Mandy Sekiguchi

Mandy Sekiguchi
関口 メンディー
Born (1991-01-25) 25 January 1991 (age 33)
Other names
  • Mandy
  • Monsta Twiggz
CitizenshipJapanese
EducationNippon Sport Science University
Occupations
  • Rapper
  • dancer
Years active2011–present
EmployerFormer: LDH
AgentIndependent
Notable credits
Websitewww.ldh.co.jp

Mandy Sekiguchi (関口 メンディー; Sekiguchi Mendi, born January 25, 1991, in New Jersey, United States) is an American-born Japanese actor, dancer, rapper and a former member of J-Pop groups Generations from Exile Tribe, Exile and Honest Boyz.[1]

Early life

Mandy Sekiguchi was born on January 25, 1991, in New Jersey, United States and grew up in Shinagawa, Tokyo. His mother is Japanese and his father is of Igbo descent. Even though he was born outside of Japan, he was raised monolingual in japanese and only started to study english later on in his career. He started playing baseball at the age of 6 and practiced it till his third year in high school.[2]

Career

In April 2011, Mandy participated in the Exile Professional Gym (EXPG) audition produced by Hiro, and he was selected as a member of Generations from Exile Tribe.[3]

In April 2012, he became an official member of Generations and debuted in November of the same year.

Mandy advanced into acting for the first time in April 2014, when he was selected as a cast member of Fuji TV's late night program Wow.[4] On April 27, 2014, Mandy passed the Exile Performer Battle Audition Final in Nippon Budoukan and became a member of Exile.[5][6][7] In May of the same year, he made his stage debut in the stage play Dance Earth Project "Changes" while also joining the coed-group Dance Earth Party for one year.[8][9]

On January 26, 2015, members of Sekiguchi MANDY and GENERATIONS from EXILE TRIBE were appointed as "Hong Kong Tourism Goodwill Ambassadors" by the Hong Kong Tourism Board.[10] On 15 April 2016, he became a member of the hip-hop unit Honest Boyz. He took on the position of MC in the group, calling himself simply Mandy (stylized as MANDY). This marked the first time he would use his vocals in a group.[11]

In August 2017, Mandy produced the 24karats×KANGOL collaboration collection of designer hats. 24karats is a fashion brand developed by LDH while KANGOL was founded in 1938 as a British traditional beret brand which established itself as a symbol of the art scene.[12] Additionally, he made his acting debut in LDH's movie universe HiGH & LOW in the same year.

On June 5, 2018, he threw the first pitch at the opening ceremony of the Giants vs Rakuten baseball game, held at Tokyo Dome.[2] His appearance garnered great public attention since the speed of his pitch reached 133 km/h, the fastest thrown by an entertainer at that time. His record was broken by Golden Bomber's Kenji Darvish later on (135 km/h) and both developed a comedic rivalry.[13] On August 31, Sanrio announced they would produce a new character, Hello Mandy, based on Mandy Sekiguchi. The character is designed with an "M" lavaliere on a necklace and one of Mandy's most familiar hairstyles.[14]

In January 2019, Mandy was chosen as a representative for the promotion of the American movie Aquaman in Japan.[15][16] On February 14, he attended the PRINCE OF LEGEND PREMIUM LIVE SHOW, a fan-meeting with the whole Prince of Legend cast, at Yokohama Arena.[17][18] On March 18, Mandy was invited to throw another first pitch at the opening ceremony of the Giants vs Mariners baseball game at Tokyo Dome. However, he wasn't able to exceed his previous record.[19][13] On June 4, it was announced that Hello Mandy won the No. 1 prize in the collaboration category of the Sanrio Character Award, an award based on an annual popularity voting.[20][21] On July 17, Generations from Exile Tribe released the single "Brand New Story". It included "Control Myself" as a B-side track, being the group's first original English song and also the first one to feature Mandy as a rapper. On September 9, it was announced that Mandy would be part of the cast for the live-action series of the manga Motokare Mania (モトカレマニア; Ex-Boyfriend Mania).[22] This would be the first time that he will appear in a prime time drama.

