TEPPEI KOIKE

小池 徹平

Birthday: January 5, 1986
Nicknames: “Teppei-chan”, “Teppei-kun,” and “Te-chan”
Birthplace: Osakasayama, Osaka
Zodiac Sign: Capricorn
Blood type: B
Height: 167cm
Weight: 54kg
Shoe size: 26.5cm

Belongs to the production company Burning Productions. Is a member of the singer-songwriter duo WaT.

History
**He lived in Imakuma, Osakasayama-shi, Osaka-fu. Attended Osakasayama-shi Dai-3 junior high school. Belonged to the basketball club at a junior high school. He was a student with a pleasant personality, always smiling, spent earnest student life.

2001
**Attended Osakafuritu Nagano high school. At that time his gym teacher was Hiroshima Sadakazu who served an assistant umpire in 2006 FIFA World Cup.
**He won the grand prize in [14th JUNON SuperBoy contest] (at the age of 15). Got the agency, Burning Production.

2002
**Moved to Tokyo in spring, and changed the school to Horikoshi high school.
**Set up a duo with Wentz Eiji from the same agency, started street performance. When he entered the agency, a member of the staff told him there was a boy who was the same age as he was and played the piano and the base, it was about Wentz Eiji after all, that's how he met Wentz. In the agency, there was no one who was the same age as Teppei except Wentz.?- Appeared in the drama [Tentai Kansoku], in which he made a debut as an actor.

2004
**In February, WaT released a debut CD 'Sotsugyo TIME' from independent label.
**Graduated from Horikoshi high school (Yamashita Tomohisa in NEWS, Tanaka Kohki in KAT-TUN, Kitayama Hiromitsu in Johnny's Jr, Shirota Yu in D-BOYS, Sakai Wakana, Otsuka Chihiro, Kawashima Ai etc. were in the same class).

2005
**His first photo book 'First letter from TEPPEI' was out on 18 July, and held an event of handshaking with fans. About 3,000 fans gathered.?- WaT signed with Universal Music in August, released a single 'Bokuno Kimochi' which made their major debut. With this song, they were ranked 2nd place in the Oricon chart for the first entry. The had the record with the shortest time gap between debut and appearing for the first time in NHK Ko-haku Utagassen.
**Made his first appearance in the film 'Taga tameni'.

2006
**Won #43 Golden Arrow awards as the new face.?- Won #20 Japan Gold Disk awards as The new artist of the year.
**First leading role in the film 'Love?Con'.
**His second photo book 'kiss me, kiss me' was out on 15 oct and held an event of shakehand with fans. About 10,000 fans gathered at a time which was the greatest number in the record.
**Presented as an official supporter for ?2006 volley ball World cup
**Won #39 Best Hit Song festival 2006 as The best new artist.
**Won #39 Japan Cable radio awards as The special award.
**Won #48 Japan Record awards as The new artist of the year.
**Appeared in #57 NHK Ko-haku Utagassen 2nd time.

2007
**First solo single 'Kimini Okuru Uta' release on 14 Feb.

Character
**He has a pale 2 centimetre-across birthmark on his left thigh.
**He doesn't like his slightly bowed legs.
**He had a small job to earn pocket money with watering plants around the flats when he was small.
**He's got short eye sights therefore wears contact lenses at work, and glasses at home. He started wearing glasses at 13, then changed to contact lenses at 14. And he's got dry eyes therefore carries an eye drop with him all the time.
**He's proud of his abdominal muscle, and even co-stars admitted he had a great abdominal muscle although he was terrible swimmer when he was doing the drama 'Water Boys 2'.
**At the final selection of JUNON Super Boy contest, he kept singing Kobukuro's 'Wadachi' despite of his guitar string snapped.
**His guitar string once again snapped during the performance in NHK Ko-haku Utagassen in 2005. Although his microphone fell down during his performing 'Bokuno Kimochi', he continued singing till the end.
**He updates his blog everyday in his official web site (Only he's suspended several times due to busy schedule since 2002), which shows he cares a lot about his fans.
**He's not keen on arguments, what's called a 'pacifist', which is shown in the episode he quit going to Karate class when he was small because he didn't like fighting with others and got home in tears.
**He used to be called 'Koike', 'Koicchi', KoiQ' when he was a school boy. He's been called 'Teppei' just since he moved to Tokyo.
**According to himself, his personality is basically honest, but a bit lazy and slow.
**According to Wentz, he's quite man and outgoing although he's said to be a cute guy, which he doesn't show much on TV.

Favourites/Dislikes
**Favourite foods are soy saurce flavoured noodle, sushi. Dislikes are melon, watermelon, whipped cream. He doesn't like the seeds in watermelon.
**A girl of his dream is the one who is kind and considerate of others. He also falls for someone who has a big gap in something. He also has a deep attachment to the clavicle and finger nails.
**Favourite Japanese character is ? which is in his name.
**Although he's a fan of Hanshin Tigers, he knows only a few players' names.
**The 1st alcohol he had when he became 20 was imo-jouchuu (sweat potato liquor), and favourite alcohol is awamori (Wentz likes it).
**However, he can't drink a lot, he goes asleep when he gets drunk. He also gets pampered when he gets drunk.
**He doesn't like pyjamas.
**He always eats a beef jerky as a snack with drinks.
**He's fond of nature. When he moved to Tokyo, everything in his room were in green colour.

