Mackenyu

, known professionally as or simply Mackenyu, is a Japanese actor. He is the son of actor and martial artist Sonny Chiba. Mackenyu rose to fame after portraying Arata Wataya in the Chihayafuru live-action trilogy in 2016, which earned him the 40th Japan Academy Newcomers of the Year Award in 2017. He has since portrayed characters in many other adaptations of popular manga series, including JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable Chapter I (2017), Tokyo Ghoul S (2019), the villain Yukishiro Enishi in Rurouni Kenshin: The Final (2021), the protagonist Pegasus Seiya in Knights of the Zodiac and Roronoa Zoro in the Netflix series One Piece (2023). Early life Mackenyu Maeda, known as Mackenyu Arata, was born on November 16, 1996, in Los Angeles. He is the son of Japanese parents, Tamami Chiba and Japanese action movie star Sonny Chiba, and has two siblings, a half sister named Juri Manase (his father's daughter from previous marriage) and a brother named Gordon. He attended Beverly Hills High School in their Advanced Placement Program and appeared in a few films and TV shows while growing up, including the TV mini-series Team Astro (Astro Kyūdan) (2005), and the Japanese feature film Oyaji (2007), as he devoted most of his time to school and graduation. As a young child, Mackenyu had many interests. He learned horseback riding and Yabusame at the age of 7. He practiced Kyokushin Karate since he was eight years old, and he was placed third at the US kyokushin Karate Nationals in middle school. In high school he did gymnastics, water polo, and wrestling, becoming the school representative for the latter. He was also into music, playing piano since he was 10 years old, and later participated in the brass band of his high school in Beverly Hills, playing saxophone, and flute. At the age of 15, Mackenyu watched a Japanese movie and the actor who starred in it inspired him to pursue acting professionally in Japan. He held on to the dream of co-starring with the actor once he established his acting career in Japan. He later revealed that it was the late Haruma Miura after he co-starred with him in the movie adaptation of Gunjō Senki. Mackenyu landed his first feature film lead role in Take a Chance (2015) and was featured in an acclaimed short movie depicting a Japanese family suffering the aftermath of the World War II in Tadaima (2015) in which the movie won The Best Narrative Short in Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival.