Sawai Keiko

Sawai Keiko followed her older sister into acting, joining Toho at the age of nineteen. She appeared prominently in the Young Guy series film Young Guy at Sea (1965), substituting as Kayama Yûzô's recurring love interest, a role normally played by Hoshi Yuriko. She subsequently made regular appearances opposite Kayama in other films. However, Sawai is best known to genre fans worldwide for playing the supportive girlfriend of Kubo Akira's nerdy inventor character in Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965).

Sawai ultimately quit acting in feature films in the 1970s and transitioned to television. She was married in the mid-1970s and dropped out of the acting scene altogether to focus on being a full-time parent. In recent years, she has made a modest comeback by acting on stage.