Shigeru Joshima (Tokio) marries stunning gravure idol Risa Kikuchi half his age

As they have progressed steadily into their forties, the members of music band Tokio have become a marginal presence on the pop music charts. Instead, they have established themselves on Japanese television as one of the most popular presenters.

A scandal ripped through the lineup last year, however, when member Tatsuya Yamaguchi was exposed as having invited teenagers to his apartment and, apparently in a drunken state, having kissed one. He resigned from the group and left the entertainment world.

Tokio has soldiered on.

One of the remaining members, Shigeru Joshima, has found solace in the arms of a model and did what any 48-year-old in his right mind would do by marrying this lady who is half his age.

That lady is the beautiful gravure model Risa Kikuchi, who is a sprightly 24. Of course, this being Japan, she is pregnant. No condoms is a surefire way to marriage.

Making her gravure debut in 2017, Kikuchi is a haafu: her father is Bangladeshi. To be fair, she was not especially well known in the industry — with, from what we can tell, one image DVD and a single major weekly magazine shoot to her name — but will now be forever renowned as the girl who bagged Shigeru Joshima. (Ironically, Kikuchi’s DVD is currently listed on Amazon Japan as a bestseller. Her name making a big splash in the news last week has no doubt massively boosted its sales.)

This is an unusual occurrence. While the members of such pop bands, ages notwithstanding, can be presumed to be sleeping with groupies, fans, models, actresses, and the like, it is hard for them actually to get hitched.

The members of Arashi, for example, have survived a zillion rumors and tabloid stories about their sex lives, but still seem unable to marry their partners — even when they are the very eligible likes of Mao Inoue. The former group SMAP is another case in point: only Takuya Kimura is married — and to another celebrity. Management and contracts seem to silence the sound of wedding bells.

Tatsuya Yamaguchi had been married (to a former model) but divorced in 2016, which is perhaps another reason he was drinking heavily and kissing underage girls.