About 中川翔子

Shōko Nakagawa (中川翔子, Nakagawa Shōko, born May 5, 1985, in Tokyo as Shiyoko Nakagawa (中川しようこ, Nakagawa Shiyōko)) also known as Shokotan (to fans) is a Japanese idol and multi-talented celebrity (an actress, seiyu (voice actor), illustrator, singer and blogger). She is the daughter of 中川勝彦, a celebrity in Japan in the 1980s. In July 2006, she released her debut single, "Brilliant Dream". It entered the Oricon chart at number 29, with initial sales of 6,313 copies. Shokotan performed at Anime Expo 2008 at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 3 till July 6. She is also known for loving cosplay, and buys up many clothes at auction, particularly costumes for Neon Genesis Evangelion, the Final Fantasy series and Sailor Moon. She is known for liking manga and anime, and also enjoys watching professional boxing. Her official blog, Shokotan * Blog, opened in 2004, and by April 2006 it had received a total of 100 million hits. On February 2, 2008, the daily Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported that her blog had been accessed 1 billion times. As one might expect from her personality, there are very many otaku-style entries, and she updates it extremely regularly, as she admitted in an interview, because she uses it as a kind of notepad. In the month of April 2005, there were 600 updates, and on January 28, 2006 there were 70 updates, a record number for a single day. It is likely that she holds the record for the greatest number of blog updates by an idol. She has become known as the "New Queen of the Blog", after the original "Queen of the Blog", Kaori Manabe. Due to her blog's popularity, in September 2005, Koma Books released a compilation of her blog entries, also entitled Shokotan * Blog. She is so fond of cats that she once took home an abandoned cat she found while filming. Her father Nakagawa Katsuhiko died of leukemia in 1994 when Shokotan was only nine years old, from then on she was raised by her mother alone. She won the Grand Prix award at the Popolo Girl Audition in 2001, thus making her debut in the entertainment world. At the time of her debut, she belonged to the Jackie Chan talent agency, on the "Yume-Ga-Oka Residence" programme on SKY PerfecTV!, she was given a Jackie Chan photo book by Midorikawa Shobo, who were guests on the show. She commented "I thought he was an enemy of Bruce Lee's", apparently referring to Enter the Dragon, but this is a curious statement, given that she belonged to the Jackie Chan talent agency and has also met Jackie Chan. She was chosen as Miss Shonen Magazine in 2002. She appeared in a brief section of "Kangaeru Hito" (People who Think) on the Fuji TV Network, she showed her ability as an illustrator, which won her a regular place on the later version of the programme which started with minor changes in early 2005, "Kangaeru Hitokoma" (Thinking about one frame [of a cartoon strip]). From May 2005, for just under a year, she appeared as a regular on the TBS Programme "Osama no Branch", which made her well known among the general public.