Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2010

Actress Kyoko Hasegawa, 31, who took last year off for the birth of her first baby, returned to TV earlier this month in TV Asahi’s Thursday night series Angel Bank – Tenshoku Dairinin. Based on a manga by Norifusa Mita, the drama is a spin-off of the 2005 TBS show Dragon Zakura, in which Hasegawa starred as a high school teacher. In the new show, she portrays a “career change adviser” who has to deal with a colorful assortment of characters. “The character’s sense of justice is strong and it makes her really emotional,” says Hasegawa. “I see her as being really girly. In real life, I think I’m a little more ‘manly’ than that.”