Latest News from Japan Zone & Japan Store

“Hitmaker” Oda Yuji (37) is to have his first movie starring role since the incredibly successful “Bayside Shakedown 2” in 2003. In “Kencho no Hosi” (Star of City Hall), he will star alongside Shibasaki Kou (24) as an elite bureaucrat. The “human drama with a light comedy touch” is based on a novel by the same name and deals with a currently popular theme – bureaucrats out of touch with the people. The movie is scheduled to open in February 2007.

• The latest group to be launched by Hello! Project, the people that brought you Morning Musume, features four of the most popular idols around. Former Momus members Ishikawa Rika (20), Goto Maki (20), and Abe Natsumi (24) are joined by Matsuura Aya (19) to make up Def Diva. They recently filmed the video for their debut single “Sukisugite Bakamitai,” which is due for release on October 19. The video features the four in hot pants, long boots and bared midriffs strutting their stuff to a disco beat, with 30 models from the JJbis fashion magazine as extras.

• Actor and singer Oshio Manabu (27) has announced that he’s going to give up acting and focus on his musical career. He plans to quit his management agency at the end of the year and join an indie music label. The announcement came as a big surprise as Oshio has been very popular in TV dramas since his 1997 debut in “Ai, Tokodoki Uso.” But it’s ben difficult for him to juggle a working schedule that includes acting, performing live and releasing three albums under the artist name Liv. A relationship with popular actress Yada Akiko (26) was revealed in late August and her fan club was disbanded shortly afterwards. This and Oshio’s decision to put an end to his own fan club has media speculating that marriage is on the cards.

Fans of popular Fuji TV “pheremone announcer” Chino Shio (28) got some bad news this week – on October 1, “Chinopan” got engaged to a very eligible bachelor. The lucky guy is the 38-year old grandson of former prime minister Fukuda Takeo. An employee of a foreign securities firm, the former Keio University football star has a reported annual salary of over ¥50 million. The couple met at a dinner party two years ago and have been going out since. Chino joined Fuji TV in April, 2000 and is just one of the network’s many popular female announcers to find a rich and/or famous husband. She learned classic ballet for many years and her “charm point” is her long legs.

• Journalist and TV presenter Torigoe Shuntaro (65) has been hospitalized with rectal cancer. He made the announcement by telephone on the TV Asahi live morning show “Super Morning,” on which he’s a regular guest. He said he hadn’t been too shocked by the discovery during a routine checkup, citing the example of actor Watari Tetsuya (63), who successfully fought the same disease in the early 1990s and still has a busy career. Displaying his usual fighting spirit, Torigoe hopes to be back on the show by October 24.

The 3-year relationship between actor Kane Kosugi (photo, 30) and pro golfer Higashio Riko (29) has come to an end. A sports newspaper revealed the other day that the couple split up during the summer, having decided to each follow their own dreams. Unlike many celebrity couples, they had been very open about their relationship, often appearing together in public. They were considered an ideal match – Kosugi was born and raised in the US, while the bilingual Higashio graduated from the University of Florida – and marriage was thought to be inevitable. But both have had increasingly busy schedules as a result of their success. Kosugi has become a regular on TV, especially in the Lipovitan D commercials, but is pursuing the same Hollywood career that his father, ninja-movie star Sho Kosugi, realized. He will make his Hollywood debut in the upcoming movie “DOA,” which will also feature popular model Devon Aoki. Meanwhile Higashio, daughter of baseball star and former Seibu Lions manager Higashio Osamu, has moved to the US and is playing on the LPGA tour.

• Singer Koda Kumi (22) said she would open a nightclub in downtown Tokyo for one night if her greatest hits album sold a million copies. Well the album “Best – First Thinds” has reached No.1 in the Oricon charts, is set to sell a million copies and Koda’s dream will come true. After her national tour finishes in mid-November, she will rent a club in Ginza for one night and will be “mama” to a crew of “cool & sexy” Koda lookalikes. Entry will be decided by lottery. meanwhile, another 22-year old is top of the singles chart. Utada Hikaru‘s 14th single, “Be My Last” is her first chart-topper for almost a year and a half.

