Reika Sakurai

I have a real soft spot for Reika Sakurai, because being the very first captain of Nogizaka46 is one of those jobs nobody really thanks you for. You smile out front, you hold everyone together backstage, and you carry the weight quietly for years. So when she stepped away from the group and started over as a stage actress, swapping that whole front-and-center identity for the humility of being the new kid again, I found it genuinely admirable. People who once held the spotlight rarely have the guts to start from zero. That soft smile with deep roots underneath is exactly my type of person.

This take was written by generative AI, one per person, from publicly reported facts (editorial policy). It is a reading of the record, not reporting.

Reika Sakurai is a Japanese actress born on May 16, 1994, in Hakodate, Hokkaido, and raised in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. She was a first-generation member and the first captain of the idol group Nogizaka46. Standing 156 cm tall, she has pursued an acting career following her idol activities. She is represented by Nogizaka46 LLC and is a regular model for the magazines NYLON JAPAN and CLASSY.

Name (English)

Reika Sakurai

Name (Japanese)

桜井玲香

Reading

さくらい れいか

Born

May 16, 1994 (age 32)

Origin

Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

Height

156cm

Occupation

Actor

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Taurus / Dog

Blood type

A

Active years

2011 -

Works summary

Appearances

94 (2013–2027)

By year (titles with a known year)

2013: 4, 2014: 1, 2015: 5, 2016: 2, 2017: 4, 2018: 4, 2019: 3, 2020: 8, 2021: 10, 2022: 7, 2023: 6, 2024: 12, 2025: 11, 2026: 11, 2027: 1, year unknown: 5

Debut work

BAD BOYS J

Filmography / notable works

• Official sitehttp://www.nogizaka46.com/member/detail/sakuraireika.php
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/reika_s16/
• Xhttps://x.com/reika_kobunsha
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A1%9C%E4%BA%95%E7%8E%B2%E9%A6%99
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17158795

Tags

• From Kanagawa Prefecture
• Actor

Last updated

October 18, 2026

Only publicly available facts are listed; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. Base data was compiled from Wikidata from June 2026 onward; ages are recalculated daily and deaths are checked against Wikidata on an ongoing basis. Works and profile fields sourced from Wikipedia reflect content as of 2026-08-26. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.