Hair Color: Dark Brown
Eye Color: Dark Brown
Height: 6’1″
Chest: 39″
Waist: 30″
Hips: 38″
Shoe size: 12″
Body Type: Athletic

Akihiro Sato, the Brazilian-Japanese model who has been talk of the town in Manila, is the envy of many a Filipino male model. Despite his being a foreign model, he has been getting a lot of projects since he arrived. Well, who’s this Akihiro guy anyway? Here’s the 411 on the Nipo-Brasileiro hunk:

Akihiro Macieira Sato was born on September 12, 1986 in São Paulo, Brazil to a Japanese father and a Brazilian mother. Akihiro, or more fondly known to his family and friends as “Aki”, was a phenomenon in Thailand and Singapore before taking Manila by storm. His distinguishing marks are three words written in kanji (Japanese characters) tattooed on his side. The words literally mean Sun, Woman and Love in English. According to Aki, these are the three most important things to him.

Since he arrived, Aki has been cast in many television commercials for products ranging from a toothpaste brand, a coffee brand, and his most recent – a cheese snack brand. He has been featured in several fashion shows and events, magazines, newspapers, and even blogs. He was one of Cosmopolitan Magazine Philippines’ Ten Bachelor Centerfolds this 2008 where he joined Jon Avila, Paolo Contis, Billy Crawford, Geoff Eigenmann, Macky Escalona, Ron Morales, Bruce Quebral, Derek Ramsey and Rocky Salumbides. In the recent Cosmopolitan Bachelor Bash, he was one of the male models who elicited the most cheers from adoring fans.

Although getting mostly positive publicity, Aki also has his fair share of controversy. Reports allege that earlier this year, two leading Philippine fashion brands negotiated with Aki’s agent in Manila to get the latter as a celebrity endorser; and when Aki’s agent awarded the endorsement contract to the rival brand, the more popular brand teeming with local and foreign celebrity endorsers, suddenly removed models who came from the same agency as Aki from the roster of models to walk the ramp in their recently concluded fashion show. This rumor remains to be unconfirmed, though.

According to reliable sources, Aki wants to get into local showbiz and in preparation for crossing over from modeling into acting, he is taking Filipino lessons at the University of the Philippines – Diliman Campus. So, I guess, we will be seeing more of this Japanese-Brazilian hunk in the days to come.

Photo credits: Akihiro Sato’s unofficial fansite, konradphoto, Cosmopolitan Magazine Philippines and Penshoppe