The feud between record label Avex and members of 2Channel, Japan’s most popular BBS, has escalated to the level of death threats. Avex has been cashing in on the wildly successful song “Koi no Maiahii” by East European group O-Zone. Part of the song’s huge success has been an amateur Flash animation featuring a cat singing along in Japanese to the song (except the lyrics are actually Rumanian!) which became an underground hit largely thanks to 2Channel. Board members named the cat Monaa and consider it to be their own mascot. They are furious that Avex is making money from it, selling merchandising and even trying to patent their slight variation of the cat character, which they named Noma-neko. Last week one 2Channel poster threatened online to kill Avex employees with a knife as they left work, while at the weekend, another threatened to set fire to the home of Avex president Matsuura Masato (41) and “barbeque” his family. The company is not taking the threats lightly and has brought in the police. Yesterday, several hundred “2Channel-ers” gathered near Shibuya and Harajuku stations and handed out thousands of leaflets to passers-by.

• “Hi! Hi! Puffy AmiYumi,” the US animation featuring the popular Japanese pop duo, is to be shown on TV Tokyo. The show was a surpise hit on the Cartoon Network, especially among pre-teen girls, and Puffy fans at home have been keen to get a look. It will feature as a twice-a-week, 7-minute segment, with a new Japanese voice-over, on the “OhaStar” early morning kids show starting from this Thursday.

Congratulations to the Hanshin Tigers! Yesterday Japan’s most fanatical and loyal baseball fans got their fifth Central League pennant, and second in three years, when the Tigers clinched their place in the Japan Series. Thousands gathered in central Osaka to celebrate and some 60 fans waited till after midnight, when police had mostly dispersed, before jumping into the stinking Dotombori River. A dozen or so regretted it afterwards, not because the jump is dangerous but because the river is so heavily polluted. The team used up 5,000 bottles of beer in the traditional celebration style, pouring it over teammates and rookie team manager Okada Akinobu (47) (photo).

• Celebrities lined up to grab some of the Tigers’ limelight, passing on their congratulations. Among the many showbiz fans are actor Watanabe Ken (45), who was sad to be in the US promoting “Last Samurai” when the Tigers won in 2003; enka singer Shimakura Chiyoko (67), something of a mother figure for manager Okada; Talented flyweight boxer Kameda Koki (18), the eldest of three highly touted boxing brothers; and of course the hordes of comedy stars from the Osaka-based Yoshimoto Kogyo.

Troubled actress Sugita Kaoru (40) seems to be seeking a move out of the limelight. She’s been a regular on the live afternoon variety show “Waratte Iitomo” every Wednesday for the last year, but made the surprise announcement yesterday that she will no longer be appearing. The show is a TV institution, hosted every weekday for more than 20 years by comedian Tamori (60). Sugita only recently stepped down from a planned role in next year’s prestigious taiga period drama on NHK. Official statements say the decisions have nothing to do with her recent widely publicized brief marriage and divorce, but there can be little doubt that she could do with a break from the intense media glare.

• “Chi to Hone” (Blood and Bones), the movie featuring Kitano “Beat” Takeshi (58), has been chosen as the Japanese entry for the foreign movie category at next year’s Academy Awards. It will be up against a host of entries from around the world for one of five nominations. Yamada Yoji’s “Tasogare Seibei” (Twilight Samurai) was shortlisted in 2003, the first Japanese feature to be nominated in 22 years. Directed by Sai Yoichi (56), “Chi…” is a story about ethnic Koreans in Osaka in the 1920s. Takeshi turned in a powerful performance as a violent husband and father. He got so into his fight scenes with his son (Odagiri Jo), that it left him with a dislocated shoulder. As a director himself, he has received awards at the Cannes and Venice film festivals. This may be his first step toward getting an elusive Oscar.

Japan’s best-selling rock band B’z are to release the follow-up to their multi-million selling first greatest hits album, after an interval of seven years. “Pleasure II” will go on sale on November 30. In terms of worldwide sales, B’z are just 7 million albums behind Elvis Presley. Their previous hits album “Pleasure” sold 5.9 million, itself a Japanese record, so this new release could see them topple even The King himself.

As the silly awards season continues, the latest winners are…enka singer Hikawa Kiyoshi (28) and pop diva Hamasaki Ayumi (26) are this year’s Best Jeanists. Ayu was selected for the fifth time and so goes into the jeanist Hall of Fame, where she joins SMAP stars Kimura Takuya and Kusanagi Tsuyoshi.

