300 Contracts in 3 Years! Former Idol Nachu, Who is Very Active in the Real Estate Industry: “I’m looking for tenants to move in with me (laughs)”

When one thinks of the homes of successful celebrities, one imagines a luxurious house in a quiet residential area or a high-class condominium with full security measures. One would think that a popular celebrity living in a celebrity location would have a high income and a wide selection of properties to choose from, but this is not the case. However, this is not the case. Because of their unstable income, they are often subject to stricter screening procedures than ordinary people, and there are special conditions and hurdles to overcome. There is a real estate company employee who is extremely trusted in the industry because he is well aware of such conditions.

He is a real estate agent for “Marks Real Estate,” who has worked as the president of GALSAR, a comedian, and an idol, and now works alongside his celebrity activities. Natsuko Takekawa, 38, aka “Nachu,” formerly of SDN48, is the representative butler of Goyogata Real Estate, which specializes in real estate transactions for celebrities.

She said, “A long time ago, I passed the screening by the guarantee company, but failed the owner screening. There was no interview, just the paperwork, so I think they probably judged me based on the pictures I had taken on the Internet of myself with my hair in a bun and gal makeup. At that time, I felt that I was a social misfit, and I was seriously depressed. I definitely don’t want comedians who are chasing their dreams or people who are just starting out to do their best to feel the same way. It’s the same whether the rent is 3 million yen or 30,000 yen. It’s not about the amount, but if I can solve someone’s problem, I can feel my place and the meaning of my existence. I really enjoy having such a place in the real estate industry.”

The company has received a steady stream of word-of-mouth referrals from people in the industry, including celebrities, office staff, and professional athletes, and has closed more than 300 deals in about three years. In addition, he says that he handled everything from property searches and previews to complicated paperwork all by himself.

He says, “There are different trends depending on the genre, such as areas favored by idols and towns with many comedians. The properties we recommend differ depending on whether the person travels by car or by train, as well as whether it is difficult to be discovered by the public. Also, for comedians, it is important to know if the property is OK to film at home. I understand the important points that are unique to entertainers because I am related to them. Some young girls, such as idols, are afraid to go on a private viewing alone with a male staff member, and I, who am like an “auntie relative in the entertainment world,” seem to make them feel at ease.

It is not only the entertainers who sign contracts with the company that place their trust in me. In some cases, the owners of the properties with whom Takekawa does business have become more open to having celebrities move into their properties after being introduced to Takekawa’s work. Takekawa says, “Before the screening process, we tell the owner about the personality of the prospective tenant, saying things like, ‘You may have seen this image on TV, but in reality, he or she is a decent and nice person. I don’t think ordinary real estate agencies do this very often, but it makes all the difference. At the end of the day, it’s the person,” he says sincerely.

Unlike company employees, who can prove their income by submitting a gensen choshuhyo (certificate of withholding tax), it takes time to prepare the necessary documents to be examined by a guarantee company, even if they are affiliated with an office. We ask them to prepare such complicated procedures ahead of time, and we are as meticulous as a butler to ensure that the desired property does not flow away while they are still waiting for the documents to be arranged.

She is a company employee working for a real estate company, but is still an entertainer affiliated with Watanabe Entertainment. While this transition is unique, it is also unique in that her initial appearance on “Koi no Karafutsu” (Nippon Television Network) with her hair in a full head of hair and gal makeup was a public relations campaign to “convey the good qualities of gals. Why did she become a gyaru in the first place?

In elementary school, she was an honor student who served as student body president. However, after entering junior high school, she was bullied to the point of contemplating suicide. She says, “I received a lot of mail I didn’t know about, and when I entered the classroom, I found my desk was empty. I was bullied in so many ways.

I guess they didn’t realize I was being bullied, but the gyaru girls in my class invited me to lunch. I had always been afraid of gyaru, but because of the bullying, I thought, ‘I don’t care what happens to me now,’ so I joined the gyaru kids at their gathering place and started eating lunch with them. Then, people around me started warning me, saying, ‘Mr. Takekawa, you’ve become a gal,’ or ‘You’ve become friends with a group of gals, you’re dangerous,’ and suddenly the bullying stopped.

At the time, she wore frame-like glasses and braided her hair, the opposite of a gyaru. The gals were the opposite of the “gals,” with their frame-like glasses and braided hair. They had been kept away as scary, at the behest of teachers and others, but once they actually talked to the gals, their impressions changed dramatically.

