By Chris Betros

Arts & Culture Jun. 25, 2010 - 05:21AM JST ( 15 )

TOKYO —

It’s rare to go a week without seeing Yu Yamada’s face on a billboard, in a TV commercial, on a fashion magazine cover, in a TV drama or singing at a concert. 

Her latest venture is the TV Asahi series “Eri on the Edge – A Story about Money,” in which she plays the lead role of Eriko, a down-on-her-luck, penniless woman. The drama, which starts in July, is based on manga artist Rieko Saibara’s irreverent children’s book, “The All-Important Story of Money,” which describes how the main character overcomes hardship to find success.

Born into a poor household in Kochi Prefecture, Eriko is eventually accepted at an art college in Tokyo. However, troubled with debt, Eriko’s father (Takanori Jinnnai) attempts to end the family’s suffering by crashing the family car with everyone inside. Surviving the crash with her mother, Eriko’s luck takes a further turn for the worse when a debt collector grabs the family’s possessions. On the brink of giving up her dreams of college, Eriko is finally able to journey to Tokyo with her mother’s help. The impoverished Eriko is a departure from Yamada’s normally stylish image.

Yamada said she has always liked to challenge herself. When she was 11, she entered the same Okinawa acting and singing school that singers Namie Amuro and Speed attended. In 1999, she made her singing debut with the group y’z factory. Following the group’s break up, Yamada moved to television, making her acting debut in the 2001 drama series “Kabachitare!” One year later, she was offered modeling work by top fashion magazine CanCam and was soon walking the red carpet at gala events and is still a regular at the popular Tokyo Girls Collection each year.

Standing 170 cms tall, she seems to have inherited much of her good looks from her mother, Mikako Yamada, a former JAL flight attendant, beauty contest winner and fashion model with 20 years in the business. In a rare project, Yamada and her mother appeared in a photo spread together in VoCE magazine a few years ago.

Yamada is now one of the most in-demand celebrities for product endorsements, having fronted for Tokyo Metro, Kanebo, Vodafone, Nissin, Canon, Fujitsu and Ezaki Glico and Shu Uemura. When Yamada did the ball exercise in the Glico apple yogurt TV commercial, children who saw it mimicked her and it became a sort of phenomenon. Most recently, Yamada took over from Chiaki Kuriyama as the campaign girl for Uniqlo’s popular bra-tops. “I was a little bit embarrassed doing those commercials because I had to appear naked on camera from the back up,” she admitted. “But the styles are great. I feel like they could empower a woman to be perfect.”

Yamada, who confessed to being a shopaholic, said: “It’s good for stress, or for when I want to reward myself. I love clothes more than anything else.”

Amid her varied activities, Yamada is constantly the subject of media gossip about her love life. One magazine recently ran a feature story on who would be the next CanCam alumni to get married after Yuri Ebihara—Yu Yamada or Moe Oshikiri? Yamada has had an on-again-off-again relationship with actor Shun Oguri, 27, with whom she went to Hawaii earlier this year. 

When Yamada made her debut as the new beauty adviser for cosmetics brand Shu Uemura, she was supposed to be promoting the company’s new UV Under Base Mousse foundation product, but the reporters were more interested in her love life. She said they like to play golf and just relax together, but denied any marriage plans yet. “I want to get married some time, but right now, I’d like to focus on my work.” But when asked if Oguri is the one she’d like to tie the knot with, Yamada smiled and said, “Maybe. I’ll leave it up to your imagination.”