Foreign athletes or those with foreign roots are making headlines these days. Sumo‘s only current Yokozuna (Grand Champion), Mongolian rikishi Asashoryu (24) equaled the record of six yusho (tournament victories) in a row, held by the legendary Taiho, when he won the aki basho (Autumn Grand Sumo Tournament) on Sunday. But to do so he had to beat a surprise challenger, young Bulgarian rikishi Kotoshu (22), who won 12 bouts in a row before dropping two and facing Asashoryu in a final-day playoff. The two are among a growing number of young non-Japanese rikishi at the top level in sumo.

• Also on Sunday, Nippon Ham Fighters’ young star Yuu Darvish became the first pitcher fresh out of high school in 39 years to win five games in his rookie season. The tall and handsome 19-year old Tohoku High School graduate has been closely watched since he pitched his school team to the final of the summer Koshien tournament last year, and was the No.1 draft pick for the Fighters. His first season as a pro got off to a late start after he was suspended for smoking during spring training (he’s still a minor) and a knee injury. An interesting fact is that the pitcher’s Iranian father Farusa (45), who spent his high school and university years in the US, is the owner of an English conversation school in Osaka, among several other businesses. He, along with several family members, friends and 50 students from his school, was in the crowd to witness his son’s latest win.

• On the showbiz front, talento Umemiya Anna (33) is romantically involved with Chunichi Dragons player Tatsunami Kazuyoshi (36), according to the weekly magazine Friday. While Umemiya is divorced with a daughter, Tatsunami is married with children, but is known in the baseball world as a ladies’ man and there were rumors that only his celebrity prevented his arrest in a rape case last year.

The movie “Mayonaka no Yaji-san, Kita-san” is to be released in the US. The film, which stars Nagase Tomoya (photo, 26) – a member of the Johnny’s band Tokio and the boyfriend of singer Hamasaki Ayumi – and kabuki actor Nakamura Shichinosuke (22), is scheduled to show at 30-40 theaters in major US cities by next summer. It opened in Japan in April and was a minor hit, grossing ¥800 million at the domestic box office. A DVD version is set to go on sale next month. The movie is based on the manga of the same name, and tells the comic story of two gay samurai traveling on the Tokaido highway. The promo image shows the pair straddling a Stars and Stripes-decorated Harley Davidson.

• 28-year old Canadian English teacher Adam James Anderson was arrested last week on vandalism charges after he and a Japanese friend were caught spray painting a building in the trendy “ura-Omotesando” area of Tokyo. The two were said to have been drunk when caught in the act by police shortly before 4am on September 19. The arrest, which was made last Friday, made the news headlines because the Japanese person arrested was Mori Tsutomu (24), the grandson of world-famous fashion designer Mori Hanae. The younger Mori is said to work as a website designer. No details about Anderson were given other than that he is resident in the Nishi-ogi Kita area of Suginami Ward in Tokyo (literally just down the road from us at Japan Zone!). Graffiti has become increasingly common in metropolitan areas in recent years, though few people are caught in the act.

Today is the “Shuubun no Hi” (autumnal equinox) national holiday.

• Singer Koda Kumi (22) released her first greatest hits album this week. Record label Avex organized a launch event on the streets of Shibuya for “Best – First Things,” with a photo session on the famous Scramble Intersection. Koda’s usual low-cut, sexy attire turned plenty of heads among the hundreds of passers-by. She said that if the album becomes a million seller, she plans to fulfill another ambition – to become the “mama-san” of a high-class club for a night. She also alluded to her rumored romance, said to be with someone not in showbusiness.

• Singer Hajime Chitose (26) is set to make a full comeback after taking an extended break to get married and have a child. She will release a new single “Kataritsugu Koto” on November 23, her first general release in almost two years. She recently released an anti-war song, “Shinda Onna no Ko” (Dead Girls), produced by Oscar-winning musician Sakamoto Ryuichi (53), but it was available only for download to PC or mobile phone. She is also set to play a concert in Okinawa on October 22.

• The latest Hollywood star to come to town is actress Cameron Diaz (33). She arrived Wednesday from Melbourne to promote the movie “In Her Shoes,” which is scheduled to open here on November 12. About 200 fans turned out to welcome her at Narita Airport. It’s her third visit to Japan, the last being in July 2004 for “Shrek 2.” She and co-star Toni Collette held a press event at a Tokyo hotel last night.