Category Archives: Entertainment News

(A reader sent this in so we’re posting it) If you’re in Los Angeles this spring and want to get a serious dose of Japanese kawaii, then you should check out Moon Kana. She’ll be making three night-time appearances in L.A. on April 1-2 along with special guest DJ SiSeN. She doesn’t seem to have released any new material since the album “Tsuki no Usagi” in July 2007.

She started out as a teen model for the “Gothic & Lolita Bible” magazine using the name Kana, and began her music career as singer for the electronica band Starblues in 1996. She later went on to release four solo albums. Though now 28, in her style and music she simply oozes cute – whether that’s a good or bad thing is in the eye of the beholder. Her style is a mix of Goth Lolita and straightahead kawaii, rounded out with blonde/green hair and stuffed bunnies.

For more details of her Moon Kana’s music and live appearances, check out her blog.

Nishikido Ryo is the Pudding Samurai
Johnny’s Jimusho idol Nishikido Ryo (25) has landed his first movie starring role in a project clearly aimed at the female segment of the market. Filming will start this weekend for “Chonmage Purin,” a comedy drama about a samurai who finds himself in modern Japan and, naturally, ends up becoming a hugely popular pastry chef. Chonmage is the name for the samurai’s distinctive hairstyle, while purin is the Japanese pronunciation of pudding. Directed by the highly regarded Nakamura Yoshihiro (39), the movie co-stars Tomosaka Rie (30). Nishikido, a member of the Johnny’s group NEWS, made the news for a different reason in March 2009 when he caused a minor traffic accident.
Earlier story:
Nishikido Ryo Makes an Impact (Mar 3, 2009)

Matsumoto Jun on the Skids
And funnily enough, another Johnny’s star has just caused a similar accident. Matsumoto Jun (26) of the group Arashi ran into the back of another car while stopping for a red light in Tokyo shortly after 11pm on Monday night. There were no injuries and minor damage to both cars. MatsuJun may escape serous reprimand as some of the blame can be put on the snow that suddenly enveloped the capital late that night.

And about half an hour later Barcelona Olympic medal-winning gymnast Iketani Yukio (39) was the victim of a hit and run, also in Tokyo. He was hit from behind while stopped at a light shortly before midnight and, while he was calling the police, the driver of the other car sped away. Iketani suffered some minor bruises to his neck.

Management for comedian Shibata Hidetsugu (34, photo right) says his recently announced leave of absence is due to health problems and not woman trouble. One half of the popular manzai duo Untouchable, Shibata is taking an indefinite break from entertainment as of this month and is being treated at home. His agency said that he is still undergoing medical tests and they may make further announcements when the results are known. In the meantime, his comedy partner Yamazaki Hironari (34, photo left) will be going it alone on several shows on TV Asahi and TBS radio for the foreseeable future.

Untouchable made their breakthrough in 2004 when they won the M-1 Grand Prix comedy contest and have been TV regulars ever since. In February 2007, there were rumors of a split between Shibata and his former dancer wife (27). He was hospitalized with acute hepatitis in December of that year, but in 2008 his wife gave birth to their second child.

Goto Maki Still in Mourning
Singer Goto Maki (24) has canceled a concert appearance scheduled for February 8. Her management agency says she is still recovering from the suicide of her mother on January 24. Goto updated her official website yesterday and thanked fans for their messages of sympathy and support. “I want to move on and be positive in my music career,” the former Morning Musume member said. “My mother was looking forward to my next project, and I will do my best to bring it to you as soon as possible.”
Earlier stories:
Mother of Gomaki in Apparent Suicide (Jan. 25, 2009)

X Japan drummer and band leader Yoshiki confirmed yesterday that they will play the main stage at the Lollapalooza rock festival in August. The event, at Grant Park in Chicago from August 6-8, will be the band’s first concert performance in the U.S. They recently spent over ¥500 million ($5.5 million) shooting some promotional videos in Hollywood, which in itself was something of a dream come true for Yoshiki. A voting member of the Recording Academy and based in Los Angeles, he was at the Grammys at the weekend and broke the news to the press. If true, X Japan will be the first Japanese artists to perform on the main stage at Lollapalooza, though sources say the details are “almost” complete and, contrary to some Internet rumors, they won’t be headlining.

