Monthly Archives: March 2008

The weekend’s three shows at Tokyo Dome are now part of the X Japan legend. The hugely anticipated reunion after ten years, and without charismatic guitarist hide, was full of drama and some fan disappointment. The set list for Friday’s opening concert – which Japan Zone attended – had 16 songs but the band ended up playing just nine in a 1-hour, forty-five-minute show, less time than the more than two-hour delay that preceded it. The delay was said to be due to extended rehearsals and technical problems, mainly with a ¥150-million hologram screen that allowed the late hide to “play” on stage. That was one of several tributes to the late band member during the high-energy shows, which also included destroyed drum kits and appearances by guest guitarists Richard Fortus (Guns ‘n’ Roses), Wes Borland (Limp Bizkit) and Sugizo (Luna Sea). Friday’s show ended with drummer and band leader Yoshiki collapsing from the exertion of the high-speed song “Art of Life” and being carried off stage. Deprived of their “X jump” ritual that traditionally ends an X Japan concert, some fans were clearly unhappy with the chaotic nature and particularly the brevity of the show. But Saturday and Sunday’s concerts ran more or less on schedule and the many fans who attended all three shows will no doubt be feeling pretty satisfied. And there will be more to come – a two-day tribute to hide is scheduled for early May, ten years after his death, and on Saturday Yoshiki announced a concert in Paris on July 5.

• Comedienne Murakami Tomoko (28) of the popular trio Mori Sanchu suddenly announced on Friday’s edition of the live Fuji TV variety show “Waratte Iitomo” that she had recently got married. She said that she and a 30-year-old apparel company employee had tied the knot on March 23, just three weeks after they met. Murakami says he was her first boyfriend.

• Japan-based Korean talento Yoon Sona (32) announced on Friday that she is expecting her first child in September. She will be taking maternity leave and plans to return to work next January. She married a Korean entrepreneur (37) in 2006.

• Hollywood actress Glenn Close (61) was in Tokyo over the weekend, her first visit to Japan in 17 years, to promote her latest U.S. drama series “Damage.” The show is to air on the NHK BS2 satellite network from April 2.

• Actress Sawajiri Erika (21) and her video director boyfriend Takashiro Tsuyoshi (43) returned from their 3-month stay in the U.K. on Saturday. “Erika-sama” seemed a bit surprised by the waiting media at Narita Airport and, in keeping with the bad image she earned last year, she tried to avoid the cameras. But as she dropped a makeup bag and spilled the contents all over the arrival lobby floor, her first words were “Oh, shit!” Reporters helped her pick up her things and she let guard down, smiling and briefly answering questions about her trip and future plans.

• Actor Hino Shouhei (58) is to be prosecuted after his car hit a cyclist last Friday. The 61-year-old lady cyclist received minor injuries to her head and was taken to hospital.

• NTV weather girl Matsuoka Yoko (28) announced on her blog on Saturday that she’s getting married this spring. She and her new husband will move to Belgium, where he’ll be working.

Former Morning Musume member Goto Maki (22) says she has decided to get back to work. In the first update to her blog since last December, she revealed that she is currently staying in Los Angeles for about a month. She apologized to fans for the trouble caused by the robbery arrest of her younger brother Yuuki (21) last year and her own sudden decision a week later to quit the Hello! Project collective. Her brother’s court case is ongoing. Maki said she had thought long and hard about her future before deciding to take the first step back towards her musical career, though she didn’t give any details. Yuuki had a brief pop career and is married with a child. He was arrested last October and again in December on robbery charges.

Young actress Kuroki Meisa (19) is in sparkling company. Yesterday she was named the “Bulgari Brilliant Dream Award” winner for 2008. The annual award from the jewelry maker has previously been given to such top class stars as Boston Red Sox pitcher Matsuzaka Daisuke and J-pop diva Hamasaki Ayumi. For yesterday’s ceremony, Kuroki wore a diamond ring, necklace and earring set with a combined value of over ¥60 million. Also receiving a special award was retired soccer star Nakata Hidetoshi (31).

