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Emi Suzuki (鈴木 えみ born September 13, 1985 in the People's Republic of China) is a Japanese fashion model and occasional actress.

Emi Suzuki 鈴木 えみ
Emi Suzuki on Feb 2009 - The hat, glasses and shirt were made by her fan who is a 6 year old girl
Birth name	Wú Zǐliáng [1]
Date of birth	September 13, 1985 (1985-09-13) (age 24) [1]
Place of birth	Shanghai, People's Republic of China [1]
Height	5' 9½" (1.77 m) [2]
Weight	93 lbs (42 kg) [2]

Contents 1 Career 2 Height controversy 3 Weight controversy 4 Pinky : "All for Emi Suzuki" 5 Personal life 6 Footnotes 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Career

Born in Shanghai as Wu Tsûryan^[1] (simplified Chinese: 吴子良^[3]; pinyin: Wú Zǐliáng), Suzuki emigrated to Kyoto at the age of 12, becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen. She changed her name to the Japanese Emi Suzuki (鈴木依美).^[4]

Shortly after arriving in Japan, she attended Fujinomori Middle School, a public junior high school in Kyoto, and became fluent in Japanese within a year.^[4] After graduating from middle school, Suzuki attended Kyoto Ryōyō High School for a short period.^[3]

Suzuki auditioned for the fashion magazine Seventeen at the suggestion of a friend, successfully passed the audition in the summer of 1999, and began her modeling career at the age of 15. Soon after appearing in the magazine, her popularity rose, and she became a prominent model.^[4] In the late 1999, Suzuki appeared in her first TV commercial for Dancemania Speed 2 alongside Franky Gee.

After she first appeared in the music video for Ketsumeishi's 2005 mega-hit song Sakura^[5], she terminated her contract with Seventeen in 2006 and began her contract with Pinky as an exclusive^[vague] model.^[6] Since then as one of the most featured models of Pinky, whenever she landed on the cover of the magazine, she was alone, except only one time on 2007.^[7]

While working as a model for Pinky under an exclusive^[vague] contract, she has also worked as a model for many other fashion magazines and has modeled for a variety of ads, such as Shiseido, Suntory, OPC (Calorie Mate).^[6] Aside from modeling, she has appeared in many TV series, such as The Long Love Letter, The Queen of the Lunch, Water Boys 2,^[8] and made efforts to work with the TV series Yukan Club in 2007^[9].

Widely known by her nickname Emichee^[1], she has often been described as a "charismatic model"^[10]. Suzuki is particularly popular among gyaru teenagers in Japan.

In November 2007, having earned an estimated total of $31 million in the past 10 months, several medias named her one of the top ten earning models in Japan in 2007.^[11]

[edit] Height controversy

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Suzuki's height is officially recorded as 1.68m (5' 6¼") but it is widely believed that her real height is actually taller than her official height.

According to Yu Yamada, Suzuki's real height is "at least 1.75m (5' 9")" and she said "My official-height is 1.69m (5' 6½") but my real height is 1.73m (5' 8"), Emi-chee and Nana-chan have claimed that their heights are around 1.70m (5' 7"), while they were way taller than me when I met them in Odaiba".

On 2008, Masatoshi Sakai, who is regarded as one of the most influential producers in Japanese idol industry, said "Nowadays in Japan, many female models and idols claim their "official heights" which are shorter than their real heights. For example, Yui Aragaki and Emi Suzuki are actually over 1.75m (5' 9"). It is simply caused by their strategic marketings which still include various superstitions generated over twenty years ago such as each desirable heights for each fields of show business."

[edit] Weight controversy

She is often named as a too-thin model in Japan; through her career, her official weight has been around 94 lbs (43 kg).

Category	BMI range - kg/m2
Morbidly Obese	greater than 40
Obese	from 27.6 to 40
Overweight	from 23 to 27.5
Normal	from 18.5 to 22.9
Underweight	from 15 to 18.4
Starvation	less than 14.9

On October 21, 2008, Suzuki appeared in a midnight television program in her local city Kyoto, "Chrono's Gear", and weighed herself there. On the day, her weight was 92 lbs (41 kg).

In November, 2008, the special editorial of "Takarajima", a monthly lifestyle magazine in Japan, named Suzuki as "The 4th thinnest female model in the 2000s". The editorial reported her body spec, which was calculated by several specialists, as 5' 9½" (1.77m), 93 lbs (42 kg), and 13.4 (BMI).

