It's almost the New Year holidays here in Japan, a time when everyone gathers with their family, eats nice food, and watches a lot of bad TV. Likely to feature on one or more of those shows was former SMAP singer Masahiro Nakai, among the most famous male celebrities in the country but whose career is now in jeopardy after a scandal and serious allegations emerged this week. In a scoop broken by the tabloid Bunshun, the 52-year-old is accused of paying a massive fee of ¥90 million to a woman as compensation, after a possible sexual assault in June 2023. Nakai was in a relationship for ...

The Japanese female TV announcers who present the news and other shows do pretty well, but some of them branch off to pursue even more successful careers in other fields: as a general celebrity (Crystal Takigawa), as a fashion model (Kasumi Mori), as an actress (Minami Tanaka), or even as a gravure idol (Akane Takiyama). Hoping to emulate these predecessors, the former Fuji TV announcer Nagisa Watanabe has made her first foray into gravure in the current issue of Weekly Post. The 27-year-old left the channel at the end of August after a period of illness suffering from PTSD. A graduate ...