X Japan are of course a band with legendary status at home, with perhaps the most fanatical fan support in the country. Many of those fans will no doubt be planning to cross the Pacific to see their idols perform alongside some of the biggest and best rock acts in the world. But even with close to a quarter of a million people attending, tickets for the 3-day event will likely be hard to come by. Partly thanks to the general boom in all aspects of Japanese pop culture, X Japan have a growing overseas fan base, but tragedy and personal problems have so far conspired to stop them from achieving their ambition of becoming global artists. Since their long-awaited comeback almost two years ago, they have announced several shows in the US and Europe, but they’ve yet to actually play outside Asia. So if they do finally make the stage at Lollapalooza, they will no doubt be looking to steal the show.
Earlier story:
X Japan Finally Realize American Dream (Jan. 12, 2010)

The late Michael Jackson’s female lead guitarist has filmed her first appearance on a Japanese music show. The February 6 edition of Fuji TV’s “Music Fair” will feature Australian guitarist Orianthi Panagaris (25), who has been in the spotlight since her rehearsals with Jackson for his “This Is It” comeback show. She teamed up with J-pop diva Koda Kumi (27) for a performance of her hit “Ningyohime.” It was the first time for Orianthi to perform with a Japanese female artist. She visited Japan last week to promote her debut album “Believe” as well as the release of Jackson’s posthumous movie.

Exile Add to Awards Haul
14-member dance-vocal unit Exile were awarded the Best Artist prize at the inaugural Billboard Japan Music Awards in Tokyo yesterday. The winners were selected by the public from all the artists who had No.1s on the Billboard Japan weekly charts between December 2008 and November 2009. Exile leader Hiro (40, photo left) was at the ceremony to pick up the group’s sixth award of the year (they won 16 during 2009). Other artists taking home awards included singer Ai (28, photo center), male duo Kobukuro, and the band Remioromen.

The Next KimuTaku?
Rikkyo University sophomore Ohno Takuro (21, photo right) took a big step toward stardom yesterday. He was chosen as the winner of the “CampuStar” in a talent scouting event organized by the major Hori Pro management agency and Men’s Non-No magazine. Hori Pro are celebrating their 50th anniversary this year so they will be putting all their firepower behind Ohno. The runaway winner of the pageant, taking 5 of the 7 categories, when he was asked who is said to look like, he answered “a young Kimura Takuya.” Those looks helped him win similar contests in each year of high school, and he now looks set to follow in the footsteps of other Hori Pro actors like Tsumabuki Satoshi (29), Fujiwara Tatsuya (27) and Matsuyama Kenichi (24). He will land a part in the agency’s special movie project, “Inshitemiru,” and grace the cover of Men’s Non-No. There was no mention of whether he would continue his studies and pursue his original aim of becoming a physiotherapist.

Kabuki star Ichikawa Ebizo (32) and freelance announced Kobayashi Mao (27) held a press conference yesterday to formally announce their engagement. The pair got engaged in December, but yesterday’s event was their first time together in public. Speaking to dozens of reporters and TV cameras at a hotel in central Tokyo, they said they will probably be holding a wedding ceremony and reception in July, though Ichikawa said they have yet to decide the exact date and venue. Kobayashi is scheduled to step down from her job as a presenter on the NTV show “News Zero” at the end of March, but plans to continue her career.
Earlier story:
Ebizo, Mao on the Verge of Marriage (Nov. 20, 2009)

Former K-1 fighter Sudo Genki (30) has reinvented himself as a techno musician and it seems to be paying off. A video featuring his new “performance unit” World Order has been viewed more than 125,000 times on YouTube and the eponymously titled song is now available as a digital download from the Recochoku service. Sudo wrote the words and music for the techno tune and also choreographed the robotic dance moves. Check out the video below.

A couple of stories today showing that it’s not just the guys who go for younger partners. Actress Mihara Junko (45, photo left) may soon be tying the knot yet again, according to today’s issue of weekly magazine “Friday.” Her management has acknowledged that she is in a serious relationship with theater director Suenaga Yoshihiro (38). They said that romance started after she appeared in one of his stage productions in Tokyo last October.

Mihara married a racing driver in 1990, but they divorced in May 1999. Six months later, she was married to comedian Happy Happy (42). That marriage also ended in divorce in 2007. Mihara has suffered several miscarriages and had her womb surgically removed in 2008 after she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Suenaga is also a divorcee and has custody of a young daughter, who has been seen referring to Mihara as “Mama.”

• Meanwhile, talento Umemiya Anna (37, photo right) has acknowledged her romance with top American Football player Nakajima Yu (28). Returning from a location shoot in Australia, she spoke with reporters at Narita Airport yesterday. She said the relationship started just last December so it was too early to think about marriage. Umemiya has an 8-year-old daughter from a previous short-lived marriage. Nakajima is a wide receiver for the Kirin Beer Silver Star team in the X League and has represented Japan.