On April 30 2024, Many announced that he would be graduate from the group leave LDH Japan on June 25 2024. He later revealed he wanted to become someone who can be active not only in Japan, but all over the world.[23]

Participating groups

Name Period of time
Generations from Exile Tribe April 2011 –
Exile April 2014 –
®ag Pound 2015 –
Honest Boyz April 2016 –

Filmography

TV programmes

Year Title Network Notes Ref.
2013-2015 Kyuukyoku no Otoko wa Dareda? Saikyou Supoutsu Danshi Choujou Kessen TBS Appeared in the second to fifth and seventh Annual Meeting Victory
2014 Wow Fuji TV [4]
Viking Fuji TV [24]
2016 Kyuukyoku no Otoko wa Dareda? Saikyou Supoutsu Danshi moto Ni~Tsu Choujou Kessen! TBS New Year's special [25]

Stage

Year Title Role Ref.
2014 Dance Earth: Changes Kuruma

TV dramas

Year Title Role Notes Ref.
2016 Night Hero Naoto himself Episode 5; ending dance [26]
2018 Prince of Legend Gabriel Sasazuka [27][28][29]
2019 Secret x Warrior Phantomirage Phandy [30]
Ex-Boyfriend Mania (モトカレマニア) Tadafumi Shirai [31][32][33]
2023 Ya Boy Kongming! Keiji Maezono [34]
2025 Omusubi Ryuji Sawada Asadora [35]

Web Dramas

Year Title Network Role Ref.
2018 Happy-Go-Lucky! GYAO! Manns [36]

Movies

Year Title Role Ref.
2017 High & Low The movie 2 End Of Sky Pho
High & Low The movie 3 Final Mission Pho
2019 Prince of Legend Gabriel Sasazuka [37][38][39]
2022 Kappei Kazuya [40]
2023 Sana Himself [41]
2025 Baban Baban Ban Vampire Ken "Franken" Shinozuka [42]

Live performances

Year Title Ref.
2018 27th Tokyo Girls Collection 2018 AUTUMN / WINTER [37]
2019 PRINCE OF LEGEND PREMIUM LIVE SHOW [17][18]
28th Tokyo Girls Collection 2019 SPRING / SUMMER [43][44]

Game

Year Title Network Role Ref.
2019 Prince Of Legend Love Royale Gabriel Sasazuka
  • Released on March 25
  • Available on iOS / Android

Advertisements

Year Title Ref.
2014 AOYAMA PRESTIGE TECHNOLOGY "Soul Man" [45]
2015 Daiichi Kosho Company Live DAM Stadium
Bandai Namco Entertainment Taiko no Tatsujin [46]
2016 SoftBank "Sponavi Live" [47]
2018 Nissin "Cup Noodle"
2019 NTT Docomo × RAG POUND [48][49]
Fendi "BaguetteFriendsForever" [50]

Music videos

Year Group Title Ref.
2011 Sandaime J Soul Brothers Fighters
2018 CrazyBoy Private Party
Red Diamond Dogs Red Soul Blue Dragon [51]
2019 Okamoto's Dancing Boy [52]

