Actor Ikuta Toma, 42, said he was told early on that the unit he joined as a trainee would never put out a CD, which pushed him toward a career built mainly on acting rather than on idol work. He spoke on TBS's "A-Studio+", which aired on Friday at 11:00 p.m.
Ikuta joined the former Johnny's office in 1996. He made his debut as a child actor in the NHK morning drama "Aguri" in 1997, and went on to appear in Fuji TV's "Hanazakari no Kimitachi e" in 2007 and the NHK taiga drama "Gunshi Kanbei" in 2014. He built his standing as an actor without belonging to a group, an unusual path at the agency.
Kis-My-Ft2's Fujigaya Taisuke, a junior at the old agency who co-hosts the program, called him a pioneer. "When you say he went mainly into acting, I think of him as a pioneer," Fujigaya said, then asked whether Ikuta and Kazama Shunsuke had opened that road themselves.
Rakugo storyteller Shofukutei Tsurube, the other host, pressed him on whether he had wanted to sing. Ikuta said the bigger pressure was the agency's structure. "Rather than that, it was an idol agency, so even if you kept acting, nothing would start unless you properly debuted in a group," he said. "The stronger awareness was that I had to aim for group activities as the means to that."
As a Johnny's Jr., Ikuta worked in a unit called Four Tops with Kazama, actor Yamashita Tomohisa and actor Hasegawa Jun. He said the group was ruled out as a debut vehicle from the start. "From the moment we formed the group, we were told, 'This team will never put out a CD,'" he said.
“Four Tops meant each of us would go and take the top in his own field. Keep running at the top. Occasionally the four of us get together and do something like group activity. But there's no group in this.”Ikuta Toma, actor, on TBS's A-Studio+
He described the uncertainty that followed. "There was a bit of, what's the best thing to do about this," Ikuta said. "If there was no future in doing idol work as a group, I started thinking I had to properly shine as an actor, or on some other path."
Tsurube praised the career Ikuta carved out. "That's amazing," he said. "Kazama, in his own way, became a man who is absolutely necessary as an actor."