Ebizo, Mao to Meet Press
Kabuki star Ichikawa Ebizo (32) and freelance TV announcer Kobayashi Mao (27) are scheduled to give a press conference today to formally announce their engagement. The couple’s relationship was first revealed last November and their engagement ceremony took place at the Hotel Okura in Tokyo in December. But today’s event, also at a Tokyo hotel, will be their first appearance together in public.

Arashi NTV’s New Face of Saturday Night
NTV’s comedy showcase “Enta no Kamisama” is coming to the end of the road, and is being replaced by a variety show featuring Johnny’s Jimusho idol group Arashi. “Enta…” helped launch the careers of several comedians over the last few years but has been canceled from the end of March. Taking over the Saturday 10pm slot will be the five members of Arashi, currently riding a wave of huge popularity, in a show tentatively titled “Arashi ni Shiyagare.” The format will be such that the members film each show without knowing the details or who their special guests will be.

A Good Year at the Cinema
The box office numbers are in for 2009, and it was another good year for Japanese movies. There was an increase in total receipts for both domestic and overseas titles. But while 34 Japanese movies made over ¥1 billion, an increase of 6 over 2008, only 23 overseas movies passed that mark. The big Hollywood blockbusters were sequels (“Angels and Demons,” “Terminator 4”), and western movies made a total of ¥88.7 billion (+12.3%), while local productions made ¥117.4 billion (+1.3%). The box office total of ¥206 billion was the second highest on record, behind 2004’s ¥210 billion.

The winners of this year’s Blue Ribbon movie awards were announced yesterday. Kimura Daisaku (photo left) took the best movie award for “Tsurugi Tennoki” but at the age of 70, he said he was “a bit embarrassed” to receive a best newcomer award. Though he was regarded by the great Kurosawa Akira as Japan’s finest cinematographer, the movie marks his debut as a director. It has won several awards but this was the first time it was chosen as best movie. Asked about his next project, Kimura said, “I’d love to work with Takakura Ken.” The two worked together on 1999’s “Poppoya.”

The main acting awards went to Shofukutei Tsurube (58, “Dear Doctor,” photo center) and Ayase Haruka (24, “Oppai Volley,” photo right). Tsurube, a rakugoka and popular TV presenter, made his movie debut more than 30 years ago and has now accumulated six awards for his first starring role as a country doctor. His co-star Eita (27, photo center) won the best supporting actor award.

Ayase, who has recently played off-the-wall characters like a cyborg in “Boku no Kanojo wa Saiboogu” and a blind swordswoman in “Ichi,” said she was happy to return to a “normal” role for her latest movie. But she was less than happy about the title, which translates as “Titty Volleyball.” She said, “When I heard the title, I thought it was a dirty movie. Even when I realized it was a movie about youth, I really wanted them to change the title.” The best supporting actress award went to Fukada Kyoko (27) for her role as the villainess Doronjo in the live action adaptation of the “Yatterman” anime.

The 52nd Blue Ribbon awards, given out by a group of seven Tokyo-based newspapers, will be presented on February 16.

Natsu Yuusuke Dies of Cancer

Actor Natsu Yuusuke (photo left) died yesterday morning of stomach cancer at a Tokyo hospital. He was 59. He became ill last autumn and underwent surgery at the end of the year. Real name Taura Hisayuki, Natsu started out in Osaka as the keyboard player in a band that featured the young Wada Akiko (59) as vocalist. When Wada went to Tokyo to make her pro debut, Natsu went with her. He joined the band Ox, who were part of the popular “group sounds” scene. He later moved to acting and was best known for a supporting in the popular 1980s detective drama “Tokuzosai Zensen,” where he also met his wife, actress Ito Megumi (60). Their daughter is top Takarazuka actress Aika Chisaki.

Shibasaki Kou, Tatsuya Split
Actress-singer Shibasaki Kou (28, photo center) and Uverworld vocalist Takuya (30, photo right) have split up, it was revealed yesterday. The couple’s relationship started in the autumn of 2008 and was made public shortly afterward, and they were often spotted out on the town together. But sources say that they have both been so busy with work that they drifted apart and finally broke up at the end of last year. 2009 was a particularly busy year for Shibasaki, who made the movie “Shokudo Katatsumuri” (in theaters from February 6), the Fuji TV special drama “Wagaya no Rekishi” (on air this spring) and went to Scandanavia to shoot the photo book “0805.” This year she’ll be working on the big screen adapatation of the “Ooku” period drama and embarking on a nationwide concert tour. Uverworld, who spent six months touring last year, will be on the road again in 2010, their 10th anniversary.

