Machiko Watanabe

Machiko Watanabe (渡辺まちこ, born June 14, 1960) is a former Japanese actress from Aichi Prefecture, Japan. She starred in the underground 8mm film Crazy Dolls (1982), directed by Hirohisa Kawaragi, and appeared in Jitsuroku Ryōki Musume: Hashire Roman yo! (1982), directed by Rin Akatsuchi. She later appeared in Juzo Itami’s A Taxing Woman (1987), playing a nurse in the opening scene, and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Sweet Home (1989), in which she played Mrs. Mamiya. In The Diary of A Taxing Woman, published by Bungei Shunju in 1987, director Juzo Itami recounts Watanabe’s audition. He describes her as a glamorous woman who claimed to be descended from ninjas and was devoted to Brazil and Maitreya Bodhisattva. She arrived carrying a small dagger at her waist and a blue backpack containing a small Brazilian koto, which she played during the audition. Itami described her as a truly unique woman and wrote that they selected her immediately. Watanabe holds a second-degree ranking in Bujinkan ninjutsu and currently works in Nagoya as a fortune teller under the name “Uranai Ninja.”