About Miss Colônia
Miss Colônia is a women’s news and pageant portal. It publishes stories for women who live in Brazil and Japan, with a focus on the Japanese Brazilian community in both countries. The portal is also home to two beauty pageants organized by producer Daniela Nishikawa: the Miss Colônia Pageant, created in 2025 and held online, and Miss Nikkey Japan, held in Japan since 2002.
The portal
Miss Colônia’s news is organized into eight sections:
Beauty & Fashion: makeup, skin, hair, fashion and style.
Women in Ag: stories, businesses and leadership of women in agriculture.
Money: personal finance, careers, entrepreneurship, currency exchange and remittances.
Health: women’s health, mental health and wellness.
Life: women’s empowerment, diversity and inclusion, motherhood and family.
Culture: Japanese and Brazilian culture, art, exhibitions and festivals.
Nikkei Community: Brazilians in Japan, Nikkei in Brazil, notable people and giving back.
Pageants: beauty pageants, children’s fashion shows and regional pageants.
Besides news and features, the portal publishes photo galleries and videos. The site can be read in Portuguese, Japanese, English and Spanish. Articles are bylined by the Miss Colônia newsroom (Redação Miss Colônia) and by Daniela Nishikawa; the latest are under News.
The pageants
Miss Colônia is the name of the portal; the online pageant created in 2025 is called the Miss Colônia Pageant.
Miss Colônia Pageant
Held entirely online, the Miss Colônia Pageant lets contestants from every region of Brazil and Japan take part. The first edition, which opened registration in May 2025 to women of Japanese descent of all ages, paid tribute to 130 years of Japan–Brazil friendship.
Under its rules, the pageant does not adopt a standard of beauty: it values each contestant’s own style, individual beauty and the diversity of women. Registration was free. Of the 20 finalists, the panel of judges was to choose Miss Colônia 2025 and the public, in an online vote, the 1st Princess.
Miss Colônia Infantil 2025 (children’s categories) opened registration for Baby (ages 0 to 2), Kids I (2 to 5), Kids II (5 to 8) and Juvenil (8 to 12). According to the rules, the Miss Colônia trademark is registered with Brazil’s National Institute of Industrial Property (INPI). More information is on the Miss Colônia Pageant page.
Miss Nikkey Japan
Created by Daniela Nishikawa in 2002 in Komaki, Aichi Prefecture, Miss Nikkey Japan is part of a Brazilian festival with free admission. According to the organizers, “beauty goes beyond appearances” is the concept that guides the pageant.
The pageant has opened doors for young people who dream of a modeling career, but for its organizer that is not the event’s main goal.
“The intention, since 2002, has been to promote integration among the audience and camaraderie among the participants, and to open an artistic and cultural space for the groups, schools and academies that perform, as well as new business opportunities for the companies that exhibit products and services. And we carry on with this purpose.”
— Daniela Nishikawa, producer and organizer of Miss Nikkey Japan, at the 2023 edition
Editions, winners and news are on the Miss Nikkey Japan page.
Partners and official channels
Partner companies and institutions are on the Sponsors page. Story ideas, questions and advertising proposals can be sent through the official channels, also listed on the Contact page:
Email: [email protected]
WhatsApp: +55 18 98104-9705
Miss Nikkey Japan on Instagram: @missnikkeyjapan
Daniela Nishikawa on Instagram: @danielanishikawaoficial
The world of Miss Nikkey Japan
Edition after edition, Miss Nikkey Japan added new categories, projects and social initiatives. Some milestones:
2002: first edition, in Komaki.
2008: dedicated to the Centennial of Japanese Immigration to Brazil, the seventh Miss Nikkey brought together 100 contestants from 18 prefectures and more than 6,000 people at the Komaki Shimin Kaikan on April 6. Brazilian and Japanese public figures received the Citizenship and Honor to Merit Trophy on stage, marking 20 years of the Brazilian presence in Japan.
2009: at the request of parents from all over Japan, the eighth Miss Nikkey created the children’s categories, with about 100 participants, and crowned Bruna Matsumura.
2010: the organizers launched the Miss Nikkey Models Agency at the EPEX trade show, at Tokyo Big Sight in Tokyo. The audience of the ninth Miss Nikkey donated more than 1 metric ton of food to five charities.