They were more pure than the girls who bullied me, and they didn’t look at people with colored glasses. They would talk about me, a plain, boring girl, and say, ‘That’s good. It’s good. It’s interesting! and befriended me. I felt that I was looking at these girls with prejudice, while the gyaru girls had no prejudice.

Although she dyed her hair fluorescent pink and became a “gyaru” (gal) on the outside, inside she remained as serious and serious as ever since she became student council president, and was recognized as a hard-nosed gal who was strict about hierarchy and valued her friends. Having been saved by gyaru himself, Takekawa wanted to convey the essence of gyaru to the public, and began to participate in large-scale events and other public relations activities; he retired as president of gyaru-sa in February 2006, but it was this continuing feeling that led him to audition for “Koi no kara no tumult” shortly afterward.

When he did so and appeared on the program under the nickname “Gyarusa,” he felt strongly that the entertainment industry was fun and rewarding. Looking back on those days when she was the center of attention, she recalls , “Looking back now, I completely misunderstood that it was not my ability, but that Mr. Sanma made it many times more interesting (laughs). He found his place among the gals and found his zest for life in protecting the younger members of the group. However, after appearing on television, he had a dream for himself: to become a TV personality.”

She then entered the Watanabe Comedy School Female Talent Course, and after graduation, her office told her that if she were to sign a contract, she would be a comedian, and she began her career as a female comedian. However, as an aspiring talent, she was unable to create material, and was rejected at every audition for the short story shows that were booming at the time. Takekawa was in such a situation when a major turning point came.

He was told that there was going to be an audition in Shibuya, so he went to the SDN48 audition as if to say, “Shibuya is my garden, so of course I’m going. There were a lot of female comedians there, and I was being passed over pretty quickly, so I naturally thought I would be passed over as well. But when I sang “Amagi koshi” in my full gal outfit, Akimoto Yasushi burst out laughing. I will never be able to repay Mr. Akimoto’s kindness.”

In fact, when I was in kindergarten, my dream was to become an idol. I had lost my confidence after being bullied and had completely given up on the dream, but this was the moment when it came true in an unexpected way.

There have been people who have gone from aspiring idols to celebrities and comedians, but a comedian-turned-idol route would be quite unique.

As part of a project for ABEMA’s program “Ishibashi Takaaki Premium,” “Goyo Fudosan” gave Nishikigoi’s Mr. Hasegawa a tour of our property. At that time, the two Nishikigoi guys asked me, ‘Isn’t that great? ‘That’s a rare pattern, isn’t it? I’ve never heard of anyone following that path.’

She became a member of SDN48 and also took the stage in AKB48, but as an MC. Although they were members of the same group, they were not involved in the fierce rivalry of competing with each other to win standing positions and song assignments (singing assignments).

We were everyone’s friends (laughs). The AKB48 “God 7” really took care of me, especially Mariko Shinoda, and I can’t tell you how many times she took me out to dinner with her. A-chan (Atsuko Maeda) would give me a ride home on the train from a distant location when I didn’t have a field manager, and she would tell me, “Nachu, come ride in my car with me. He would often hug me and say, “I’m so tired,” which was really cute.

That kind of relationship was conveyed to her devoted fans. “All the people who line up to shake hands with me at handshake events do so in order to make conversation when they shake hands with their favorite members. But since I am also a fan, I was happy to be treated that way, and to be honest, I thought it was very convenient (laughs). I can’t be the top guess, but I’m in everyone’s top three.” She said that she felt positive about even being used, which must have attracted many of the Nachu guess fans to her personality.

She had a unique presence within the AKB group and was a member of a popular idol group. However, she sometimes felt lonely amidst the glittering idols.

I wanted to be selected one day, but I couldn’t make the SDN48 selection. I had to take singing and dancing lessons for the “under” group, in which I had to fill in for a girl who was absent, and I also had to act as MC, so I worked twice as hard as anyone else, but I was never given a spot for my performance. While everyone else was on stage, I would wait backstage by myself until it was my turn to MC. I felt lonely and conflicted about the meaning of my existence. That is why I put everything I had into the three minutes of MC I was given.

That was how she found her place, but with the dissolution of SDN48 in March 2012, her idol career came to an end after less than three years.

