Koshi Mizukami

Koshi Mizukami (水上恒司) is a Japanese actor. Until August 2022 he worked under the stage name Kenshi Okada.

Early life
Mizukami was born on 12 May 1999 in Higashi ward, Fukuoka Prefecture. He started playing baseball in the second grade of elementary school and mainly served as a catcher. He graduated from Soseikan High School. In addition, Riku Kawahara of the professional baseball team Hanshin Tigers was a junior in the baseball club, Mizukami was a catcher and Kawahara was a pitcher.

Career
In the winter of his first year of junior high school, he was first scouted by the entertainment agency Spice Power (the male division of Sweet Power). After that, he was pursued by the agency for five years, but he kept turning down the offer as he was immersed in baseball and was aiming to play in Koshien.

In 2017, after departing from the baseball club when he was in his third year of high school, he was scouted by a teacher who was an adviser to the drama club, and played as a kamikaze member in a work called "Hair combing August" and participated in the prefectural high school drama competition. This work would win the highest award at the Kyushu block of the prefectural competition and was recommended for the national competition. However, this did not come to be due to the format of the high school drama competition, which is held within the year up to the block competition and the national competition, but Mizukami graduated from high school in that subsequent year, thus he was unable to compete for the national competition. Originally, he had planned to go to college and continue playing baseball, but after participating in the prefectural tournament, he began to desire becoming an actor. His parents, who were against his decision at first came around eventually because they were so pleased with his acting debut.

After auditioning for the TV drama "Meet Me After School" on TBS, which started broadcasting in October 2018, he was selected as the main character's partner, portrayed by Kasumi Arimura, and made his debut as an actor. For this work he received the Newcomer Award at the 28th TV Life Drama Grand Prize.

In July 2019, he starred in the special drama commemorating the 50th anniversary of the opening of Fukuoka Broadcasting Don't You Think Girls Who Talk in Hakata Dialect Are Cute?.

In 2020 he made his film debut in the movie All About March, he then appeared in his second television drama MIU404

In December 2020, he won first place in the NEXT category of the popular voting project "National Treasure Class Handsome Ranking" in the second half of 2020 of the women's fashion magazine ViVi. In 2021, he appeared in the NHK Taiga drama Reach Beyond the Blue Sky. On March 19 of the same year, he won the New Actor Award in the 44th Japan Academy Award for three works; All About March, The Legacy of Dr. Death: Black File, and Hope.

In May 2021, he filed a provisional injunction with the court to cancel the contract with his agency, Mizukami agreed to continue working with the same agency until the expiration of the contract at the end of March 2023, and not to renew the contract after expiration, and a settlement was reached.

On 31 August 2022, he announced that his contract with his agency had ended ahead of schedule and that he would continue his activities under his real name, Koshi Mizukami. In September, he formed a business alliance with the company HAKU.

On 14 February 2023, it was announced that he would play Aisuke Murayama in the NHK serial TV drama Boogie Woogie.

Photobook

 * Kodou (12 June 2019)

Calendar

 * "Kenshi Okada Calendar 2020.04 – 2021.03" (14 February 2020)
 * "Kenshi Okada Calendar 2021.04 – 2022.03" (12 February 2021)