• Apprentice rakugoka Dekiya Junichi (35) has been arrested for making death threats against the Rakugo Association. Using the stage name Shofukutei Nokou, he became an apprentice to veteran Shofukutei Tsuruko (60) early last year. But in July he got into a dressing room fight with some of the senior rakugoka in the “family”. The trouble escalated to the point where Dekiya made a series of intimidating phone calls in January, threatening to “kill every member of the Rakugo Association.” They filed a complaint with police in February.

Nippon Ham Fighters young star pitcher Darvish Yu (21) got some good news before the start of what should be a key season for him. He announced on his blog yesterday that his wife, actress Saeko (23), gave birth to a baby boy. The two took the media by surprise in August of last year when they told the world about their engagement and Saeko’s pregnancy in rapid succession. The young half-Iranian pitcher made his breakthrough when the Fighters won the Japan Series in 2006, though they failed to defend that title last year, losing the 2007 series to the Chunichi Dragons. Popular not just for his good looks, Darvish is considered one of the best young pitchers in Japan. He’ll be on the Japanese team at the Olympics this summer and a year from now he may well lead the team at the Baseball World Championships. And then the inevitable comparisons to Matsuzaka Daisuke and his move to the Major Leagues.

Actress and singer Nishikawa Mineko (49) has filed for divorce from her husband. In an interview in today’s issue of weekly magazine “Josei Jishin”, she says they are separated and have already held their first hearing at the Tokyo Family Court. The couple married in July 2001, after Nishikawa proposed on just their sixth date. The following year, thanks in part to his wife’s fame, Murakami Takashi (42) successfully ran in a municipal election in his native Shimane Prefecture. Nishikawa paid to have a new home built there and she later also funded a restaurant in Tokyo’s Setagaya ward. But last April saw the end of Murakami’s five-year term, the closing of the restaurant, and the beginnings of divorce. Nishikawa has moved back to the Tochigi Prefecture home where she lived before getting married. That home was in the news in 1998 when, just one month after it was built, it was destroyed by a typhoon. Now a fairly minor name, Nishikawa’s heyday as a singer was in the late 1970s. She got back in the headlines in 1993 when she published a book of nude photos. She is currently appearing in an afternoon drama series on TBS.

• It’s been a while but Amuro Namie (30) is back on top of the pop charts. Her latest single “60s, 70s, 80s” entered the Oricon rankings at No.2 last week and became her tenth chart topper this week. That’s an unusual pattern these days, with most strong releases going straight to No.1. The latest album from Utada Hikaru (25) has done just that. Her sixth No.1 album, “Heart Station” has sold almost half a million copies in its first week.

• One of Amuro’s idols was in the news yesterday. Mariah Carey (37) announced that she’s coming to Japan at the end of May to promote the follow up to her 2005 comeback album “The Emancipation of Mimi”. The new album, which goes on sale April 16, will include a lottery ticket that offers fans a chance to meet the star.

• Veteran actor Tanaka Kunie (75) is to take on his first drama lead role in more than five years, it was announced yesterday. Best known for the long-running “Kita no Kuni” series, which was most recently revived for a special in September 2002, Tanaka will star in the Fuji TV special “Kujira to Medaka”. The story tells of a company president who is ousted by his son and unsure how to live out his remaining years. He encounters a junior high school girl (Shida Mirai, 14), also trying to figure out how to live her life. Written by director Matsuyama Zenzou (82), the drama will air in May.

• Tsunku (39), Sharan Q vocalist and the “father” of the Hello! Project and Morning Musume, is to be an actual father, it was revealed yesterday. His wife Kanako (27) is expecting their first child in mid-May. The music producer and the former model married in June 2006. Through his various musical projects, Tsunku has brought to life some 1,100 J-pop songs that have sold somewhere in the order of 53 million CDs.

• The latest romance rumor about recently divorced kabuki actor Nakamura Shido (35) links him with actress Suzuki Sawa (35). The two were photographed at a posh yakiniku restaurant in Tokyo by the weekly gossip magazine “Flash”. They worked together in 2004 on the NHK taiga drama series “Shinsengumi”. Nakamura split with his wife, popular actress Takeuchi Yuko (27), last year but their divorce was formalized less than a month ago.

