Masato Hagiwara

is a Japanese actor, voice actor, narrator and professional mahjong player. Biography Early life and education When Hagiwara was three years old, his parents divorced and he was taken in by his father. However, his father died when he was in the fourth grade, and was then raised by his paternal grandparents in Chigasaki until he was 15 years old. As a result, he spent most of his younger life without his mother. After graduating from Chigasaki Shiritsu Umeda Junior High School, Hagiwara moved to Tokyo. He enrolled in the part-time program at Tokyo Metropolitan Toyama High School, but dropped out after only one week. Later on, he went to the United States for a short period of time and was impressed by the movie audiences he saw in New York City, which led him to become interested in acting as a career. After returning to Japan, when he was helping out at his mother's bar in Shinjuku, he caught the eye of the casting staff for the TV drama Abunai Deka who had come in as customers, and was recruited. Then, in 1987, he made his debut as a young luggage thief in episode 32 of Abunai Deka. He continued to appear in many films as a minor role, but it was his role as Naojirō Matsuoka in the 1990 TV drama High School Rakugaki 2 that brought him to prominence.