2011: on May 8, Mother’s Day, Miss Nikkey marked 10 consecutive years in Komaki and debuted the “As Mais Belas Mães” (Most Beautiful Mothers) and Miss Plus Size categories. The program made room for an Aichi Prefectural Police campaign, and the production team announced a relief drive among the event’s audience for the victims of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
2022: the pageant returned, in an edition staged by Nihon Kaigai Kyokai (Japan Overseas Council – JOC) in partnership with Brazilian and Japanese companies, and crowned Maria Clara Fiorilli Stersi.
2023: on Oct. 8, in Inuyama, Aichi Prefecture, the edition coordinated by Daniela Nishikawa in partnership with Japanese businessman Takaharu Hayashi crowned Estér Akemi Oki. The program included the Children’s Fashion Show, Mister Nikkey, the Cultural Festival and the Expo Nikkey.
2025: Daniela Nishikawa also began organizing the Miss Colônia Pageant.
The Mister Nikkey men’s runway show, featuring young Brazilian and foreign men who live in Japan, drew Japanese modeling agencies interested in new talent.
In Brazil, Daniela organized the first Miss Nikkey Japan Alta Paulista in Tupã, with the box-office proceeds donated to the Centro de Integração do Menor (CIM). In Birigui, her hometown, she staged Miss Centenário Birigui with the city government, marking the city’s 100th anniversary.
Miss Nikkey logo redesign
In early 2024, the Miss Nikkey brand underwent a redesign. The new logo kept elements and colors of the original identity and introduced visual innovations, such as the outline of the crown, chosen to represent the organizers and their goals. According to the organizers, the change marks a new chapter in their history.
Old logo New logo
Daniela Nishikawa
Producer and organizer of Miss Nikkey Japan since 2002 and of the Miss Colônia Pageant, created in 2025, Daniela Nishikawa is the granddaughter of Japanese people who emigrated to Brazil in the 1930s. A native of Birigui, in São Paulo state, she made her grandparents’ journey in reverse: in 1993, she traded the interior of São Paulo state (Birigui and Tupã) for Tokyo.
In the nearly two decades that followed, she had a son, who graduated from a Japanese school and became a model in Tokyo. A Sony commercial featuring Juan Xavier, Daniela’s son, was shown on big screens across Japan.
In the same period, she saw the number of Brazilians in Japan triple: from just over 100,000 in 1993, it rose past 320,000 in what came to be called the dekasegi phenomenon (Japanese Brazilians moving to Japan for work). Nearly two decades after her arrival, about 260,000 were still living and working in the country.
Daniela observed the hardships these Brazilians faced: most worked in factories, generally in heavy, dirty or dangerous jobs, and there was often a lack of options for leisure and for socializing with Japanese people and within the community itself. At the same time, she saw the cultural vibrancy of the organized Brazilian groups.
Faced with this reality, from the time she arrived in her grandparents’ country, she began promoting events and festivals of cultural and social exchange, always highlighting what she calls “the best of Brazil”: Brazilians. According to her, the goal is to show Japanese people positive aspects of Brazil and to enable Brazilians in Japan to better absorb Japan’s millennia-old culture without losing their Brazilian identity.
In 2002, she brought Brazilian cultural production in Japan together in a single event: schools that teach in Portuguese, dance and theater groups, martial arts and capoeira schools, bands and visual artists, alongside Japanese taiko and folk dance groups, among others. To round out the festival, she included a Brazilian Nikkei beauty pageant, Miss Nikkey Japan, and a business and services expo with companies from the community.
The festival took hold and was repeated in the following years, as business owners from the community came on board. According to the organizers, Daniela was the first Brazilian event promoter to work in Japan.
In May 2005, Daniela was invited to coordinate the ceremonial arrangements for then-President Lula’s meeting with the Brazilian community in Nagoya, during his official visit to Japan.
In 2008, the year of the Centennial of Japanese Immigration to Brazil, she produced a festival in Aichi dedicated to the occasion. The event had the support of Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Consulate General of Brazil in Nagoya, capital of the prefecture with the largest concentration of Brazilians in Japan.
During the Centennial festivities, she spoke with then-Crown Prince Naruhito, now Emperor of Japan. On April 28, 2008, in Kobe, at the banquet for the official opening of the celebrations, she and Miss Nikkey Centenário 2008, Cláudia Yuri Ando, were greeted by him.
At the April 25, 2010, edition, the Miss Nikkey Japan festival had 40 performing groups, with 500 participants in all, and booths from 100 companies. The event mobilized 200 people behind the scenes, and the pageant had 150 participants in the men’s, women’s and children’s categories.
The festival offered leisure to a community with few options of that kind and stood out as a family event with free admission.
Articles bylined by Daniela Nishikawa are on her author page.