Southern All Stars vocalist Kuwata Keisuke (52) gave an historic concert performance on Sunday night. His acoustic concert on the Okinawan island of Ishigakijima was the first ever live show broadcast on all 53 FM radio stations in Japan. In a career that now spans 30 years, it was also Kuwata’s first performance on the island, a remote but popular tourist attraction in the far south of the country. Included in the 20-song set was a duet with Begin, the most famous band to have come from the island. They performed their song “Nada Sousosu”, which was a hit for local singer Natsukawa Rimi and is perhaps the best known song to have originated in the southern islands. There was also a surprise appearance from Kuwata’s wife and fellow SAS member Hara Yuko (51). The audience of about 1,000 included 800 inhabitants of neighboring islands who were invited to the show free of charge.

• A busy schedule meant that actor Enari Kazuki (23) was unable to attend his university graduation ceremony yesterday. The popular young star of the long-running TBS drama “Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari” majored in cultural history at Seijo University in Tokyo. He has already started to further his studies of world history and plans to attend another college.

• He may not have been in the crowd to see his old school make their first appearance at Koshien, but X Japan leader Yoshiki made sure that just about the whole school was there. Chiba Prefecture representatives Awa High School won their debut at the national high school spring invitational baseball championship on Saturday. And they were cheered on by most of their schoolmates, thanks in part to a donation from Yoshiki that paid for 15 busloads of students to make the trip halfway across the country. The spring and summer tournaments are held every year at the venerable Koshien stadium in Hyogo Prefecture, which is also home to the Hanshin Tigers. Another victory for Awa in the second round on Thursday would set the right mood for X Japan’s long-awaited comeback concerts in Tokyo this weekend.

Model and talento Mie (25) and Japan’s top international pro surfer Tajima Teppei (23) are engaged to be married, it was revealed yesterday. They plan to hold a small wedding ceremony in Tokyo on Sunday. Tajima heads off to compete overseas next month, but Mie is likely to stay behind as she’s currently four months pregnant. Last week she took part in the Tokyo Girls Collection, a major fashion event that will be her last job as a model. A “JJ” magazine cover girl while a student at Aoyama Gakuin University, she has also worked as a presenter on TV shows such as Fuji TV’s “Mot-Supo!” and TV Asahi’s “Warai no Kin Medal”. A scheduled appearance on Fuji’s “Tamacchi!” on Monday will be her last. Fluent in English, she plans to support her husband’s career on the international surfing circuit. A pro since he was 16, last year Tajima became the first surfer to win four World Qualifying Series events in a row and is now the No.1 surfer in Asia. On hearing that Mie was pregnant, he proposed to her on the same Chiba Prefecture beach where they first met in July of last year.

• Also currently riding a wave of success is British singer Leona Lewis (22), who yesterday announced her first visit to Japan. Her debut album “Spirit” topped the charts for seven weeks and sold over 2 million copies in the U.K. at the end of last year. The single “Bleeding Love” has been getting a lot of airplay here, and recently entered the U.S. chart Top 10. “Spirit” is released in Japan on April 23 and Lewis will support the album with a live tour in early May.

• Details of the upcoming tribute concerts to the late X Japan guitarist hide were announced yesterday. May 2 will be the tenth anniversary of his death at the age of 33, and the two shows at Ajinomoto Stadium, in the western Tokyo suburb of Chofu, will be held May 3&4. In addition to his old bandmates, the concert will feature some 20 acts including Dir En Grey, Luna Sea and T. M. Revolution. The main organizer of the “Hide Memorial Summit” is hide’s younger brother and personal manager, Matsumoto Yuji.

• The Hokkaido town of Yubari celebrated the re-opening of its International Fantastic Film Festival yesterday. Actress Ayase Haruka (22) was on hand for the screening of her latest movie “Boku no Kanojo wa Saibogu” (My Girlfriend is a Cyborg). The event, which was launched in 1990, missed a year in 2007 due to the town’s bankruptcy, which drew nationwide attention.

• Hip hop artist Kreva (31) held a show last night to commemorate the reopening after four and a half years of the Akasaka Blitz live house in central Tokyo. He performed all sixteen tracks from his hits collection “Kreva no Bestban”, which went on sale Wednesday.

• According to the latest survey by chart company Oricon, Fuji TV’s Takashima Aya (29) remains the country’s most popular announcer. She clinched the top spot for the fourth year in a row, holding off her “Mezamashi Terebi” co-presenter Nakano Minako (28).

