I like games more than eating. Sometimes, I’ll even dress up and head off to the convenience store. Gamer-cosplayer idol Shoko Nakagawa, formerly a mainstream pinup queen, has certainly found her niche with otaku since she dazzled the Tokyo Game Show crowd in costume last year. She also likes to put her cat’s head in her mouth.

Good things happen when you unleash your inner geek. Gamer girls show great potential in a world where games overtake movies and people trust peers.

From Wiki.ThePPN, which spells her name Shouko:

Nickname: Shocotan (しょこたん)
Birthdate: May 5th, 1985
Birthplace: Tokyo, Japan

Shouko’s father (the late Nakagawa Katsuhiko, once called the Japanese David Bowie) was a big influence on her life. When she was five, she was given horror manga by her father to read, his reason being that she couldn’t become an adult without reading them. As a result of her father’s influences, Shouko loves 80s idol music, anime, and old video games. She is considered to be something of a nerd because of it. This started her love for sentai, and after watching Mirai Sentai Timeranger, Shouko wanted to become a gravure idol like Katsumura Mika. Mika played the pink ranger Yuri in the series, and was also a gravure idol with several photobooks and DVDs out. Shouko studied all of these to prepare for her own debut as a gravure idol.

Shouko was chosen as one of the winners of Miss Magazine 2002, which helped to boost her popularity some. In 2004 Shouko got to be in the show Men B with her idol Mika and the two became like sisters.

Shouko loves to draw. When she was younger, she had wanted to grow up and become a mangaka. Many of her illustrations are available at her talent agency’s profile website. In 2006 she began Shocotan Quest, a series only found at that website. She also became part of the illustrating group Jump Damashii.

Shouko is a huge fan of Bruce Lee and kung fu movies in general. She even owns a pair of pink nunchucks. Shouko mastered Cantonese and visited Hong Kong with her mother frequently, and even got to meet Jackie Chan by chance during one of these visits. She drew an illustration of him; this drawing now hangs in Jackie Chan’s Hong Kong office.

She also cosplays frequently, and has sold many of her costumes at an auction. These outfits included mainly Evangelion, Sailormoon, and Final Fantasy. Because of her love for cosplay, she has gained more fans who love to see her cosplay shoots. Shouko generally cosplays alone, but occasionally she cosplays with Ito Ayaka and Kyan Chiaki. When they cosplay together, they wear outfits according to their hair. For example, if Shouko is Tsukino Usagi from Sailormoon, Ayaka will be Mizuno Ami because of her shorter hair. For the anime Futari wa Pretty Cure, Shouko plays Honoka, and Ayaka is is Nagisa.

Shouko began keeping a public blog in 2004. It shows her perfectionist habits and only further proves her nerdiness through her distinct way of typing and frequent updating. April 2005 marked her 600th entry, and Shouko blogged 70 times in the month of January 2006 alone. This is a national record for an idol blog. Manabe Kaori was once called the “Blog Queen” because of her own constant writing, but with this new record Shouko stole the title. Even fellow idol and friend Kawabe Chieco (5-7 entries a day) has not come to beat her yet. Shouko’s entries began to get published in September 2005 in the book Shocotan Blog. On April 21st, 2006, Shouko’s blog broke 100 million hits.

On July 5th, 2006, Shouko released her first non-anime character single, Brilliant Dream.