Mitsu Dan

   Dan Mitsu is a Japanese actress, gravure idol, and writer. She has played multiple lead roles in television and film, including Naoko in the 2013 erotic thriller Amai Muchi, for which she received a Newcomer of the Year award at the 37th Japan Academy Prize ceremony.
   Mitsu was born in 1980 in Akita Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from Showa Women's University, she earned a teaching certificate, worked in a funeral parlor, tried but failed to start a sweets shop, and worked as a hostess in a Ginza club before becoming a gravure idol in 2010.
   Dan became known for her role in the BDSM-themed erotic thriller movie Be My Slave (2012), a performance that Giovanni Fazio of The Japan Times summarized as "a starlet is born." The next year she played a lead role in the 2013 erotic thriller Amai Muchi, which was directed by Ishii Takashi. At the 37th Japan Academy Prize ceremony Dan was recognized as a Newcomer of the Year for her performance in Amai Muchi.
   In July 2017 Dan starred in an official tourism promotion video for Miyagi Prefecture that was created using the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami reconstruction funds and published online. Female members of the Miyagi Prefectural Assembly, along with members of the public, claimed that the video was sexually suggestive and demanded that it be taken down. Miyagi Governor Murai Yoshihiro initially defended the video on the grounds that it successfully brought attention to the prefecture, but after receiving hundreds of complaints in a month he ordered the video withdrawn. Later that year the Japanese Ministry of the Environment appointed Dan Mitsu as a public ambassador to promote home energy conservation.
   Dan has written books in multiple genres, including the autobiographical book Mitsu no Aji, advice books Erosu no Osaho and Doshiyo, and the food essay collection Tabetai no. She made her fiction debut in 2016 with a story in the Bungeishunju literary magazine Ooru Yomimono. Since April 2017 she has written a monthly advice column for Otokemachi, an online publication of Yomiuri Shimbun. In March 2018 her story "Takumiharahara" was published in the literary magazine Bungakukai.