Hip hop unit Teriyaki Boyz are having another go at international stardom. Led by fashion icon Nigo (37), the group performed in Taiwan and New York last year, and yesterday they announced their first concert in Hong Kong. They will play at the Hitec Star Hall on April 10. They are also scheduled to appear with Pharrell Williams’ alternative rock unit N.E.R.D. and Kanye West at an event at Makuhari Messe on April 5. Their latest single “Zock On!”, which was written by Williams (34) and also features Busta Rhymes, is released today. Nigo is the creator of the fashion brand BAPE (Bathing Ape).

• Actress twins Mikura Mana and Kana (22) graduated this week from the social studies department of Kansai Gakuin University. The inseparable duo are popularly known as ManaKana.

• Comedian Tamura Ryo (36) announced yesterday through the Yoshimoto agency that he became a father for the second time last week. One half of the popular duo London Boots, Tamura married in June 2003 and his wife Arisa (34) had a baby the following September.

• Janet Jackson (41) made a sudden announcement yesterday that she will be visiting Japan next month to set up her first tour here since 2002. Just last week she suffered from respiratory failure, but she insists that one part of her busy schedule that won’t change is the four-day visit from April 9. The trip is in support of her new album “Discipline”, her first U.S. chart-topping release in seven years.

• Moribe Tatsuya, the stepson of actor Yamashita Shinji (56), was found dead at his Tokyo home by his mother last week. He was 38. Police gave the cause of death as a heart attack, but he was found hanging by a necktie and left a suicide note. Moribe made his movie debut in 1992’s “Wangan Midnight” but had not worked as an actor for some time. was the son of

Could wedding bells be just around the corner for another Tokio member? This week’s issue of “Flash” magazine revealed that Matsuoka Masahiro (31) is currently sharing his Tokyo home with his girlfriend, described as looking like talento Nakagawa Shoko. The couple were spotted leaving the luxury apartment building last week, and the Tokio drummer confirmed the relationship, saying they’ve been together for about five years. The Johnnys Jimusho agency also confirmed the story but said there has been no mention of marriage. V6 member Inohara Yoshihiko (31) married actress Seto Asaka (31) last year and Tokio bassist Yamaguchi Tatsuya (36) got hitched to a former model just over a week ago. So it’s considered unlikely that another of the agency’s micromanaged stars would make a similar announcement so soon. Tokio are currently on the first leg of a nationwide tour, playing shows in Tokyo, Nagoya and Osaka. The second leg will bring them to smaller regional venues, including Matsuoka’s hometown of Sapporo at the end of July. If he is to make a big announcement this year, that might just be the time and place.

With Kimura Takuya (35) in the lead role, Fuji TV’s biggest drama of the upcoming spring season was already a sure-fire hit. Yesterday it was announced that “Change” will have a theme song provided by none other than Madonna (49). The ballad “Miles Away” will be the first song that the singer has allowed to be used for a drama, in Japan or anywhere else. Fuji staff contacted Madonna about the project last December, when she happened to be in the middle of producing her latest album, “Hard Candy”. She had previously met Kimutaku when she appeared as a guest on the “SMAPxSMAP” show in 2005, but the network had little hope that she would agree to the idea. But they say she was taken with the tale of an elementary school teacher who suddenly finds himself in the world of politics and named Japan’s new prime minister. She chose the medium tempo ballad, one of her favorite tracks on the album, as the song best suited to the story. The album goes on sale in Japan on April 30. Newly named to the “Change” cast, which also includes Fukatsu Eri (35), are (l-to-r) the recently married Abe Hiroshi (43), Terao Akira (60) and Kato Rosa(22), all of whom are big enough names to carry a series of their own.

• Former top Takarazuka star Aika Mire (43) has dropped out of an upcoming stage musical due to health problems. She was to star in “Sempo – Japan’s Schindler” at the New National Theater from April 4.

• Actress Ohkouchi Nanako (30) announced yesterday that she is expecting her first child. She is four months pregnant and the baby is due in September. She married stage actor and screenwriter Takuma Takayuki (37) at the end of 2006. Last year they worked together on the TBS drama series “Utahime”, which was written by Takuma.