Mandy Sekiguchi

Mandy Sekiguchi
関口 メンディー
Born	25 January 1991 New Jersey, United States
Nationality	Japanese American
Other names	Mandy Monsta Twiggz
Citizenship	United States
Education	Nippon Sport Science University
Occupation(s)	Rapper, dancer
Years active	2011–present
Employer	LDH
Notable credits	Generations from Exile Tribe Exile Exile Tribe Jr.Exile
Height	182 cm (6 ft 0 in)
Website	www.ldh.co.jp/eng/management/generations_sekiguchi/

Mandy Sekiguchi (関口 メンディー; Sekiguchi Mendi, born January 25, 1991, in New Jersey, United States) is an American-Japanese dancer, rapper, actor and a member of J-Pop groups Generations from Exile Tribe, Exile and Honest Boyz.

Sekiguchi is represented with LDH. His mother is Japanese and his father is Yoruba Nigerian.

Early life

Mandy Sekiguchi was born on January 25, 1991, in New Jersey, United States and grew up in Shinagawa, Tokyo. Even though he was born outside of Japan, he was raised monolingual in Japanese and only started to study English later on in his career. He started playing baseball at the age of 6 and practiced it till his third year in high school.

Career

In April 2011, Mandy participated in the Exile Professional Gym (EXPG) audition produced by Hiro, and he was selected as a member of Generations from Exile Tribe.

In April 2012, he became an official member of Generations and debuted in November of the same year.

Mandy advanced into acting for the first time in April 2014, when he was selected as a cast member of Fuji TV's late night program Wow. On April 27, 2014, Mandy passed the Exile Performer Battle Audition Final in Nippon Budoukan and became a member of Exile. In May of the same year, he made his stage debut in the stage play Dance Earth Project "Changes" while also joining the coed-group Dance Earth Party for one year.

On January 26, 2015, members of Sekiguchi MANDY and GENERATIONS from EXILE TRIBE were appointed as "Hong Kong Tourism Goodwill Ambassadors" by the Hong Kong Tourism Board. On 15 April 2016, he became a member of the hip-hop unit Honest Boyz. He took on the position of MC in the group, calling himself simply Mandy (stylized as MANDY). This marked the first time he would use his vocals in a group.

In August 2017, Mandy produced the 24karats×KANGOL collaboration collection of designer hats. 24karats is a fashion brand developed by LDH while KANGOL was founded in 1938 as a British traditional beret brand which established itself as a symbol of the art scene. Additionally, he made his acting debut in LDH's movie universe HiGH & LOW in the same year.

On June 5, 2018, he threw the first pitch at the opening ceremony of the Giants vs Rakuten baseball game, held at Tokyo Dome. His appearance garnered great public attention since the speed of his pitch reached 133 km/h, the fastest thrown by an entertainer at that time. His record was broken by Golden Bomber's Kenji Darvish later on (135 km/h) and both developed a comedic rivalry. On August 31, Sanrio announced they would produce a new character, Hello Mandy, based on Mandy Sekiguchi. The character is designed with an "M" lavaliere on a necklace and one of Mandy's most familiar hairstyles.

In January 2019, Mandy was chosen as a representative for the promotion of the American movie Aquaman in Japan. On February 14, he attended the PRINCE OF LEGEND PREMIUM LIVE SHOW, a fan-meeting with the whole Prince of Legend cast, at Yokohama Arena. On March 18, Mandy was invited to throw another first pitch at the opening ceremony of the Giants vs Mariners baseball game at Tokyo Dome. However, he wasn't able to exceed his previous record. On June 4, it was announced that Hello Mandy won the No. 1 prize in the collaboration category of the Sanrio Character Award, an award based on an annual popularity voting. On July 17, Generations from Exile Tribe released the single "Brand New Story". It included "Control Myself" as a B-side track, being the group's first original English song and also the first one to feature Mandy as a rapper. On September 9, it was announced that Mandy would be part of the cast for the live-action series of the manga Motokare Mania (モトカレマニア; Ex-Boyfriend Mania). This would be the first time that he will appear in a prime time drama.

Participating groups

Name	Period of time
Generations from Exile Tribe	April 2011 –
Exile	April 2014 –
®ag Pound	2015 –
Honest Boyz	April 2016 –

Filmography

TV programmes

Year	Title	Network	Notes	Ref.
2013-2015	Kyuukyoku no Otoko wa Dareda? Saikyou Supoutsu Danshi Choujou Kessen	TBS	Appeared in the second to fifth and seventh Annual Meeting Victory
2014	Wow	Fuji TV
	Viking	Fuji TV
2016	Kyuukyoku no Otoko wa Dareda? Saikyou Supoutsu Danshi moto Ni~Tsu Choujou Kessen!	TBS	New Year's special

Stage

Year	Title	Role
2014	Dance Earth: Changes	Kuruma

TV dramas

Year	Title	Network	Role	Notes	Ref.
2016	Night Hero Naoto	TV Tokyo	himself	Episode 5; ending dance
2018	Prince of Legend	NTV	Gabriel Sasazuka
2019	Secret x Warrior Phantomirage	TV Tokyo	Phandy
	Ex-Boyfriend Mania (モトカレマニア)	Fuji TV	Tadafumi Shirai
2023	Ya Boy Kongming!	Fuji TV	Keiji Maezono

Web Dramas

Year	Title	Network	Role	Ref.
2018	Happy-Go-Lucky!	GYAO!	Manns

Movies

Year	Title	Role	Ref.
2017	High & Low The movie 2 End Of Sky	Pho
	High & Low The movie 3 Final Mission
2019	Prince of Legend	Gabriel Sasazuka
2022	Kappei	Kazuya
2023	Sana	Himself

Live

Year	Title	Ref.
2018	27th Tokyo Girls Collection 2018 AUTUMN / WINTER
2019	PRINCE OF LEGEND PREMIUM LIVE SHOW
	28th Tokyo Girls Collection 2019 SPRING / SUMMER

Game

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2019	Prince Of Legend Love Royale	Gabriel Sasazuka	Released on March 25 Available on iOS / Android

Advertisements

Year	Title	Ref.
2014	AOYAMA PRESTIGE TECHNOLOGY "Soul Man"
2015	Daiichi Kosho Company Live DAM Stadium
	Bandai Namco Entertainment Taiko no Tatsujin
2016	SoftBank "Sponavi Live"
2018	Nissin "Cup Noodle"
2019	NTT Docomo × RAG POUND
	Fendi "BaguetteFriendsForever"

Music videos

Year	Group	Title	Ref.
2011	Sandaime J Soul Brothers	Fighters
2018	CrazyBoy	Private Party
	Red Diamond Dogs	Red Soul Blue Dragon
2019	Okamoto's	Dancing Boy

Work

Character

• "Hello Mandy"(December, 2018; Sanrio)