About a half a year ago, the charming face of a local idol from Fukuoka was plastered all over the internet. Kanna Hashimoto’s genuine charm and cuteness had won over the country literally overnight. Shortly afterwards, we were able to meet the up and coming star and buy a pair of glasses. There we found Hashimoto’s charm wasn’t just a fluke of the original photo that shot her into the spotlight.

Now we’re happy to see that her rise to fame hasn’t slowed down one bit with a recent appearance in the hugely popular SoftBank commercial series featuring the Shirato family. Not only that, she has also thrown the ceremonial first pitch at Opening Day of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks 2014 season.

This chapter of the Shirato Family is titled “Daughter” and opens with the family patriarch, a fluffy white Hokkaido breed (Otosan) visiting the local bar. As he weighs himself on a cross promotional scale, the barkeep’s daughter played by Kanna Hashimoto enters.

She’s tells her mom that she forgot her smartphone. Otosan is surprised the woman has a daughter and she tells him that it’s true and that there’s an odd resemblance between him and Hashimoto.

There was that one night in Paris many years ago…

Otosan informs everyone that he and Kanna look nothing alike.

But they’re having none of it as she calls him “papa” and the tabloid headlines are all set: “Illegitimate Child!?”

We’ll have to wait and see how things play out for old Otosan in future commercials. Lord knows he’s already having to pay out over his urine laced altercation with Funasshi a while back.

Meanwhile, around the same time as the commercial airing Kanna Hashimoto and her newly found father appeared together at the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks’ Opening Day ceremony. With Otosan playing ump, Hashimoto took the mound for the pitch.

http://youtu.be/3dauu1ToooY?t=1m42s

Impressively, the 15-year-old decides to make the pitch from the top of the mound. She confers with the catcher over whether to throw a slider or some chin music, and then says a few words to the crowd.

Followed by the wind-up…

And the pitc…

…throw!

Sure it was a little wide and short, but she made it a lot closer to the plate from the mound than many adults have done in the past. Afterwards the girl described as a “once in a millennium idol” and SoftBank’s furry mascot met with the press.

However, it looked as if throughout the event Otosan was aiming to chew up the camera time again by acting inappropriately around the rising star. First by barking suddenly during a pre-game interview.

And then by getting inappropriately close during a post-game press conference.

Sharing the spotlight with a veteran actor can be hard, but that’s the price of fame I guess. But overall, things are certainly going well for Kanna Hashimoto. We can only imagine what she’ll be up to a full year after breaking-out.

Source: YouTube – Yuka-chan neru, JIJIPRESS, maidigitv

▼ A behind the scenes look at both the SoftBank commercial and first pitch.

http://youtu.be/3dauu1ToooY