Yumiko Aoyagi

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Yumiko Aoyagi (born 1969 in Yokohama, Kanagawa) is a Japanese television writer, who worked very briefly in 2007 on the popular United States web show lonelygirl15 as a writer, director, and producer. Aoyagi is an award winning writer whose substantial body of work covers television, publishing and cinema. One of the most prolific and successful Japanese screenwriters of the last decade, she has written 16 hit network television series (receiving a NHK CEO Special Award), 2 telefilms, 2 feature films, 15 novels, one collection of essays and three translations of Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, The last great Whandoodle and Mandy by Julie Andrews. During this time, she helped to launch the careers of many prominent actors, directors and producers and became a trusted cultural icon in Japanese society.

Highly respected for her work and a well-known celebrity in Japan, she’s written over 300 essays and articles for prestigious and popular magazines on subject matters as diverse as screenwriting, love, family, travel and education. She frequently lectures at Tokyo’s top universities and film schools and is the trusted interviewer of many Hollywood film stars and producers during their promotional tours of Japan. Also, she has appeared on many nationally syndicated talk shows and variety shows.

After graduating cum laude from Sophia University (Jyochi University) with a BA in Comparative Literature in 1995, her writing career began for Fuji TV with her groundbreaking work on, KAIKI CLUB (“Horror Club”) a popular horror series similar to The Twilight Zone. One of the original writers, she created the successful concepts that maintained the show’s popularity long after she had moved on. In 1996 her career took off after writing for a feature film, TOMOKO NO BAAI (“In case of Tomoko”), which was nominated for the Blue Ribbon Award in Japan. In the same year, her 2 hour telefilm, SAIGO NO KAZOKU RYOKO (Family Affair) for Tokyo Broadcast System won the monthly Galaxy Award of the month. Her work includes, MANHATTAN DIARIES(2006), KEKKONN NO KATACHI (2004), PRETTY GIRL (2002), KOI NO KAMISAMA (2000), MOONLIGHT EXPRESS(1998), YAMADAKE NO SHINBOU(1999) SWEET SEASON (1998), RISOU NO KEKKON (1997), ICHIBAN TAISETSUNA HITO (1995), HITORIGURASHI (1996) , HEN (1996) , OKKUMANCHOJYA TO KEKKON SURU HOHO , KOKORO (2003), SEIZON (2002), TADAIMA (2000) and a telefilm GAMOUTEI JIKEN (1998) .

In 2003, she became the youngest writer to spearhead NHK’s ASANO TEREBI DORAMA SHOUSETSU (Morning Drama Series), the nation’s most respected and highest rated slot. Her show KOKORO, a 156 episode series, received NHK Chairman awards and had been novelized. Her first Hong Kong film ‘MOON LIGHT EXPRESS’ starring Lesile Chang was shown at 1,000 theaters across Asia.

She is a polyglot, speaking Japanese, English, German, Cantonese and Spanish and was raised in Japan and lived in the United States and Europe for several years.

Her latest project is $5.2 million, the world biggest Internet show, "The Scary City" that launched on September 15, 2008. It's expanding to Korea, France, U.K., Israel for the next 3 years.