This story has been bubbling away for a few days and it's finally time to write it up here. The former figure skater Miki Ando has been accused of having an inappropriate relationship with her 16-year-old male protégé after a tabloid snapped them out together on a date. The 36-year-old Ando, a two-time former world champion, famously left the figure skating world in the early 2010s to raise her child as a single mom and, despite intense media speculation, never named the father. (It is rumored to be a foreign skater or coach.) Bunshun published allegations on June 26 that Ando was ...

The veteran voice actor Toru Furuya may well be 70 years old and something of a legend in the industry, having provided voices for such series as Conan, Gundam, Dragon Ball, and One Piece, but his career and status is currently facing ruin due to a sex scandal. Furuya married his second wife in 1985 but rumors have long swirled that he is a little too friendly with his fans, including inappropriate touching at meet-and-greet events. Earlier this week, Furuya issued a public apology in response to a report in the Weekly Bunshun tabloid that he been having an affair for more than four ...

Papakatsu, the buzzword that refers to compensated dating for sugar daddies, is in the news again. Takeru Yoshikawa, a politician with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, has been accused of drinking with an 18-year-old girl. House of Representatives member Yoshikawa, who is 40 but frankly looks a but older (perhaps it's the jowls), has a wife and two daughters. He was photographed arriving with the girl at a high-end hotel in the Odaiba bay district of Tokyo in late May. According to the scoop in News Post Seven (that includes 46 pictures!), he and the girl arrived, checked in, and then ...

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 ...

Otoko no Isshou is a new movie release in Japan. Normally we hardly pay attention to the latest dull mainstream offerings but this one caught our eye. It stars Nana Eikura, a model and actress who is getting hotter with age. When she was about 20 and appearing in NHK dramas, she was a bit cute but now she has more sex appeal. She can imagine actually doing stuff with her (and to her). In Otoko no Isshou she plays a vulnerable twentysomething who starts a relationship with a man in his fifties. Played by Etsushi Toyokawa, he is a curmudgeonly older gent who enjoys ordering ...

We love a scandal and we love a woman who knows what she wants. Megumi Okina married the CEO of Cyber Agent in 2004 but divorced him the following year. She went through a dry period in her career and then got hitched again in 2009 to a businessman in a shotgun married. She had a second child in 2011. A famous nikushoku-joshi (man-eater), in the past she has been linked to many famous men, including Takumi Saito and "bad boy" actor Manabu Oshio and nude pictures (called nyan-nyan photos) of their coupling were leaked. Oshio would later be sent to prison for his part in the death of a ...

Over December 6 and December 9, Japanese Facebook dating app Match Alarm did an online survey of 2,944 male and female Japanese singles in their twenties and thirties. It found some surprising results, most notably that 81.3% of Japanese single women would want an older man for a partner. On the other hand, compounding the stereotype that all Japanese men want innocent maids and anime characters, the survey found that nearly 47% of men wanted a lover who was younger. Things get more logical when broken down into age groups. Both men (51.2%) and women (over 90%!) prefer an older lover ...