Matsumoto Jun | 松本 潤 | About

Matsumoto Jun is the youngest child in his family, and it was his older sister's enthusiasm for KinKi Kids that pointed him at Johnny & Associates. He posted his application on the day he graduated from primary school, thinking the date might bring luck, and weeks later Johnny Kitagawa rang him personally and asked him to come to a rehearsal rather than an audition — which is why the agency has always counted him among its elite. He joined on May 17, 1996, aged twelve, danced behind other groups for three years, and in September 1999 debuted as the youngest member of Arashi, announced aboard a cruise ship off Honolulu.

His grandmother chose the character 潤 for his given name over the 純 his parents had picked. He acted from 1997, and "Gokusen" (2002) established him: as Sawada Shin, the brilliant delinquent, he took Best Supporting Actor at the 33rd Television Drama Academy Awards. "Hana Yori Dango" (2005) took it further — Domyoji Tsukasa, the arrogant, hopeless heir at the head of the F4, won him the same prize again at the 47th, and the sequel a third supporting award at the Nikkan Sports Drama Grand Prix. He has been close to Oguri Shun since Gokusen, and it was on his say-so that Oguri was cast as Hanazawa Rui beside him.

Leading roles followed steadily, most of them award-winning: "Bambino!" (2007), "Smile" (2009), "Natsu no Koi wa Nijiiro ni Kagayaku" (2010), "Lucky Seven" (2012), "Shitsuren Chocolatier" (2014), and "99.9: Criminal Lawyer" (2016 and 2018), which averaged 17.6% in Kanto for its second season and became a film. In 2023 he carried NHK's taiga drama as Tokugawa Ieyasu in "What Will You Do, Ieyasu?", and marked it with a photobook and an exhibition at the Roppongi Museum.

He has produced Arashi's concerts since 2000 and advised younger groups on theirs. The moving stage he and the concert team introduced in 2005 has been copied across Asia, and the Bluetooth penlights that change colour on cue, which he worked on for three years, arrived with the 2014 Digitalian tour. He wrote his own radio show, "Jun Style", on Nack5 from 2002 to 2011. He left Starto Entertainment in May 2024 to work independently, signing with Eternal Moments that December while keeping his own company for the producing and directing work, and stayed with the agency as part of Arashi until the group finished on May 31, 2026.