Nogizaka46 has announced that Renka Iwamoto will be suspending her activities with the group after "private photos" leaked online.
Those photos show the 20-year-old, a member of Nogizaka46 since 2016 (when she was all of 12), posing with and hugging a man who is presumed to be a boyfriend. Nogizaka46 and such Sakamichi Series groups, like those in the AKB48 Group, have a quasi-official no-boyfriends policy for their members, because it destroys the illusion for their fans that they could date the idol one day. It is not clear at this point how the photos leaked.
Instead of publicly ...
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 ...
A few days ago, we reported on the amusing and somewhat outlandish tale of the popular YouTuber whose adultery was caught out by his own social media posts and TV coverage of the Shohei Ohtani baseball game in the United States that he had attended.
Streamer and YouTuber Junichi Kato (also known as Unko-chan) had boasted about going to see the Japanese sports legend play, but he was not there alone as he had claimed.
Thanks to some clever detective work, it turned out that Kato was attending the match with his lover, who was none other than porn star Ai Hongo.
Kato fessed up and openly ...
A music idol has been punished for having a boyfriend (and presumably having sex with him) by being forced to post pictures of herself every night to prove she is alone.
Momoka Tojo of girl group Katacoto Bank recently turned 20 but photos of her celebrating her birthday last month with a young man, which she posted herself, quickly attracted the shock and ire of fans.
In response, Tojo quickly deleted the pictures, and the seven-member group (active since 2021), which is stylized KATACOTO * BANK, announced on July 27 that Tojo has promised to "maintain a measure of distance from her ...
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 ...
When confronted with a scandal, most Japanese politicians rely on a stock phrase: "I don't recall that."
And so it it was refreshing to see that Hiroyuki Miyazawa, the 49-year-old House of Representatives lawmaker, came clean and stated plainly: "I remember that."
A member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Miyazawa recently resigned his seat when Weekly Bunshun reported on his penchant for papakatsu sugar daddy compensated dating and regular use of sex workers.
He is also supposed to have been practically living with a woman in her twenties during the pandemic, despite being ...
While we are well inured to the knowledge that Japanese politicians spend their large salaries and generous expense accounts in hostess clubs (and sometimes get caught doing research on their next visit when they should be working), even this latest scandal raised some eyebrows, perhaps because it was so brazen.
An event organized by the governing Liberal Democratic Party in Wakayama, hired scantily clad dancers to "entertain" the attendees.
The roughly 50 attendees included members of the Diet part of the LDP youth bureau as well as young assembly members from prefectures in Kansai.
A ...
It is widely perceived that adultery is common in Japan, but what's the reality?
Sure, there are lots of dating apps out there, including ones specifically for people already with partners.
There's also a bustling cottage industry of private detectives whose entire raison d'être is to find out whether your spouse is cheating or not.
It also depends on the definition of adultery and cheating. Prostitution is a large industry in Japan but would a session every now and then with a sex worker count as an affair or cheating?
Well, a survey by the aptly named Love Is All of 1,966 married men ...
When a foreign-born contestant won Miss Japan last month, it sparked much wringing of hands from certain sections of the commentariat and internet, and a roughly equal amount of earnest gushing about how much Japan was changing.
Karolina Shiino, who was born in Ukraine but has lived in Japan since the age of five and eventually naturalized as a Japanese citizen, was awarded the title of Miss Japan in a ceremony in January. The face of Japan was now officially a white woman. This was enough of a news story to make waves internationally.
Now, as they say, the plot thickens. The 26-year-old ...
The biggest entertainment world scandal in Japan of late has been the allegations of past sexual assault made against one of the nation's most famous comedians, Hitoshi Matsumoto.
The reports first emerged in a tabloid magazine in late December and have continued to unfold. At first, Matsumoto, his agency (Yoshimoto Kogyo), and broadcasters ignored or gave the report a minimal denial, and colleagues offered on-air support, but more revelations are still trickling out in further articles, and 60-year-old Matsumoto has now withdrawn from his television commitments, nominally so he can pursue a ...