Habit, Speciality, Hobby and so on
**He used to belong to the basketball club at a junior high school and played the position of guard. The coach was very strict.
**The start of his getting into music was when he listened to 'Natsuiro' by Yuzu, which impressed on him and made him wonder 'why do I feel so happy listening to this song'. The 1st CD he bought himself was Yuzu's album.
**His habit is to fix his hair, and he sticks his tongue out of his mouth when he is fixing his hair.
**He's not bad at dance and cooking. His speciality is chicken with white cream sauce.
**He often takes photos of moon and stars with a digital camera. He often shows Wentz those photos he took, but he can't get any good reactions from Wentz.
**He is left-handed (originally was right-handed, but while he was copying his father who was left-handed, became himself left-handed without noticing), but he becomes right-handed when he plays the guitar, bowling, or write a calligraphy.
**He's got 5 guitars at the moment.
**He says he wants to marry before 30.
**He eats a lot although he doesn't look like.
**He grinds his teeth and rolls about a lot while he's asleep, so he's much noisier in his sleep than in awake. He's once given Wentz who was sleeping next to him a dolphin kick.
**He had many complaints about his grinding his teeth and terrible rolling in his sleep while in training camp for 'Water Boys 2'.
**He didn't know that women could grow beard until a member of JUNON staff told him about it at the end of 2006.

Family
**His family consists of father, mother, and 1 younger brother. He respects his father so much.
**His name 'Teppei' was taken after his father's favourite manga "Oreha Teppei". And his parents wished him to become a person who devotes himself to whatever he does therefore used the kanji character ? in his name.
**He looks like his mother, and his smile looks like his father. The reason why his smile doesn't look like his mum is because she's always with a worried look.
**His father is daring, mother is a worrywart. He says he's more like his mother.
**He gets on very well with his brother who is 3 years younger than him therefore has never had a fight with him. He often gets advices about his work from him over a phone.
**Actor Kyomoto Masaki is a relative from his father's family, but not immediate relative.
**When he moved to Tokyo, drove for 10 hours from Osaka with his whole family. They tidied up his room together, and slept over in his room 1 or 2 nights.
**The gift he bought his mother with his very 1st wage was a pair of earrings.

Favourite musicians
**Fukuyama Masaharu...Teppei wants to become like him. They met each other for the first time in 2006 FNS music festival. Fukuyama was mentioning in his radioshow about Teppei as a pleasant young man.
**Kobukuro... When Teppei met Kobukuro for the first time at the photo shoot for JUNON magazine, he sang 'Bokurano Ibasho' along with the guitar, and in return, Kobukuro sang their song 'YELL' which made Teppei in tears over excitement.
**Yamazaki Masayoshi...Teppei confessed Yamazaki he'd been a great fan of Yamazaki's at the backstage when they both were in the TV show 'Music Station'. He also took a photo with Yamazaki together, and later Wentz made fun of Teppei by pretending to drop the camera in which he kept the photo, he was so annoyed with Wentz he felt like hitting him seriously.

Qualifications
**He's got a driving license, but hardly ever drives.
**He's got a license for a small ship, which he took for the photo shoot for JUNON. He was very quick to pick up.
**He's qualified the 2nd grade in the use of the abacus.

Tears
**He cried in tears at the event for their indie debut.
**He burst into tears over the joy when he appered in Music Station as WaT for the first time.
**He burst into tears earlier than anyone else after finishing the shoot of the drama 'Gokusen'.
**He watched the last episode of the drama 'Water Boys 2' at his home in Osaka with his family. It was only him who was in tears during watching the drama.
**He sang SMAP song 'Orange' at the Junior high school's graduation ceremony, and cried in tears. But no one else except him was crying.
**He was in tears when Wentz sang Ozaki Yutaka's 'I LOVE YOU' at Karaoke.
**He was touched by the film 'Crayon Shin-chan Arashiwo yobu mo-retsu! Otona Teikokuno gyakushu', and burst into tears in the middle of the night after watching it.

Photo/TV Shooting
**The hardest work he's ever done is the drama 'Water Boys2'. During the term of the shooting, he would work 6 days for the shooting, 1 day for practice on synchronised swim. He couldn't swim before he started this drama, and went to gym for practice by himself.
**Snowboarding scene is seen in the video '5 centi', however, he had had an experience of snowboard only for 3 hours before he did the video.
**He went to the beach for shooting the video of 'Hava Rava', he stayed overnight at a hotel nearby. He felt like being on a school excursion and started telling a ghost story to Wentz who didn't want to hear. However, he saw something like a ghost and got really scared, so he held Wentz's hand and shared one futon and mattress together with Wentz when he went to sleep.

TV
**Basically he speaks standard Japanese when he's on TV, but he tends to use Kansai dialect more often recently. He uses Kansai dialect when he speaks with Wentz.

Friends
**Close friend of Saitoh Shota and Saitoh Keita brothers. They sometimes go on a trip to hot spring bath.--BestStuff