Hiroyuki Sanada News

Happy Birthday, Sanada-san!!

It's Oct. 12, and time to celebrate Hiro's Birthday!!

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Sanada-san, happy 49th birthday!  As always, you are an inspiration and encouragement for me, and for many other fans around the world.  It is great to see you in many new projects, including "LOST" next season, and we are SO excited about it!!

We wish you all the best of happy and healthy birthday, and in your exciting new works!

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OK, and here's the administrative stuff.  Thanks to your help, we collected more than 90 messages from all over the world to put into an album, through Jamie's SHIN website.  Asha and Reiko put together beautiful album and lei that show all the messages.

And I just got info from Reiko that the album was actually delivered to HIRO on Friday.  We can be pretty sure that he was reading our cards over the weekend!!

Please see the new photo album for the gift.  (Click the "Hiro Birthday 2009" icon on the upper right hand.)

We understand that Hiro is pretty busy at this moment and please don't expect any reply from him, and I hope you all understand the tricky situation. 

I understand the frustration of Mosje, for example, about the absence of photo of him with the first lei that was delivered in Hawaii.  About that, Reiko informed me that he was actually in his costume of "LOST" when the lei was delivered, and since his role is kept SECRET, it was not possible to take a photo of him.  I hope you understand the tricky customs in entertainment industry, and let's all just keep our effort in helping him!

Thanks again, for Jamie, Asha, Reiko, and all the fans who sent the message!!

Beautiful LEI was delivered to Sanada-san in Hawaii!!

On Sep. 30, our friend asha posted a series of BEAUTIFUL photos of hand-made lei, and reported that it was delivered to Sanada-san.  Together with the lei, she put a card with Emily's "LOST" poem.

SHIN post by asha about LEI 

 

Please read more in detail about the lei.  It is a part of our "Hiro Birthday Project" this year, and asha, who lives in Hawaii, volunteered to build a lei to welcome Sanada-san in Hawaii's location site for LOST shooting.

After the lei was delivered, the following message was e-mailed to Reiko, who coordinated the delivery of the Lei.

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Jess just came in to tell me about giving the Lei to Hiro.

She reported he was very grateful, surprised and happy to receive the lei.

he did a small bow and told her that he wanted to make
sure his fans were aware of his sincere appreciation.

He said he was sorry about the photo, but due to the secret nature of
the show, he felt he should not have a photo taken.

Jess said he was very very gracious and extremely thankful to his fans.

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BIG BIG THANK YOU to asha, reiko, and "Bob and Jesse" (who coordinated with Reiko), and EMILY!!

Misty

URGENT! Hiro's birthday message deadline OCT 5!!

Hi, Folks!

Sorry for the short notice, but for a bit of an emergency in our team - birthday committee -, we have to move up the deadline of Hiro's birthday message.

PLEASE GO TO THE BELOW SITE AND  LEAVE YOUR MESSAGE/GREETINGS BY OCTOBER 5.  (I posted as Sep. 25 a few hours ago, but it changed again.  Again, sorry for the confusion....)

SHIN site Birthday Project 

It is ABSOLUTELY essential that you leave the message before that date, to assure you that the message will be delivered.

Remember, we have had a good track record so far for the past few years - we could gather more than 100 messages last year, and Hiro has sent us reply THANK YOU messages for two years in a row.  Now this year, we cannot guarantee that we can get any reply from him, but trust us, we will DELIVER IT to him, for sure.  Please read SHIN page for more details.

Thanks again, folks, for your help!!  Let us combine enough number of message this year again, from all over the world!  Please spread your words!!

Misty

HIRO birthday project 2009 begins TODAY!!

To all Hiro fans around the world...

As many of you know, Hiroyuki Sanada's birthday is coming up on October 12.  For the past few years, we the International Hiro Fans Online has coordinated the collective message and gifts delivered to him.

This year, although this is the last minute already, we are starting it again!  Please go to SHIN site and leave your message.  As explained on this site, you can congratulate him for his birthday and/or his appearance on "LOST"!!

SHIN birthday message page

Please, please, hurry up and send him the message!  We need a LOT of messages.

You can take a look at the photo of last year's message album and gift, as well as Hiro's reply message, hand written and delivered specially to us, from the photo album on this site (on the upper right hand corner).

Thanks in advance for our participation!!

Misty

Reply to our birthday gift from HIRO!

Today, we got the following message through reiko from HIRO himself!!

“Thank you for the wonderful gifts, the beautiful flowers and especially the
heartfelt messages.  I read all of the messages and I received a lot of love
and energy from them.  I will keep running during my 48th year!”

-hiro-

Yes, folks, he read all of our messages, and gave us the reply this year too!

