“Asset Management Actor” Takuji Kawakubo’s Life in the Limelight and as FP1 Passers to Secure Future of the Family

Actor Takuji Kawakubo left Stardust Promotion last June and went independent. Kawakubo, who started his career in the entertainment industry after being scouted at the age of 17, has a full schedule for the next few months, including an appearance in the stage play ” Piaf ” starring Shinobu Otake, which starts on February 24, even though he is independent from the agency.

While he has been busy as a seasoned actor, he has started his own business as a financial planner (FP) while continuing his activities as an actor as before. With the title of “asset management actor,” which is probably the only one in Japan, what is his goal?

I asked him how he studied while he was busy raising his two boys (2 and 5 years old) and acting for ……. I asked him how he studied while he was so busy, and he told me that he studied at McDonald’s “Morning Mac,” where he once appeared in a commercial.

I woke up at four in the morning and studied at McDonald’s from five. My goal in life is to build a warm family. These early morning hours are very precious to me, and since the FP Level 1 exam is a difficult one with a 10% pass rate, I worked very hard. All that remained was the practical exam.

The content of the FP Level 1 exam is much more difficult than the Level 2 exam. In order to qualify for the exam, you need to have at least one year of work experience or other training. While it is generally considered quite difficult to obtain FP Level 1 while working at another job, Kawakubo passed the written exam with flying colors. He is already attracting attention as a FP, and at the “Asset Management Expo” held in January, more than 200 people applied to attend the seminar room for 100 people.

A Setback Before Becoming an Actor

Kawakubo’s career goal as a child was to be a soccer player. Aiming to become a professional, he joined the Teikyo High School soccer team. However, as soon as he joined the club, he was overwhelmed by the level of the people around him and had to leave the club. Kawakubo says that this was the first setback in his life. Considering his family’s financial situation at the time, he transferred to a metropolitan high school. Still, he continued to play soccer and even took the professional test, but the result was unsuccessful.

When he gave up on being a soccer player, he remembered an entertainment agency that had scouted him while he was still in high school, and went to lessons, which opened the door to becoming an actor. He was sought after by the glamorous world and passed the Rikkyo University Faculty of Economics, which he had applied to, but a shadow always flickered in his mind. Her father, who passed away at the age of 64 and had a poor sense of money, became her role model. This is one of the reasons why he became interested in becoming a financial planner.

When I got married and had children, I knew we were in trouble. My family wasn’t very wealthy when I was growing up, so I felt I had to do something other than acting so that my family wouldn’t have to worry. From the moment I was no longer alone, I started to think about what I really wanted to accomplish in life.

When I was still in school, my mother almost bought a futon from a hypnotist. When she heard that they were giving away free knee supporters, she went to the event for her grandmother’s sake, but was surrounded by a group of strong men who refused to let her leave unless she bought a futon worth one million yen. I couldn’t help but think …… for a supporter that I could buy for about 1,000 yen. I wondered if this was what it would be like to be without money. That experience is still burned in my mind.

Kawakubo, who was still a student at the time, was not able to earn enough money on his own to cover his family’s living expenses, and he spent his time feeling frustrated because he could not say, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. It was this experience that shaped her fundamental belief that simply not having to worry about money would lead her in the direction of happiness.

I started FP (Financial Planning) largely because of the influence of nine people who were my classmates in college and were good friends. We were all in the same English class in the economics department. Listening to them talk about their work, I developed a yearning for business. They were all from different industries. Listening to their stories made me realize that there are many different jobs and many ways to make people happy. During my 20 years as an actor, there was the Great East Japan Earthquake, Corona ……, and every time I did that, I wondered if entertainment was really necessary in the world. There were times when I wondered if entertainment was really necessary in the world.