According to her former fellow models who worked with her for Seventeen, including Anna Tsuchiya and Naoko Tokuzawa, Suzuki "ate enough" everyday. Tsuchiya described Suzuki as a "dumb a*s monster", as Suzuki "ate enough everyday" and still was "far taller-and-lighter" than Tsuchiya, and especially before appearing in television spots, Suzuki ate a "humongous amount of food" and was often slumped asleep to the floor with it like a overeaten cat or a dead drunkard, while Tsuchiya chronically suffered from heavy starvation. ^[12]

Another one of the former fellow models Ayano Seki described Suzuki as "a monster whose metabolism is insanely fast compared to normal human beings". Seki gave the following examples of peculiarities with her metabolism: her hair grew too quickly; she liked to have a suntan in the summer time, but her skin would lose its tan and return to its original tone in an extraordinarily short period of time; in preparation for appearing in the music video of Sakura, she had to eat large quantities of food to make her face chubbier, and after the work, she lost all of the extra weight with "amazing speed". Many of her fellows had nicknamed Suzuki "Fedor", indirectly meaning "monster"^[13] (Due to it, in 2008, TBS once tried to plan a special New Year's Eve program featuring a one-to-one conversation between Fedor Emelianenko and Suzuki, with reserves of at least $20 million guarantees for them, but it did not come off on accounts of their respective schedules).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Pinky : "All for Emi Suzuki"

Suzuki had decided to retire from modeling and go back to Kyoto as soon as she hit 20. That's why her agency Stardust Promotion and the publisher Shueisha, not wanting to let her go, started a new magazine, Pinky, with a huge budget.^[14]

According to a former staff of the magazine, the executives of Stardust Promotion knew well that Suzuki is not good at refusing, and tried to make this magazine's publication a "fait accompli". It was Suzuki herself that's on the front cover of the first issue of this magazine.^[14]

[edit] Personal life

Most aspects of Suzuki's private life remain mysterious. Through her career, she has revealed only a minimum part of her personal information. Nana Eikura said in a radio program, "Emi rarely talks about herself to others, even to me".^[15] Eikura has been Suzuki's best and maybe exclusive friend since their Seventeen era (around 2003). According to Eikura, who has been to Suzuki's room, Suzuki lives alone in an expensive apartment and her room was almost vacant which contained few belongings such as a refrigerator, a bureau, a sofa, a single-bed, a vase and some books.^[15]

As for her hobby, if she has it, it may include watching MMA^{[16][† 1]}. Since the early 2000s, there is a vogue among Seventeen models for liking K-1 and Pride FC, and according to Sayaka Ogata (a former ST model), Suzuki in the course of time began to watch it like other ST models and was seemingly interested especially in Wanderlei Silva. In addition to it, a writer who competed to edit an MMA magazine claimed that he witnessed Suzuki^{[† 2]} once at the Saitama Arena.^[17] On the day, the Pride FC held a tournament there, Pride Grand Prix 2006 Final, where the fighters included Wanderlei Silva and some others.^{[† 3]}

Anna Tsuchiya once spent her private time together with Suzuki, it was when they both were 17. They enjoyed a summer festival at Suzuki's local city (maybe the Gion Festival of Kyoto). After being proposed by Suzuki, Anna canceled her modeling schedule and then followed Suzuki. Tsuchiya and Suzuki stayed for 5 days in an inn near Lake Biwa. According to Tsuchiya, Suzuki had already been too famous in Kyoto at the time, so she was often surrounded by a crowd of especially young girls who wanted to shake hands with her, and many of them ("brats") called her Emi-nee.^{[† 4]} Tsuchiya has got a photo of her and Suzuki, which was taken at this time, striking a pose of a wrestler ("the pose of Jun") in miko clothes.^[18] "Emi-nee" became one of the most known nicknames for Suzuki along with "Emi-chee".^[12]

It is certain that Suzuki is very wealthy with her own success as an actress, especially as a model. In 2008, Suzuki gave Nana Eikura a car as a birthday present when Eikura got a driver license at the age of 20. Eikura was surprised five months after the day when she found out that the price of the car was more than 8 million yen (roughly $80,000). It was a model of Lexus. Other people who received some gifts from Suzuki include Ryuji Ito, Jun Kasai, Abdullah Kobayashi,^{[† 5]} and may include Masada, Cima, Wifebeater, and Go Shiozaki.^[19]

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Official profile at her management firm
• emisuzuki.com, an unofficial website which has been named as a source referring Emi's BWH by IMDb