She's a product of Japanese, Bangladeshi and Russian genes.
In celebrity-obsessed Japan with its conveyor belt of 15-minute stars, fashion icon Rola is blazing a meteoric trail at the forefront of a galaxy of mixed-race stars changing the DNA of Japanese pop culture.
Turn on the TV and there's no escaping the bubbly 24-year-old of Bengali, Japanese and Russian descent-she even dominates the commercial breaks.
A marketing gold mine, Rola smiles down celestially from giant billboards, her wide eyes and girlie pout grace magazine covers and she even greets you at vending machines.
But Rola, who settled in Japan when she was nine, has done it by turning the entertainment industry on its head, her child-like bluntness slicing through the strict convention that governs Japanese society.
"Whenever people told me to speak politely, I never worried about it," she told AFP in an interview. "I'm not talking down to anyone. I'm not a comedian, it's just how I am. It's just being open-hearted and trying to make people open theirs."
But it is not just her quirky charm that is breaking down barriers. Japan's largely mono-ethnic society-a culture where skin whitening creams are still huge business-has long been mirrored by its entertainment industry.
Rola and host of others are beginning to change that.
Half-British singer and actress Becky is another superstar with model looks and a huge fan base in Japan, while half-French newscaster Christel Takigawa helped Tokyo win the 2020 Olympic vote as the city's ambassador for "cool".
Their rise to fame mirrors a shift in attitudes in Japan, which only opened its doors to the outside world in the middle of the 19th century and where foreigners-those without Japanese nationality, even if they were born here-make up less than two percent of a population of 127 million.
Cute, indeed. I must say. Nay, she's just down-right gorgeous.
