Latest News from Japan Zone & Japan Store

Actor Otsuru Gitan (35), the estranged husband of Brazilian singer Marcia (photo, 35) returned to Japan after an extended trip abroad. On his arrival at Narita Airport, he refused to answer reporters’ questions about claims by his wife’s that she had caught him “in the act” last December with another woman. Otsuru spent the last four months working on a TV program about a trip by taxi from the southern tip of Argentina to New York. He says he will speak about his marriage situation following a press conference for the show on April 8.

• About 25,000 fans turned out in the rain yesterday at Chiba’s Narita-san Shinshoji temple for a ceremony to mark the upcoming name change of kabuki actor Ichikawa Shinnosuke (26). The popular young actor will become the 11th Ichikawa Ebizou from next month. 200 fellow actors and family members, including his father Ichikawa Danjuro (56), attended the ceremony.

Actress Hazuki Riona (28) has done it again. It was announced yesterday that she married someone in the real estate business at the end of February, after the couple had been going out for about six months. This time, she is also three months pregnant. In 2001, Hazuki proposed to and married a Japanese-American sushi chef in Hawaii after a relationship of four days. They were divorced three months later. She has also been romantically involved with actor Sanada Hiroyuki (43) and Seattle Mariners star Ichiro (30).

Former Morning Musume member Ishiguro Aya (25) admitted on a live TBS program yesterday that she is five months pregnant. Appearing daily on the show this week, rumors spread about the reason for her extended belly before show host Isono Kiriko (40) finally asked her straight. She is already the mother of two girls with her husband, former Luna Sea drummer Shinya (34), who is currently working as an artist. Ishiguro quit the hugely popular group three years ago.

Pop group Mini Morni are to go on an indefinite sabbatical while leader Mika (photo, 19) is studying in Los Angeles. Mika, whose father is Australian jazz pianist Johnny Todd, was chosen back in 1999 as one of five winners in a Hawaii song contest, who were put together as a unit in Coconuts Musume. Like Mini Morni, they were part of the Hello! Project and closely tied and often inchanged with Morning Musume.

• Among the 50 lucky girls chosen from over 1,000 applicants to enter the Takarazuka theater troupe this year are the daughter of former sumo wrestler Sakahoko and a pair of twins from my local area here in Suginami ward, Tokyo. Over the course of two years, the girls will study ballet, music and Japanese dance before being allowed to perform on stage before adoring fans.

Comedian Akashiya Sanma (48) may be considering getting hitched again. He is reported to have had an omiai (a meeting with a view to marriage) set up by enka singer Mori Shinichi (56). The woman in question is said to be the daughter of a company president and in her 20’s. Sanma was previously married to actress Ohtake Shinobu (46). They divorced in 1992 and have one daughter, Imaru. He has since been considered one of Japan’s premier playboys.

• Degawa Tetsuro (40), often chosen by the ladies as Japan’s Least Popular Guy – is set to marry former model and “race queen” Abe Ruriko (26) next month. Degawa proposed while on a trip to Rome that was aired tonight on a London Hearts show.

While we were away, Japan lost two of its entertainment icons. On March 20, Ikariya Chosuke, actor and former leader of the legendary comedy troupe The Drifters passed away. He was 72. He was hospitalized with cancer last year but still managed to put in one last performance in the successful movie Bayside Shakedown II. Meanwhile newsreader Kume Hiroshi (59) stepped down from TV Asahi’s popular “News Station” on March 26 after 18 years and 4,795 shows at the helm. At the end of the show, he downed a beer in a final “kampai”. The former comedian stepped down once briefly several years ago but is not expected to make a comeback this time.

A movie version of the popular TV Tokyo anime “Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters” will be released in 4,000 US theaters on August 13. The movie will be joint effort between publisher Shueisha, TV Tokyo and Warner Bros. The anime has its roots in the Shonen Jump manga, whose English version has been selling well in the US since its 2002 launch, and the TV show began in 2000. A card game based on the show has also been extremely popular with its core audience, junior and senior high school-aged students. The American network version of the show, which aired from September 2001 reached No.1 in the rankings for children’s shows.

Joshima Shigeru (33), leader of the Johnny’s pop group Tokio, has been romantically linked with model Kosaka Hitomi (26). The former “race queen” is this year’s campaign girl for a French lingerie maker. It seems that Kojima jumped straight from his previous relationship with model Morishita Satomi (32) for a younger “model”. As usual, Johnny’s gave the media the expected denial of any romantic involvement despite pictures in the women’s magazine Shukan Josei.

• TV personality Sonomama Higashi (46) has graduated with honours from the Lit. department of the prestigious Waseda University. From April he will study politics at the same school.

Comedy duo Saruganseki have announced that they are going to break up at the end of this month. Ariyoshi Hiroiki and Moriwaki Kazunari (both 29), who first met as high school students, are to go solo after a ten-year career together. They became an overnight success in 1996 when the hit variety show Dempa Shonen featured their hitchhiking adventure across Asia and Europe. They were left in Hong Kong with just ¥10,000 and instructions to make their way to London any way they could. The country cheered them on over the course of several months until they reached their goal (photo), but people were shocked to learn that they had secretly been given airline tickets for certain legs of the trip. It was one of several scandals that hit audience figures and eventually brought the show off the air.

• Takamura Luna, a member of the Showa-era pop group Golden Half, died yesterday of cancer in Hawaii. She was 54. The group, made up of five half-Japanese girls, became very popular in the early 1970s through their appearances on the hit Drifters comedy show “Hachiji Dayo!” Luna had an American father and Japanese mother.

Singer and actress Miyaji Mao (photo, 20) gave her fans a tearful apology at a recent CD launch event. The cause was a series of compromising pictures published in the gossip magazine Friday that showed her in a romantic clinch with a 27-year old man referred to as her “manipulator.” It is a common feature of the Japanese entertainment business that younger female artists have to apologize to (male) fans for shattering their illusions by getting romantically involved.

• Comedians Shinomiya Akira (21) and Matsumoto Mika (33) are set to get married on March 20, at an event to be organized by the Matsutake Geino agency which represents both artists. The event is ominously titled “Divorce Reorganization.” Shinomiya is one half of the manzai duo Ojin Osbourne who currently are hugely popular with high school girls.