After graduating from Idol, she tried her hand at being a comedian again, but it did not last long. While searching for various ways to survive in the entertainment industry, she obtained a master’s degree in calligraphy, of which she was a 7th dan. She developed a performance called “body calligraphy,” in which she wrote calligraphy on the skin of idols, models, and professional wrestlers, and her career as a “gyaru-shodo (gal) calligrapher” began to expand. Just then, however, her father, who was running a real estate company after retiring from a major real estate firm, became ill.

He would have wanted to raise me to be a “proper young lady,” but even though I worried him when I became a gal, and even though I entered the entertainment business, he has always supported me and loved me. So I decided to quit everything and do whatever I could for my father and take over the company. First, I started working part-time at a different real estate company than the one I work for now, while studying to become a licensed real estate agent.

Although real estate work is a far cry from show business, his earnest personality, amiability, and connections as an entertainer helped him win one contract after another.

“Even then, my friends in the entertainment business would ask me, ‘Nachu, since you work in real estate, can I ask you to help me find a room?’ I was often asked for advice. Being different from the general public, I realized that there were quite a few people having trouble finding housing, and I wanted to be helpful if that was okay with me.”

His part-time job to learn the practicalities of the real estate industry went well, but the pass rate for real estate agents was about 15%. He failed the exam twice and passed on his third try. Around the time he passed on his third attempt, his father recovered from his illness and returned to work, and he no longer needed to “take over his father’s company,” which had been his goal in obtaining the certification.

I was truly happy about my father’s recovery, and when I thought again about the path I should take, what came to mind were my friends in the entertainment industry who were having trouble with real estate contracts.

When I decided that I wanted to work hard in the real estate industry in my own way, I consulted with Mr. Koji Hanahara, the representative of my current company. I had met him when I was working part-time, and I was very impressed when he said, ‘For the world and for people, I want to pursue the potential of real estate and solve the world’s problems. …… When I told him about the direction I wanted to take, he listened sincerely and said he would support my ideas. So I joined “Marks Real Estate” and launched the “Goyo Real Estate” business.

During his junior high school years, when he was bullied to the point of contemplating suicide, he lost his self-confidence and experienced a lack of a sense of self-worth.

Therefore, ever since he was saved by Gyaru, Takekawa has been thinking more about “for someone else” and “being useful to others” than about himself, and he feels his place and fulfillment there. He has been doing his best to protect the younger members of his group as the president of Gyalsa, and he has also been an MC for his idol group, and he jumped into the real estate industry, a different field, to help his father.

The reason why he does not feel unnatural or uncomfortable even though he continues to make unusual changes in his career is probably because he has not lost his focus. It makes me happy to hear people say, ‘I found a good property because of Nachu,’ or ‘I passed the screening because of Nachu,’ and it’s a very rewarding job! He says with a real sense of enjoyment.

Takekawa’s challenge for the future is to expand the business of “Goyo Real Estate. Since there is a limit to how much he can continue to handle the requests that spread by word of mouth alone, he has just hired a new employee. That staff member is also an active entertainer.

It is not limited to side jobs or second careers for entertainers, but there are times when we need to communicate not only with the person signing the contract, but also with the manager and the office, so it is easier to work with someone who understands the entertainment industry. People who know the entertainment industry are more comfortable working with other entertainers because they feel as if they are related to the company.

In the future, we are looking to expand overseas in coordination with the growth of the company. “I hope to be able to help entertainers like Naomi Watanabe who want to challenge themselves overseas to find local properties. I would also like to work on introducing properties to foreign entertainers who want to work in Japan.

The direction of business expansion that Takekawa has taken is not to expand outside of Japan, but rather to “help people,” a stance that is uniquely Takekawa’s. “We don’t just want to help people sign contracts for properties,” he said.

I want to come up with services that will help not only the people who sign contracts for properties, but also their families. I myself love families and want them to be happy, so if I can help make the contractor’s family happy as well.”

Instead of making other people’s families happy, why not create your own family and think about their happiness?　When asked about his desire to get married, he replied, “I’m 38 years old now, and I would like to have my own family soon, though. I’m not sure if that goal will ever come true.” he laughs. The next moment, however, he smiled broadly and made a snappy comment.

“’38 years old and unoccupied, Natsuko Takekawa is looking for a tenant! (Laughs)”