Hikari (Rental Family) Rental Family
Hikari -- born Mitsuyo Miyazaki in Osaka in 1976 or 1977 -- directed and co-wrote Rental Family with Stephen Blahut. Her professional mononym means "light" in Japanese, adopted at the start of her directing career. She is only the second Japanese woman to direct a wide theatrical release for a major American studio. (wikipedia)
She left Osaka at seventeen and built a career through reinvention
Hikari's parents divorced when she was a baby. Her mother lied about her father's identity multiple times -- a biographical detail that resonates directly with Rental Family's treatment of deception as a form of care. At fourteen she joined a major theater company in Osaka. At seventeen, she saw an advertisement for a study-abroad program at Tennoji Station, applied without consulting her mother, and requested placement in an American high school with no Japanese students. She was assigned to a small town in Utah and lived with a Mormon homestay family. (tokyoweekender)
She attended Southern Utah University, earning a BSc in Theater Arts, Dance, and Fine Arts in 1999, then moved to Los Angeles. Her early years there were a patchwork of survival jobs -- waitress at House of Blues, hip-hop photographer, dancer in a George Michael music video, commercial actress. She enrolled at USC's School of Cinematic Arts around age thirty and graduated with an MFA in Film and TV Production in 2011. (wikipedia, tokyoweekender)
37 Seconds won Berlin's Panorama Audience Award and launched her international career
Her thesis film Tsuyako screened at over a hundred festivals and won fifty awards, including the DGA Student Award for Best Woman Student Filmmaker. Her feature debut, 37 Seconds (2019), about a young woman with cerebral palsy pursuing independence, premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and won both the Panorama Audience Award and the Art Cinema Award. It also earned her the Asian Film Award for Best New Director in 2020. (wikipedia)
Television work followed: two episodes of Tokyo Vice (2022) and three episodes -- including the pilot -- of Netflix's Beef (2023), where she served as executive producer. These assignments gave her experience managing larger productions and American crews before tackling Rental Family. (wikipedia)
She found the rental family concept through her co-writer, not through Japanese culture
Despite growing up in Japan, Hikari had never heard of the rental family industry until Blahut brought it to her attention during development:
"What is this rental family? He was like, 'Do you know anything about it?' I was like, 'I'm Japanese. I've never heard of it.'" -- Hikari, Script Magazine (2025)
"The business itself is very interesting. And then I knew there's a story there immediately." -- Hikari, Script Magazine (2025)
She explained the cultural roots of the industry as a structural consequence of Japanese norms around emotional expression:
"Mental health is very challenging and it's not really accessible for a lot of people in Japan. So therefore this business exists." -- Hikari, IndieWire (2025)
She chose comedy over drama because the subject demanded lightness
Hikari made a deliberate tonal choice -- the material could have been a bleak social drama, but she felt that would betray the subject:
"I could've made a drama out of this... That would be so depressing." -- Hikari, Tokyo Weekender (2025)
The comedy-drama approach allowed the film to sit with ethical ambiguity rather than condemning or endorsing the rental family business. Critics noted this tonal control as one of the film's strengths -- Jennie Kermode at Eye for Film praised the film's willingness to let "people be complicated" rather than imposing conventional morality. (eye for film)
She cast Fraser because of who he was on set, not just on screen
Hikari saw Fraser in The Whale and felt an immediate connection to the vulnerability his screen presence carried. But her certainty came from watching him interact with the crew:
"When I saw him I just felt, 'Oh, there's my Philip.' He's such a kind soul." -- Hikari, IndieWire (2025)
"He's always careful. He's constantly talking to people who are just the PAs...he says hi to everybody. And when he leaves he says thank you to every single person, that's who he is." -- Hikari, IndieWire (2025)
Fraser was selective about his first post-Oscar role -- Hikari noted he received around seventy scripts after winning for The Whale and was "very careful with what he was going to choose." (indiewire)
She is developing a female samurai film and a TV series about her Utah years
Hikari's next projects include Made in Utah, a TV series based on her own experience as an exchange student living with a Mormon family, with Annapurna producing. She and Blahut are also writing a female samurai film based on a true story. In December 2025 she was selected as an international jury member for the 76th Berlin International Film Festival. (tokyoweekender, wikipedia)