Masaaki Sakai (堺正章; Sakai Masaaki , born August 6, 1946 as Kurihara Masaaki) is a Japanese popular performer from Tokyo. His show-business nickname is "Machaaki". August 6 is the 218th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (219th in leap years), with 147 days remaining. ... 1946 was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Long a symbol of Tokyo, the Nijubashi Bridge at the Imperial Palace. ...

Sakai's father, Shunji Sakai, was a famous comedian. He fronted the mod-rock group The Spiders, formed in 1962, whose popularity lasted throughout the 1960s, spawning several hit songs and five films. He created a dance called "the Monkey" which became a craze in Japan. Sakai went on to a successful solo career after The Spiders disbanded, and continued acting in films and on television. A comedian (also comedienne, female) is a person who attempts to make people laugh through a variety of methods, normally through joke telling, or a stream of funny banter. ...

In 1999, he formed the band "Sans Filtre" with two former Spiders, Hiroshi Kamayatsu and Takayuki Inouye. They released their first album "Yei Yei" in 2000.

He is the star of the 1970s Japanese TV program Saiyûki which proved amazingly popular in many English-speaking countries in the 1980s when dubbed by the BBC and titled Monkey. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was formed in 1927 by means of a royal charter. ... Monkey is the English language version of a Japanese television series based on the novel Journey to the West by Wu Chengen. ...

Sakai has been married and divorced twice, and has two daughters. He is an active supporter of AIDS charities. AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, sometimes written Aids) is a human disease characterized by weakening of the bodys immune system and capacity to fight infection and certain cancers. ...

Performance drama

• Account series of travel around Europe.

The main performance programs

• Hakkutu! Aruarudaijiten
• Chubo-desuyo