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Tsukino Inari was born on January 30th 1997 in Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, Japan to professional motorcyclist Tsukino Masahiro and Tsukino Sakuna, chief editor of Vogue Japan.

From an early age Inari was passionate about two things: art and speed. She didn't like school and didn't do well except for creative based classes. She loved playing piano as a very young child and was in as many children plays and kabuki shows she could join. Due to her mother, who was a writer for Vogue through most of Inari's early childhood, she also developed a love for fashion quickly, mainly coming from loving to dress-up as different characters in theatre. According to a former teacher, she was "figuring out how to alter her school uniform by grade one to express herself".

Inari attended international schools since she was young, as her parents both worked in global industries and had to learn languages later in life with difficulty. Due to Suzuka's population and cultural opportunities, Inari started learning English, Portugese, and French. She attended Escola Alegria de Saber from kindergarten until leaving Japan for Korea.

When she was 6 her father retired from professional racing due to an accident that badly injured his knees. For most of her remaining childhood and into the beginnings of her music career in Korea, her mother was the sole breadwinner of the family as her dad never attended university and was wheelchair bound for much of her younger years. This led to a large amount of stress on Inari's family, as the accident left Masahiro infertile and Inari their only child - a daughter. While her mother and father were happy with just Inari, loving her dearly, the remainder of their family wasn't happy.

Masahiro's family had been non-existent through his childhood and teenage years until he reached acclaim and fame as a racer, and had been present due to the prospects of grandchildren. Masahiro's father in particular, Inari's paternal grandfather, had explicitly told Masahiro and Sakuna that they were to have a son so that the family wouldn't be "doomed" because of Masahiro. After the accident killed Masahiro's on-track career, Inari's paternal relatives completely ditched them. Sakuna's family were only a bit better, as they did help support the couple and their young daughter financially - but on the condition that Masahiro saw fertility specialists. As such, Inari did not have a high opinion of her family outside of her mother and father and led her to be mistrustful of "family ideals" and men-in-power.

As she grew into her now "icy" personality, due to the effects of her family and financial situation growing up, she was exposed to hip-hop and RNB music through childhood friends and classmates at the international school she attended. She was particularly enraptured by Missy Elliot, Tinashe, and Tupac. She started learning how to rap and write music (outside of classical), and began participating in Suzuka's small rap scene at her local genba at age 14. Her early raps and mixtapes were often written about the cynical nature of elders and hierarchical families, which spoke to her peers. Upon learning of her actions by accident, her parents supported her, and her father, having encountered many people of different cultures and learned music their music, helped her test music and even learned from an old co-worker how to use SoundCloud to teach her. Through this, she gained a small internet following and larger in-person following in Mie.

Originally, she planned on becoming a music teacher or even trying to work in the fashion industry, she began to consider performing music more as a career. A video of her began circling the internet - a short 30s clip posted by a friend during a friendly rap competition. At the time, NU'EST had just made its Japanese debut and was doing work in the country. NU'EST members Aron and JR came across the video, and the five members along with a manager attended the genba Inari frequented. This caught NU'ESTs managers eye, and when him and JR spotted her a few days later busking in the streets with some friends dancing to SNSD's Galaxy Supernova, PLEDIS decided they wanted to scout her, as there was already talk in the J-idol and K-pop industry of scouting her.

Inari officially became a trainee of PLEDIS in December of 2014 at age 17. At the same, her mother took over for her former boss, editor-in-chief Watanabe Mitsuko, granting the family much needed financial stability. This allowed Inari to become a trainee in Korea and for Masahiro to get surgery and more advanced physiotherapy, allowing him more mobility and the ability to begin working back in racing circles again.

Inari quickly became friends with future bandmates Jun, Minghao, Vernon, Joshua, and Seungcheol, alongside fellow trainees Juyin, Chaeri, Nayoung, Rena, Kyulkyung, Sungyeon, and Kyla. She also developed a friendship with the established idols of PLEDIS, namely After School's Kaeun and NU'EST's JR, the later whom she credits her career in Korea to. After having frequently featured alongside trainees Chaeri and Juyin in SeventeenTV, it was revealed that the three girls would be joining Seventeen if they passed certain criteria through Seventeen's debut show Seventeen Project. It has been since revealed by Inari and other Seventeen members that none of three girls had been told the clauses until the show was filmed. The three of them had previously been told that Seventeen would debut first and then the three girls would be the founding members of Seventeen's younger sister group - later speculated to contain the future PRISTIN members and Huh Yujin.

Upon the start of Seventeen Project it became quickly clear to the three girls - unofficially named Seventeen3 by fans - and the established members of Seventeen that only one of them would join the group, and alongside the show "deciding" if Seventeen would debut, it would actually decide which girl would debut with Seventeen. In the end, Inari just barely made it into the group.

This lack of communication and personal betrayal led to Inari distrusting PLEDIS from the early years, which continued to fester for years to come. Along with PLEDIS's existing and future mistreatment of SEVENTEEN, it led to several points in Inari's career that almost caused her to leave Seventeen.

Inari debuted with Seventeen on May 26, 2015 under the stage name TSINA ("ts" from Tsukino and "ina" from Inari) as a member of the Hip-Hop Unit. At this time, Inari did not have an official position in the Hip-Hop Unit like she does now, but it was clear from early days that the remaining four members did often look to her for feedback when it came to their raps - Mingyu especially. Inari quickly gathered attention within the KPOP world, mainly for negative reasons and was often painted in the early days as a gold digger and "unwanted member". However, Inari managed to make a name for herself as a powerhouse as the years went on, greatly improving Seventeen's Hip-Hop Unit and rightfully earning the title of Co-Leader with Seungcheol for the Unit, despite the language gap in the early years. In 2016, Inari started going viral for her "grunge" style, changing public opinion, as she was no longer being solely restricted to cutesy, pastel styles of their debut year. Inari, in one of her first solo lives, would admit that she preferred to dress more "androgynously and darker" and shared pre-debut photos of herself, explaining how she liked to alter and even make clothes for herself, members, and friends. She even noted and expressed her inspirations of Vivienne Westwood, mall goth aesthetic, and Visual Kei.

As of 2025, Inari is a multiple award-winning artist (both solo and with SEVENTEEN), respected fashionista and designer, social activist, the muse and face of Vivienne Westwood, and a top KOMCA and JASRAC accredited artist.

#seventeen #seventeen 14th member #seventeen x female member #svt-tsina #dvbkie099

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