On October 24th, it was revealed that Hina Kikuchi, Miss Weekly Shonen Magazine 2020 and also known as the "Strongest Gravure Queen of the Reiwa Era," will star in the movie "V.MARIA" (directed by Daisuke Miyazaki), scheduled for release in spring 2025. This will be Kikuchi's first time to play the lead role in a movie.
The movie is a coming-of-age story about a high school girl, Maria (Kikuchi), who grows up while struggling with herself through her encounter with a visual kei band. Maria, who grew up in a single-parent household, finds CDs, posters, and unplayable demo tapes of a visual kei band that her mother was once a big fan of while sorting through her mother's belongings after her sudden death. In order to find out the secret her mother had been hiding, Maria heads to a live house and encounters the world of visual kei.
The movie is full of respect for the visual kei scene, with items from 90s visual kei bands and real live houses appearing in the movie.
Kikuchi said, "I'm very happy to be asked to play my first leading role and to play the important role of Maria." She continued, "Visual kei bands are the key to the story, and it's a genre I've never really explored before, but after reading the script I became very interested. I've become so obsessed with visual kei bands that I've even put them on my playlists. I'd like people who love visual kei rock to watch this, as well as those who were unfamiliar with it until now."
