NHK’s television series “Bakebake” started on September 29, attracting a great deal of attention to Chizuru Ikewaki (43), who plays Fumi, the mother of the heroine Toki Matsuno (Akari Takaishi). In the third episode aired on October 1, Ikewaki Chizuru was surprised at the story of a business where the price of rabbits skyrocketed, and she said with a straight face, “Toki, you can go to elementary school for 100 years with one rabbit! His humor was a big hit on SNS, as he made the outlandish conversion with a straight face. In the scene where she hugged her daughter, her hands were thick, wrinkled, and slightly reddish in contrast to the beautiful hands of the actress, and people commented, “Her hands really spoke to me. Ikewaki made a strong debut in 1997 as a “Mitsui’s Re-House Girl” and got her break as a purist actress. In 2001, she became a heroine in the morning drama “Honmamon” and began her path to becoming a nationally known actress. However, she did not rest on her laurels, and surprised the public with her daring nudity in the movie “Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish” and her portrayal of a woman living on the bottom of society in the movie “There but for Light” won her numerous film awards. In recent years, however, every time Ikewaki appeared in a movie, the words “drastic visual change” would appear all over the Internet. A reporter for a sports newspaper recalls. In the 2009 drama “Sono Onna, Jirba” (The Woman, Jirba), she showed thorough preparation for the role, including gaining weight to suit the role, and gave the impression that she had become a fully-fledged acting actress. In the 24-year-old drama “Unmet: Diary of a Neurosurgeon,” she played the role of a mother whose daughter has been diagnosed as comatose and is in a coma, and she gave a good performance as a mother filled with grief, appealing to the doctor that “my daughter is conscious. Viewers were also surprised by her performance, saying, “Is it really Chizuru Ikewaki? She looks like a different person. Furthermore, in her guest appearance on “Himitsu: The Top Secret” in February, many people did not recognize Ikewaki until the very end, as she appeared with a plump figure, deep lines, and wearing light makeup and round glasses, which made her look older. In recent years, the change in Ikewaki’s appearance has been discussed whenever she appears in a film, but she has long been appreciated in the industry for her spirit as an actress who is not obsessed with “beauty,” which may have led to her selection for the role of the mother in “Bakebake.