Some news on the relationships front. J-pop star Utada Hikaru (27) has broken up with the older artist (35) she had been dating for some time. In the last few months she had been busy planning her first overseas tour, her first concerts in three and a half years. Sources close to the singer say that the revival of her music career led to the couple spending less and less time together and eventually drifting apart. She updated her blog for the first time in three months on January 19 – her 27th birthday – and celebrated not with a romantic dinner but with a concert in Los Angeles, which she said was a bit “embarrassing.” The current tour, which started in Honolulu on January 15 and ends in London, takes in a series of small venues of 800-1,500 capacity.

Utada (profile) became a teen J-pop sensation in 1999 when her debut “First Love” became the best-selling Japanese album of all time. She took the media by surprise when she married film maker Kiriya Kazuaki in September 2002, but they divorced in March 2007.

Amuro Tops 5 Asian Charts
Another J-pop divorcee, Amuro Namie (32), is the first Japanese female artist to top the weekly pop charts in five Asian regions. Her greatest hits album, “Best Fiction,” made No.1 in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong when it was released last July. But her latest release, “Past-Future,” has done better still, adding the Singapore chart to the list. The album stayed at No.1 for six weeks in Hong Kong, a first for a Japanese artist, and has so far chalked up four weeks at No.1 in Singapore. Amuro is currently preparing for a massive 8-month nationwide tour that starts on April 3 and will see her perform 73 shows. Despite some rumors to the contrary, she says her recently revealed romance with comedian Tamura Atsushi (36) is going just fine.

Marines Star, CanCam Model an Item

Romance has blossomed between Chiba Lotte Marines infielder Nishioka Tsuyoshi (25) and fashion model Tokuzawa Naoko (25), it was reported yesterday. The two have been spotted out together in Tokyo and Nishioka has publicly acknowledged the relationship. The handsome baseball star was previously linked with talento Sakura (26) and pro golfer Koga Miho (27). Tokuzawa is a model for the “CanCam” fashion magazine and has been called the “Post Ebi-chan,” following in the footsteps of the hugely popular CanCam model Ebihara Yuri (30).

Management for Tsuka Kohei (61, photo left) announced yesterday that the renowned playwright is currently in hospital undergoing treatment for lung cancer. The latest production of one of his most famous works, “Hiryuden 2010 – Last Princess,” is already well into rehearsals and is set to start as scheduled on February 3 at the Shimbashi Enbujo theater in central Tokyo. Tsuka is following rehearsals by videotape and issuing his directions from a hospital bed, and is confident that the production is “almost perfect.”

Casting for the show was completed last summer, with the lead role going to up-and-coming actress Kuroki Meisa (21, photo center), who joined Tsuka’s theater group when she was 15. She and fellow cast members, including Tokushige Satoshi (31) and Azuma Mikihisa (40), only learned of Tsuka’s condition yesterday, though he himself was diagnosed in November. When he pulled out of a PR event on December 9, he said simply that he had a “fever caused by a cold.” He began chemotherapy from January 6 but continued to visit the theater for rehearsals.

An ethnic Korean whose given name is Kim Bon Un, Tsuka was born in Fukuoka Prefecture. He became involved in the theater while a student at Keio University. He uses all kana characters for his pen-name, an idea he said was inspired by manga-ka Chiba Tetsuya. A famously heavy smoker, his medical condition has forced him to quit the habit.

• Former actor Oshio Manabu (31, photo right) is to become the first celebrity to receive a jury trial in Japan. He is already serving a suspended prison sentence for drug use, and yesterday prosecutors filed a supplementary indictment at the Tokyo District Court in relation to the drug-induced death last August of 30-year-old bar hostess Tanaka Kaori (see earlier stories below).

The jury system was only introduced in Japan last year. Up to the end of last October, there had been 47 such trials and all ended in a guilty verdict. 32 of those accused received prison sentences between 3 and 20 years. Regarding the Oshio case, lawyer and former public prosecutor Osawa Takayuki said, “The case will focus on two points – whether Oshio gave drugs to Tanaka, and whether his failure to call for medical help led to her death.” He added, “In a similar case in 1989, the accused was given an 8-year prison sentence. I imagine the verdict in this case will be about the same or even a bit more severe.”
Earlier stories:
Oshio Manabu Arrested Again (Jan. 4, 2010)
Oshio Manabu Gets Suspended Sentence (Nov. 2, 2009)
Oshio Manabu Faces Drug Arrest (Aug. 4, 2009)