Thank you, again, to Hiro and everyone who participated in the birthday project!

Misty

Some birthday gift photos have arrived

Reiko has sent me some photos of the gift that was sent to Sanada-san yesterday.  See the "photo album" category on the right pillar and click "Hiro Birthday 2008".

Reiko made our messages and stories into booklets, and she also made a separate booklet for the "story of Speed Racer Tokyo Premiere" taken from this blog.  If you have missed them, go ahead and read my report on this blog - all are in "Speed Racer" category.

She also added the beautiful orchid arrangement.  We don't know what was HIS reaction to the gift package, but at least she was successful in making people at his agent office "OOHING" AND "AAHING" when it was delivered to his office!

Enjoy the beautiful gift package and flower - and let's celebrate!  His real birthday is tomorrow!

Misty

The birthday gift was just delivered!

Although Oct. 12 is still 2 days away, our Los Angeles agent reiko decided to deliver our GIFT - the book of the birthday greetings from 100+ world-wide fans - today, so he can enjoy it over his birthday weekend.

And we just got info that the gift package was delivered to his home on or around 2:45 pm today by his agent in L.A.  The person at the agent made sure that he is at home at the delivery time, so we can be 99% sure that he received it IN PERSON BY NOW!!!

THANK YOU everyone who participated.  I am SO HAPPY that we exceeded last year's record for number of messages, and that we can celebrate his birthday all together with Hiro himself!!

Photo of the gift package will follow.  Please stay tuned!!

Misty

13 more messages to go!!

Hiro's birthday message project is still going forward.  Yes, you can still contribute to the project.

The deadline is Aug 31!!

So far, we have received 87 messages (Akira says 86 on her blog, but I know I JUST submitted my message, so that makes 87), so we still need 13 more messages to reach our goal of 100.

If you are still procrastinating, NO MORE TIME NOW!!  Please go ahead and submit your message.  Also, if you know someone who likes Sanada-san and may not know about this project, PLEASE send a reminder. 
Click the below banner, and write in your message/story.  "Story" means whatever your story about Sanada-san - how he motivated your life, what you started in your life because of him etc...

The purpose is to celebrate his birthday with fans all around the world.  This is a REAL fun project!!

Chain of good will from Hiro fans

I wrote about an idea to do a little bit of donation to a charity instead of contributing money to the production of Hiro gift a few days ago.  Some Japanese fans liked the idea and posted my idea onto their blogs.

Then, another fan responded with a nice reference.

 A few months ago (if I remember correctly), she read an article about him on Diners Club (credit card) member magazine.  Hiro contributed some photos and a message to a book called "LOVE BOOK", which was made by businessmen and celebs all over the world, to raise the awareness to the environmental issues.  He talked about it in this article, saying "one new perspective I learned when I started working outside of Japan is the responsibility as an opinion leader.  Actor is not only for acting, but the profession carries the second, third, roles for the society as a whole, due to its nature.  I am an actor and also is a creature that was given life by the mother earth, and I am happy to be a part of the activity to give back life to the earth."

For some reason, actors/actresses don't do much charity or social issues-related activities in Japan, and people are not used to making contribution to such activities.  It is not in their custom.  So the suggestion of birthday contribution and the above message by Hiro was a fresh idea for some Japanese fans, and they are making actions.  Now they are really excited to be a part of "chain of good will" started by Hiro.

I am also really excited to be a part of such nice fans, and that Hiro's message was received by many good people.

Akira, the manager of the birthday message board, says that if you already sent a message and want to add something, just use the same name and write <addition> at the top.  It will be added to your previous message.

We have so far collected about 60 messages from all over the world.  Please help us exceed 100 messages.  The deadline is 8/31!!

Here is the link to the message board:

Hiro Birthday Message board

One more week till the deadline for "Hiro Birthday Project"

Just a friendly reminder...  One more week till the deadline to send your message DIRECTLY to Hiro!!!

See my previous post and go to Birthday Project page, and write in your message.  We are still WAY short of our target to exceed last year's participant, so HURRY!!!

One more small item.  There have been some questions about the cost of this project - currently reiko is paying all the printing and decorating and delivery and all that, and some people are kind enough to be concerned about the cost and maybe wish to pitch in.

Reiko has offered to pay the cost as her token of participation, because she thinks that it is only fair against other people who put in so much time/effort/money in running Hiro websites, and she cannot do that.  We appreciated it and are currently working in that manner.  Thinking about how fairly devide the cost etc. may cause even more administrative headache.

So I suggest the following.  If you want to make some contribution, how about donating money to your favorite charity, and report it in your message to Sanada-san?  I believe Hiro would like such action by his fans, and it will make the world a better place a little tiny bit.

Anyway, please participate in your own manner!!