Kitakatsushika, Saitama, Japan | 1967-07-13

Hisako Sasaki (佐々木 久子, Sasaki Hisako, née Uno (宇野)) is a Japanese retired professional wrestler better known as Akira Hokuto (北斗 晶, Hokuto Akira). Born Hisako Uno, Hokuto became a professional wrestler in the wake of the enormous popularity of tag team The Crush Gals (Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka), and was responsible for organizing the Bull Nakano fanclub. She joined the AJW dojo after quitting high school. While retired from active competition, Hokuto has stayed busy raising her family, helping her husband Kensuke run his Kensuke Office/Diamond Ring promotion, and making occasional appearances on Japanese radio and television. Kensuke Sasaki and Akira Hokuto were voted one of Japan's leading celebrity couples in 2006. Hokuto has also assisted her husband in various publicity and charitable activities in his position as Japan's Friendship Ambassador to Fiji for the year 2007. She has made various media appearances as a "mother celebrity". In 2010, for example, she appeared in a television commercial for "Mama Gohan" (lit. "Mama Meal"), a co-product by Ajinomoto and popular women's magazine I Love Mama, along with three female gyaru-mother models. Hokuto married Kensuke Sasaki on October 1, 1995, after Sasaki proposed to her on their first date. Hokuto became pregnant in early 1998 and gave birth to her first son, Kennosuke on November 6, 1998. Hokuto gave birth to her second son, Seinosuke in March 2003. In addition to their two biological children, Hokuto and Kensuke have formed a very strong, almost parental bond with Kensuke's protégé Katsuhiko Nakajima. On September 23, 2015, Hokuto announced she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and was undergoing surgery the following day to have her right breast removed. The surgery was successful and will need several months to recuperate.