Maria Takagi

Maria Takagi is a Japanese TV and film actress and a former adult video star. Early in her career as a model, she also used the names Yukiko Hara and Rika Inoue.

Maria Takagi was born in Chiba Prefecture, Japan on October 25, 1978. Using the name Yukiko Hara, she released a "gravure" photo album Nishi-Shinjuku Love Story in June 1998. She made an early movie appearance in the August 1998 mainstream film Yoi Yume Yakei, a love story directed by pink film director Shuji Kataoka. In November 1998, under the name Rika Inoue, she posed for the men's magazine Urecco and as Maria Takagi, issued a photobook of nude pictures titled Blue in December 2000. The next year, Takagi starred in the erotic fantasy Mermaid Girl written and directed by Kei Marimura which reached theaters in July 2001. Takagi also had a small part in the Kyoto Broadcasting System TV show HATU Vampire Syndrome directed by Naoyuki Tomomatsu and broadcast on January 5, 2002. Later in 2002, she had a role in the erotic drama Yūrakuchō yakei which premiered in Ikebukuro in September 2002.

Takagi made her début as an adult video actress with the December 2002 release Super-Star for the Max-A Calen label. At the time of her début, AllAbout columnist Hiroshi Asuka commented on her reputation as an actress and her star quality. Six months later, the same writer described her as one of the top actresses in the adult field. It was announced in October 2003 that Takagi would play the "other woman" of a married man in the Fuji TV drama series Someone is next to you but that she would be continuing in her AV career. The Japanese newspaper Mainichi Shimbun reported in 2003 that she was the highest paid AV actress in Japan.