Category Archives: Entertainment News

Police investigators today visited the offices of Avex Entertainment and Tokyu Malls Development over a guerrilla marketing event in Shibuya in April. The appearance by J-pop diva Hamasaki Ayumi (30) in front of the popular 109 department store in central Shibuya, announced in advance only to those involved and a small number of Hamasaki’s fans, was to launch her autobiography and the “Next Level” album. She visited three CD stores in Shibuya before her arrival at 109 around 3pm. She didn’t sing and was on stage for only about three minutes, but the crowd quickly grew to about 8,000 people and caused traffic jams. About 70 security personnel worked to a possible crowd panic and no injuries were reported. The legal problem is that organizers did not apply for official police approval for the event and could face charges under the Road Traffic Act. A similar publicity stunt in Shibuya pulled by singer Go Hiromi (53) in 1999 led to six people being prosecuted.

SMAP member Katori Shingo (32, photo left) is to make his return to the stage – on Broadway no less. Well, actually off Broadway, but the local media has been reporting it as the first time for an original Japanese stage production to play New York’s famous theater district. Katori will star in the musical comedy “Talk Like Singing,” written and produced by the prolific Mitani Koki (47, photo right). The supporting cast includes Kabira Jay (46), whose mother is American, and Horiuchi Keiko (38), a veteran of such musicals as “Cats” and “West Side Story.” The musical director is Konishi Yasuharu (50), a former member of the J-pop pioneers Pizzicato Five, who wrote and produced Katori’s million-selling single “Shingo Mama no Oha Rock” in 2000. The production is scheduled for 13 shows, November 12-22 at the 850-seat Skirball Center, New York University. Japanese audiences will have to wait until next year to see the show at home. Katori last acted on stage 12 years ago, but in the meantime he has appeared in a slew of big-budget movies and TV dramas as the five members of SMAP have ascended into the ranks of Japan’s most marketable celebrities. He has worked with Mitani several times before, including the NHK taiga drama “Shinsengumi.”

• Management for Tomizawa Takeshi (35) yesterday announced that the comedian got hitched back in April. They described his new bride as a 30-year old ippanjin native of Tokyo. Tomizawa is the boke half of manzai duo Sandwichman, who made their big breakthrough when they won a comedy Grand Prix event in 2007. His comic partner Date Mikio (34) recently announced that he is engaged to marry freelance TV announcer Kumagai Maiko (38) in July.

• Young singer Aoyama Teruma (21) has recorded the theme song for the Japanese release of the movie “Hachiko: A Dog’s Story.” “Wasurenai yo” will be heard at theaters across the country from June 13. Directed by the renowned Lasse Hallstrom and starring Richard Gere and Joan Allen, the movie is a Hollywood adaptation of one of the most famous stories in contemporary Japan. It tells of a professor who brings his Akita dog with him when he moves to prewar Tokyo. The strong bond between the two continues even after death, with the faithful dog waiting for the return of his master outside Shibuya station every evening for ten years. Today a famous statue stands in that same spot and it has become a popular meeting place. The story has been adapted several times for both the big and small screen in Japan, and the new movie will be released here as “Hachi, Yakusoku no Inu.”

J-rock band Glay (profile) performed a last-minute free concert for thousands of fans in Yokohama yesterday. With the temperature rising to a balmy 27 degrees, 15,000 fans gathered at Nipponmaru Memorial Park and enjoyed the strange juxtaposition of a rock band and an old sailing ship. The port of Yokohama is currently celebrating the 150th anniversary of its opening, and it’s 15 years since Glay debuted. Those numbers probably have as much to do with the reported head count as accuracy. Glay are also scheduled to play two shows at the Nissan Stadium in Yokohama in mid-August, with a combined audience of 150,000. Yesterday’s show, the band’s first free live concert in five years, was only announced at 8am. They performed five songs, including “I Am XXX” from their new album, “The Great Vacation Vol.1” to be released on Wednesday. The Nipponmaru, launched in 1930, was used as a training vessel until its retirement in 1984.

Japan’s rock supergroup B’z (profile) have been named to the lineup for this year’s 10th SummerSonic festival. The 3-day event is scheduled for August 7-9, with over 100 local and international artists performing at two venues in Tokyo (actually Chiba) and Osaka Prefectures. The lineup had until this week included a “special guest from Japan” and that turns out to be B’z. The duo will take the stage before headliners Linkin Park in Tokyo on August 8 and Osaka on August 9. B’z performed at the event for the first time in 2007, but the festival will be their first, and probably only, live appearance this year after they toured last year to celebrate their 20th anniversary. They usually sell out their shows very quickly, so the there will undoubtedly be increased demand for the remaining SummerSonic tickets. B’z are scheduled to release the new single “Dive” on August 5, though it’s already airing in the current TV commercial for the Suzuki Swift car. Other major acts in the SummerSonic lineup include: My Chemical Romance, Nine Inch Nails, Hoobastank, Beyonce and Ne-Yo; local names like Dragon Ash and Boom Boom Satellites; blasts from the past include Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, The Specials and Sonic Youth.

