Risa Niigaki

Risa Niigaki joined Morning Musume in 2001 as part of the fifth generation, alongside Ai Takahashi, Asami Konno and Makoto Ogawa. She was born in October 1988, which means she was twelve when she walked into what was then one of the biggest pop acts in Japan. Sit with that for a second. A middle schooler, on national television, learning the job in public. Plenty of people in that position burn out or quietly disappear. She did neither. She stayed, kept going through generation after generation of turnover, and ended up carrying the group from the front. That kind of longevity in idol pop is genuinely rare. She grew up in Yokohama, having moved there at six, and she has since worked as a stage actress and on YouTube as well as in music. Whatever the format, she has been standing in front of an audience for most of her life.

Name (English)

Risa Niigaki

Name (Japanese)

新垣里沙

Reading

にいがき りさ

Born

October 20, 1988 (age 37)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Libra / Dragon

Origin

Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

Height

154 cm

Occupation

singer / stage actor / YouTuber / Japanese idol

• Official sitehttp://www.jp-r.co.jp/risa_niigaki/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/risa_risa_risadayo/
• Xhttps://x.com/risa1020rr
• Wikipedia (English)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risa%20Niigaki
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B0%E5%9E%A3%E9%87%8C%E6%B2%99
• Wikidatahttps://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q233349

Tags

• Kanagawa Prefecture
• singer
• stage actor
• YouTuber

Last updated

2026-08-07

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.