青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

Rikako Yagi is a star on the rise. No sooner did she make her debut in 2016 at age fourteen than she was tapped to appear in promotional campaigns for Pocari Sweat sports drinks, a coveted job known as the gateway to success for many a young Japanese actress. A Grand Prize in the Miss Seventeen 2016 competition sponsored by Japan’s Seventeen magazine got her off to a start as an exclusive model for that publication, and her schedule is packed with appearances in a host of TV shows and feature films.

Pitter-Patter follows this budding talent over three and a half years, from age seventeen to twenty, through the eyes of Masumi Ishida, an up-and-coming twenty-three-year-old photographer known for her promotional visuals for Calorie Mate nutrition bars as well as work in some of Japan’s top fashion magazines.

The pair first met in December 2018 on a magazine photo shoot. They immediately clicked and began to spend time together outside work as well, and soon Ishida took to photographing Yagi in between their busy schedules. From a visit to Yagi’s hometown in Shiga Prefecture to her stay in Hokkaido for work on a TV show, her day-to-day life in Tokyo, and her coming-of-age ceremony at age twenty, the scenes shift rapidly one after the other in time and place, as though in a road movie starring the actress.

During their special, intense time together, Yagi revealed her unguarded self as she would only to someone she totally trusted, while Ishida—in a nuanced and extraordinary back-and-forth—responded via the camera lens to each subtle message cast by Yagi’s gaze. Having shared in Yagi’s fleeting yet hope-filled transition from her teens to twenties, and studied every complex shift and shade in her emotions, Ishida succeeds in bringing out the radiance at the heart of this young woman.

At twenty, Yagi is just venturing into adulthood and on toward the future. The 250-plus pages of this book capture the many precious moments of her existence—her worries, pain, sadness, encounters, goodbyes, and, of course, joy. Turn the pages and hear the sound of her footsteps taking off with mixed apprehension and excitement toward tomorrow, pitter-patter.

Limited first edition of 3,000 copies
Includes special bookmark

From the authors:
This book shows me not on the job being an actress, but more as I am on my days off, right back in my own hometown. So there are some photos in here that make me go, “Wow, I sure look funny!” while others that I thought came out really well didn’t make the final cut. That’s how natural I am in these pictures, you know?

Still, thanks to the magic Ishida-san has sprinkled over me through her lens, I think I look pretty good in these photos even when I’m just being my ordinary laid-back self. Actually, I might even be fantastic! I won’t say any more because it’s getting too embarrassing, but in any case, Ishida-san has made me look wonderful.

I hope these photos will find their way to you, pitter-patter.

——Rikako Yagi

The time I spent talking and thinking about this book with Yagi-chan was not only lots of fun, but it also helped me look back on the changes that I myself have gone through in the three years we spent making it. It made me reflect anew on how hard it is to see just by yourself how much you have changed.

I couldn’t have been happier when Yagi-chan told me that my photos let her “like myself a little bit.” This book is my gift to Yagi-chan, who’s told me so many stories and with whom I’ve seen so many things. May it be taken in hand and enjoyed by many readers as well.

——Masumi Ishida

Rikako Yagi was born in 2001 in Shiga Prefecture and made her show-business debut by winning the Grand Prize in #THENEXT Asia Cross Model Audition in November 2015. In 2016 she was selected to promote Otsuka Pharmaceutical’s Pocari Sweat sports drinks and also began appearing as a house model for the Japanese edition of Seventeen magazine published by Shueisha. She appears in the 2022 Netflix drama series First Love as the young Yae Noguchi, the character played by Hikari Mitsushima in her adult years.

Masumi Ishida was born in 1998 in Saitama Prefecture. A self-trained photographer, she first came to notice through her promotional visuals for Otsuka Pharmaceutical’s Calorie Mate nutrition bars. She held her first solo show, Gingerale, at Omotesando Rocket in Tokyo in 2017 and published her first collection, light years (Tissue Papers), the following year. She works for numerous magazines in addition to producing promotional stills for TV dramas and feature films. Her photo collection Otototoi starring the actress Kaho was published by SDP in April 2022.