SummerSonic website: http://www.summersonic.com

• Fuji TV announcer Shimada Ayaka (35) is engaged to marry a publishing entrepreneur this summer. The couple are said to have met in 2007 and are planning a wedding in July. Shimada majored in Russian at Jochi (Sophia) University and joined the Fuji network in 1998. She is a presenter on the “FNN Speak” afternoon news show. Kondo Masazumi Robert (44) was born in San Francisco and raised in the U.K. and Japan. He obtained an MBA from Cornell University and worked briefly for the The Industrial Bank of Japan before forming his own company, Resonance, in 1998. The company published the car & bike magazine “ahead.”

Singer Nezumi Sempai (36) has decided that one year in the limelight is about all he can take. He held a press conference yesterday and told reporters that he plans to retire from showbiz by the end of the year. “Show business is tough, a lot tougher than I imagined,” he said. “And I really haven’t made that much money from it.” With his distinctive punch perm hair and sunglasses that make him look like a typical yakuza, he had a breakthrough last year when his debut single “Roppongi, Giroppon” topped the enka carts and sold over 100,000 copies. But he has failed to follow up on that success and has become the epitome of the “ippatsuya” or one-hit wonder. Before last year’s success he went through about a dozen career changes, including acting in and directing porn movies. But now that he has a young daughter, he said “I won’t be going back to that. From tomorrow, I’m going to go to Hello Work,” referring to the nationwide employment service centers. Before he bows out, he does have one more single on the way. “Okane” (Money) is scheduled for release on June 16 and he will perform a one-night-only concert in Tokyo on June 21.

The Tokyo District Court has ruled that taking your clothes off in public is not the best way to get your life together after a drug arrest (no, this isn’t a revival of the Kusanagi Tsuyoshi story). Komukai Minako (24) is a former teen pin-up idol whose career went off the rails in the last few years. She was arrested in January after a prolonged investigation of her use of stimulant drugs, and she was handed a suspended prison sentence in February. For someone well-used to appearing scantily dressed in public, her next move came as little surprise – she announced last month that she would strip at the famous Asakusa Rock-za theater in Tokyo’s shitamachi district. But this week it was revealed that her former management agency, who cut her loose last September calling her unreliable and her behavior erratic, petitioned the court to forbid her appearance, scheduled for this Friday. They said she had agreed back in September not to pose for nude photos or make porn videos.

Earlier stories:

The Fall of the Bikini Model (Jan 26, 2009)

• Douchin Yoshikuni (30) of the J-pop duo Chemistry is a father yet again. He announced the news on the duo’s official fan website that his wife, model and former talento Atsuko, gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, on June 1. The couple have been married since June 2004 and already have two boys.

Just how strict is Japan when it comes to firearms? Talento Harada Noburo (57) recently found out, and he and TV producers are currently the subject of a police investigation. Their crime? Allowing Harada to simply hold a hunting rifle during a live broadcast on a local TV network show without having first obtained official permission. Harada was visiting a hunting club in the town of Yogocho for the January 17 edition of the “Tokimeki Saga’s” show when one of the members handed him the rifle. Harada is not a registered gun owner and the law states that permission must first be obtained from the prefectural public safety commission. In accordance with the Swords and Firearms Control Law, Saga prefectural police are investigating he incident, produced by the local Biwako Housou. Police have questioned Harada and carried out a search of the company’s premises and are thought likely to file charges. Biwako spokesman Ito Akihiko said, “We were unaware that we were breaking the law. We are cooperating fully with the investigation.” Harada, on his second marriage to a former Nikkatsu porn actress, is a former member of the folk duo Anonenone. Top J-pop producer Komuro Tetsuya, who himself recently endured a serious run in with the criminal justice system, was once a backing musician for the duo.

The success of Arashi’s latest single shows that they are the hottest Johnny’s Jimusho (profile) act these days. It’s no surprise that their 26th single, “Ashita no Kioku/Crazy Moon-Kimi Wa Muteki,” entered the Oricon chart at No.1, the group’s 15th consecutive chart topper since February 2004. But it has also sold over half a million copies in its first week, as did their previous release “Believe/Kumori Nochi Kaisei” in March. The last artist to manage those numbers twice in a row was the hugely popular Southern All Stars vocalist Kuwata Keisuke (profile) in 2001. Arashi debuted in 1999 and their popularity has been broadened by their appearances on variety shows, dramas and major movies.

