Management for actor Matsuda Ryuhei (25) announced yesterday that he and model Ohta Rina (21) got married on January 11, Ohta’s birthday. They are expecting a baby in the summer, an experience Matsuda will already have portrayed in the upcoming movie “Tsurugidake,” due to open in June. The couple first met through a mutual friend in the autumn of 2007 and soon started dating. The son of actress Matsuda Miyuki and the legendary Matsuda Yusaku (1949-89), Ryuhei won multiple awards at the age of 16 for his first movie starring role in Ohshima Nagisa’s “Gohatto.” His younger brother Shota (23) is also an up-and-coming actor. Ryuhei will no doubt be expected to talk about his big news on January 17, when he is scheduled to appear at a talk show event to promote his current movie “Akumu Tantei 2” (Dream Detective 2). Ohta debuted as a fashion magazine model in 2001. Half Russian on her mother’s side, she has appeared on NHK’s Russian language learning show as well as several movies.
• Talento Yamamoto Mona (30) is getting back to work again. Six months after yet another affair with a married celebrity got her in trouble, she is to return to her weekly job on the Bunka Housou radio network. She was Ohtake Makoto’s co-presenter on the Tuesday edition of his weekday afternoon show since it started in May 2007, but has not appeared since her affair with baseball star Nioka Tomohiro appeared in the media last July. Ohtake is an old friend of Kitano Takeshi, whose Office Kitano management agency represents Yamamoto.
• Management for talento Yasuda Misako (26) and actor Shirota Yu (23) have denied rumors of a romance between the two, insisting they are just friends. The pair have known each other since they played a wild young couple in the 2007 movie “Arakure Knight.” Yasuda was romantically involved with actor Kashiwabara Shuji (30) from the autumn of 2006, but they broke up the following year.
NTV yesterday announced the new format for its weekday afternoon schedule. Veteran emcee Mino Monta (
So it’s a “speed divorce” for actress Adachi Yumi and comedian Itoda Jun! Adachi (27) and Itoda (36) announced by fax to the media last Friday that they have formally ended their 3-year marriage. Though a good bit older, Itoda – one half of the comedy duo Speed Wagon – was quite a bit younger than Adachi’s previous boyfriend, actor Kuroda Arthur (47) and the media saw him as a more sensible choice of marriage partner. But showbiz shotgun weddings are notoriously short-lived, and Adachi was pregnant when the couple tied the knot on her birthday in September 2005. They held their wedding ceremony the following November and all seemed rosy. But a few months later Adachi was not impressed when the media reported on her husband’s secret hotel meeting with an ex-girlfriend just days before she gave birth to their daughter in April 2006. A series of media rumors followed of a split between the two, and they are said to have been separated since last September. Itoda was also reported to have taken no interest in raising their child, who was often taken care of by Adachi’s mother. Itoda spoke only briefly to reporters on Saturday, saying that he and his ex-wife had had “differences” and the divorce decision was mutual.
In a very rare move, it seems that this year’s taiga drama series on NHK is to end a month early. NHK’s annual historical drama has aired on Sunday nights for 50 episodes the last couple of years, but “Tenchijin” will run for only 47. Tenchijin, with an all-star cast led by Tsumabuki Satoshi (28) as medieval retainer Naoe Kanetsugu (1560-1620), got off to a good start last weekend with an audience rating of 24.7% in the Kanto region. But yesterday NHK announced that another major drama series will air in the Sunday night time slot from November 29 to December 27. The cast and large scale of “Saka no Ue no Kumo” was first announced back in November 2007 when filming began, and the series is being shot on 18 locations around Japan as well as Russia, China, France and the U.K. Starring Abe Hiroshi (who’s also in Tenchijin) as the famous general Akiyama Yoshifuru (1859-1930), Motoki Masahiro, Kagawa Teruyuki and Kanno Miho, it is based on the historical novel by Shiba Ryotaro (1923-96). This year’s five episodes will actually complete the first part of the series. The second series of four episodes will air in the autumn of 2010, while the third and final part will be shown a year after that. An NHK spokesman said that the plan to show the drama in the usual taiga time slot was to ensure that it got the maximum audience exposure and was made well before Tenchijin started.
Popular TV talento Hashino Emi (35) yesterday formally announced her recent marriage to actor Tsunashima Gotaro (35). She is currently appearing in a production with veteran comedian Hagimoto Kinichi (67, photo left) at the Meijiya theater in Tokyo. After the final curtain, she surprised the audience of 1,200 with the news that she had tied the knot on New Year’s Day, and called her new husband up onto the stage. Hagimoto has been like a father to Hashino since she came to Tokyo at the age of 17 and joined his “Kin-chan Gekidan” theater group. Hashino first took a liking to Tsunashima in 2006, when he played her fiance in the TBS afternoon drama series “Mikon Rokushimai.” She said she’d like to have two children, though she isn’t expecting just yet.
Kabuki actor Nakamura Kantaro (27) yesterday for the first time acknowledged his romantic relationship with actress Maeda Ai (25), and added that they plan to get married in the autumn. The actor was attending a PR event for his latest movie, held at a Shinto shrine in central Tokyo. In “Zen” Nakamura plays the famous monk Dougen (1200-1253). In accordance with tradition, yesterday’s news should not have come out until after the one-year mourning period for Maeda’s mother, who died on January 16 of last year. Nakamura’s father and fellow kabuki star Kanzaburo (53), meeting the press after a performance at the Kabukiza theater in Tokyo, said the media had got hold of the news earlier than his family had planned. He said he would be meeting with Maeda’s father on the 17th of this month to discuss the wedding, which is likely to be a big showbiz event. The couple’s relationship began in 2001 when they appeared together in the NHK drama “Hikari no Teikoku.”