Work

Character

References

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  3. ^ Shūkan Exile (in Japanese). 2 Apr 2012. Tokyo Broadcasting System.
  4. ^ a b "GENERATIONS関口メンディーが演技初挑戦 白濱亜嵐の芝居にビビった". ORICON NEWS. 5 October 2016. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
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  17. ^ a b "鈴木伸之、"セレブ王子"片寄涼太に「抱かれてもいい」 王子たちがべた褒め合戦". ORICON NEWS. 26 April 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
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  21. ^ "関口メンディー Mandy Sekiguchi on Instagram: "サンリオキャラクター大賞コラボ部門でハローメンディーが第1位になりました🙇🏾✨🥇 ファンの皆さん、盛り上げてくださったEXILE・GENEのメンバー皆さん、EXILE TRIBE, E-girls, Jr EXILEの皆さん、そしてスタッフの皆さん…"". Instagram. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
  22. ^ "Motokare Mania Live-Action Series Casts EXILE's Mandy Sekiguchi". Anime News Network. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
  23. ^ "関口メンディー「世界で活躍できる人になりたい」 GENERATIONSから卒業発表受け会見:時事ドットコム". 時事ドットコム (in Japanese). 2024-05-01. Retrieved 2024-10-11.
  24. ^ "関口メンディー、ダイオウイカを追う". ORICON NEWS. 5 October 2016. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
  25. ^ "TBS元日に"最強スポーツ男子"決定戦 佐野岳、メンディー、春日らが激突". ORICON NEWS. 18 December 2016. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
  26. ^ "EXILE TRIBE、NAOTO主演ドラマでド迫力ダンス 豪華メンバーとコラボ". Model Press (in Japanese). Net Native. 19 Mar 2016.
  27. ^ "片寄涼太、佐野玲於ら個性豊かな"王子"ずらり 新プロジェクト始動&映画2019年公開". ORICON NEWS. 14 May 2018. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
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  29. ^ "関口メンディー、自身の"キャラ渋滞"に悩む「わけがわからない状態」". ORICON NEWS. 12 October 2018. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
  30. ^ "関口メンディー&斎藤工、女児向け特撮ドラマに出演「ファンタジーな世界でお芝居するのは初めて」". ORICON NEWS. 31 July 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
  31. ^ "【On air from 10/17 (Thu.)!】Mandy Sekiguchi appearing in Fuji TV's Thursday drama "Motokare Mania"! | NEWS (ALL) | LDH - LOVE + DREAM + HAPPINESS TO THE WORLD -". www.ldh.co.jp. Retrieved 2019-09-10.
  32. ^ "関口メンディー、GP帯ドラマ初出演でドッキリ疑う "ムダマッチョ"な役に起用". ORICON NEWS. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
  33. ^ "EXILE関口メンディー、ゴールデン帯ドラマ初出演に「ドッキリかもと…」<モトカレマニア> - モデルプレス". モデルプレス - ライフスタイル・ファッションエンタメニュース (in Japanese). 4 June 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
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  36. ^ "【11/30(金)21:30~「GYAO!」にて配信スタート!】オリジナルドラマ「ハピゴラ!」に白濱亜嵐&関口メンディーが出演! | LDH - LOVE + DREAM + HAPPINESS TO THE WORLD -". www.ldh.co.jp (in Japanese). Retrieved 2018-11-19.
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  39. ^ "映画『PRINCEOFLEGEND』来年3・21公開 最新予告映像&ポスタービジュアル解禁". ORICON NEWS. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
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  41. ^ "ミンナのウタ". eiga.com. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
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  43. ^ "【TGC2019SS】片寄涼太&佐野玲於らイケメン王子が集結 ハイタッチ&ハグに女子熱狂". ORICON NEWS. 17 July 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-29.
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  48. ^ "EXILE TRIBE AKIRA&小林直己&岩田剛典&関口メンディー&佐野玲於、ドコモ新CMに出演". Real Sound|リアルサウンド (in Japanese). 5 April 2019. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
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  50. ^ "【先行公開】舞台は東京!フェンディのショートムービー「#BaguetteFriendsForever」キャンペーンから最新エピソードが公開". THE FASHION POST (in Japanese). 24 September 2019. Retrieved 2019-09-30.
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  53. ^ ""Hello Mandy", a cartoon character of Mandy Sekiguchi produced by Sanrio, will be sold soon! | NEWS (ALL) | LDH - LOVE + DREAM + HAPPINESS TO THE WORLD -". www.ldh.co.jp. Retrieved 2018-11-20.