Former Judy and Mary vocalist Yuki (37, photo left) announced on her website yesterday that she recently gave birth to her third son. Yuki and Magokoroburazazu member Yo-King (41) have been married since 2000. Their first child died of SIDS before he was a year old. They had another boy in 2006. Meanwhile, producer and actor Noda Hideki (photo right) has become a father for the first time at the age of 53. He and his former actress wife Yoko (28) married in December 2005.

What do J-pop and J-rock have in common? The answer seems to be wedding dresses…Rock band X Japan finally gave their Taiwanese fans what they’d been waiting for on Saturday night, playing their long overdue first concert on the island. The Taipei show was rescheduled twice, last August and again in February due to the health problems of drummer and band leader Yoshiki. He showed his appreciation to the legions of faithful X fans by wearing a wedding dress on stage, something he hasn’t done since 1991. The band then launched into their anthem “X,” with the 20,000 fans joining them in the X Jump that has been said to cause a mini earth tremor. The ¥350-million show also featured a drum performance from Yoshiki on a moving platform 20m high, and a 12m-high YoshiKitty, an inflatable collaboration with the iconic Hello Kitty character. Once again, the late guitarist Hide appeared throughout the show on the 1200-inch wide screen. Newly added guitarist Sugizo performed overseas with the band for the nolvadex-tamoxifen.net.

Yesterday, Yoshiki announced that the band have received an offer to perform on the opening night of next year’s World Expo in Shanghai. The expo will be the biggest ever, with 230 countries and regions expected to participate and the target for the number of visitors set at 70 million (the current record is the 64 million who attended the 1970 Osaka World Expo). Plans are also progressing for a show at the 80,000-seat Olympic “Bird’s Nest” stadium in Beijing, which is said to be awaiting the final stamp of approval. Yoshiki also said that he expects shows in France and the U.S. to be finalized this month.

J-pop diva Koda Kumi (26) pulled out all the stops for 15,000 fans at her concert last night at the National Yoyogi Gymnasium in Tokyo. She went through nine costume changes that had a combined cost of ¥80 million. As well as her usual sexy outfits, she wore a white wedding dress and a towering “illumination dress.” In homage to enka singer Kobayashi Sachiko, who wears a hugely extravagant dress every New Year’s Eve for the “Kohaku Uta Gassen” show, it was 12 meters high and featured 10,000 lights. Amongst the 24-song set, Koda performed songs from her upcoming maxi single “3 Splash,” due for release on July 8. She was joined on stage for one night only by U.S. hip hop group the Black Eyed Peas. Koda and vocalist Fergie collaborated last summer on the single “That Aint Cool.”

• It was announced yesterday that SMAP’s Katori Shingo (32) is to take on an iconic manga role. He has been named to play the lead in the first ever TV drama adaptation of the manga “Kochira Katsushikaku Kamearikoenmae Hasshutsujo,” commonly known as KochiKame. The manga has sold over 130 million copies since it first appeared in the Shuukan Shonen Jump magazine in 1976. Set in a downtown police station, it revolves around the bumbling adventures of chief patrol officer Ryotsu Kankichi, a man strong enough to survive falls from Tokyo Tower and a speeding shinkansen (bullet train)! The drama will air on TBS on Saturday nights from August, taking over the same time slot currently occupied by fellow SMAP member Kimura Takuya in “Mr. Brain.”

SMAP member Kusanagi Tsuyoshi (34) yesterday returned to work for the first time since his arrest for public indecency last month. He and the other four group members recorded an episode of the Fuji TV variety show “SMAPxSMAP,” which will be aired June 1, and Kusanagi recorded a narration for today’s edition of the music show “Bokura no Ongaku.” This afternoon he returned to his regular slot on the live variety show “Waratte Iitomo.” Wearing a somber black suit, he apologized to the host, comedian Tamori, the other regulars and the studio audience. After the show he gave a brief press conference where he again repeated his apologies and expressed thanks to everyone who supported him over the last few weeks. The speed of Kusanagi’s return to work after such a big scandal is an indication of his commercial value, and he will appearing in his various commercial roles once again from next month.

Earlier stories:

Butt Naked SMAP Star Arrested For Indecency (Apr 23, 2009)

Kusanagi’s Arrest to Cost Billions (Apr 24, 2009)

Kusanagi Tsuyoshi Gives Press Conference (Apr 25, 2009)

Kusanagi Tsuyoshi Returns (May 14, 2009)

• Love, and possibly marriage, is in the air for popular model and talento Ebihara Yuri (29), according to today’s issue of weekly magazine “Friday.” The magazine published photos of her on a date with Ilmari (33) of the hip hop group Rip Slyme. Not only were they visiting the famous Aoshima Jinja shrine in her home prefecture of Miyazaki, known for its powers of bringing people together, but they were accompanied by Ebihara’s family.