yuji Sakamoto’s 1st Kiss, yet Best Actor went to Ryo Yoshizawa for Kokuho. Critics’ recognition and fans’ devotion still run on separate tracks, and he is asked to satisfy both.

A year on two calendars

This has been his busiest year on both fronts. SixTONES released MILESixTONES -Best Tracks-, their first greatest-hits album, in January for their sixth debut anniversary, then played 50 arena shows in 11 cities by June. In April Netflix premiered Sins of Kujo, in which he plays Shinji Karasuma, the young associate of Yuya Yagira’s lawyer for clients nobody else will take. In July came Kokuhaku: 25-nenme no Himitsu on Nippon TV, his first solo lead in a network drama, as a man who has loved the same woman for 25 years. SixTONES sang its theme, “My Only”, released on CD in September as a double A-side with “Dance Forever”. September also brought Hakuchō to Kōmori, a Keigo Higashino mystery he co-leads with Mio Imada, and October Nanji, Hoshi no Gotoku, Michihito Fujii’s adaptation of Yū Nagira’s novel.

The year is not finished. SixTONES’ first stadium tour takes the group this autumn to Ajinomoto Stadium in Tokyo, Yanmar Stadium Nagai in Osaka and Nissan Stadium in Yokohama, and on January 8, 2027, Toho releases the feature film of Sins of Kujo, with Matsumura back as Karasuma. The next test is whether he can keep the stadium and the cinema on one calendar without either turning into the side job.

Tags: singers, J-pop, Hokuto Matsumura, Imitation Rain, MILESixTONES -Best Tracks-, SixTONES

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