It's election time for the AKB48 idols. But lurking under the surface right now are several unsavory rumors.
For a start, the alleged connections between AKB48 executives and the yakuza. These have emerged again even after AKB48 big wig Yasushi Kubota sued the Shukan Bunshun last year for such remarks.
Now there are also suggestions that Kubota and former AKB48 hottie Tomomi Kasai (21) -- and no stranger to her own sex-related scandals -- are conducting an affair.
Images have been published supposedly showing the pair returning late at night to a luxury condo.
Kasai is also ...
The scandal resulting from Minami Minegishi's outrageous decision to have a relationship with dancer Alan Shirahama has brought immense publicity to AKB48 and turned what was a tabloid scoop into an ad giving the name power of the group's "brand" a major push overseas.
All publicity is good publicity, after all.
But doubt over the sincerity of Minegish's "apology" has been cast after photos emerged showing a happy Miichan posing sans signs of contrition with the other main AKB ladies -- for now, themselves sex-free and scandal-free -- shortly after having her head shorn in the style of the ...
Oh, god. Just when you think AKB48 couldn't get any lower. Then this happens.
Following rumors that she had -- shock! -- been on dates and slept at someone's place, minor AKB48 idol Minami Minegishi (20) has been demoted from active member to a kenkyusei (research student) position -- one short of being sacked.
But she also made a bizarre tearful video apology with her head shaved as a sign of penance.
The painful video was uploaded last night and has at time of writing this already been viewed 1.6 million times.
This is so distasteful. Shaving someone's head is what locals did to ...
A Japanese weekly tabloid, Shukan Bungei, has published a story saying that comedian Shingo Fujimori saying that he got a fashion model pregnant and then forced her to have an abortion, then paying her ¥3.5 million (over $40,000) to keep her quiet.
The tabloid claimed that his agency leaked the story to try to overshadow the "scandal" over Fujimori's relationship with TBS announcer Minami Tanaka, though surely it just makes his reputation look even worse.
At a recent press conference for an ad campaign he was fronting, Fujimori apologized for the trouble he had caused everyone and ...
Following the revelation that singer and actor ISSA had been having an affair with AKB48's Yuka Masuda, his finance, actress and model Sachiko "Judy" Fukumoto (30) has announced via Twitter.
This is what ISSA will no longer be getting up close and personal with.
Fukumoto was born in America and brought up in Okinawa, hence her slightly non-Japanese (but very lovely) style.
The affair, which cost Yuka Masuda her job in AKB48, presumably can continue now and ISSA can console himself with Yuka's younger ...
One of the hotter members of AKB48 (a group full, with the notable exceptions of Rie Kitahara and Haruna Kojima, of essentially banal looking girls stuffed down us unfortunate Japanese's throats daily with frequently sickening consequences), Yuka Masuda, has been forced to quit her "illustrious" career after it was revealed she was sleeping another minor celebrity, ISSA.
The couple met while working together in a musical earlier in the autumn.
Her agency continues to deny her relationship with ISSA but she has as good as admitted her abhorrent sin of having sex by announcing her sudden ...
One of the Japanese tabloids is currently running pics apparently of former AKB48 idol Atsuko Maeda looking drunk, dishevelled and generally not very cute.
She is with some guy (apparently an actor) in rather dubious circumstances, and is even seemingly photographed being carried to a waiting car possibly without any underwear on.
Tabloids are not famed for their integrity or honesty, so we cannot vouch for the veracity of the details, but we do like a juicy scandal when we sense ...
Another one bites the dust. Yuko Sugamoto from HKT48, the Fukuoka spin-off of AKB48, has announced she is quitting. It is an open secret that this is due to her management finding out about a "relationship" she had, including possibly drinking and smoking with a fan.
However, the official line is that all she did was exchange email addresses and answer a mail... which hardly seems taboo-breaking to us.
Japanese girls are just not allowed to have relationships if they are in an idol group. Heaven forbid that reality infringe on the "pure" fantasy that their management have crafted so ...
In the same week that the AKB48 moneymen claimed victory in the amount of hype and advertising cash their well-greased PR machine could turn their "election" campaign into -- comes a scandal that proves just how controlled and fake they are.
A minor member of the band, Rino Sashihara (b.1992), has sort-of admitted to the rumors started by a tabloid that she seduced one of her otaku fans.
Shock horror! A girl exploiting her fame to get some fun and pleasure for herself?!! Well, it's okay if it's men (unless you go as far as, say, Edison Chen), but with an idol, and especially for ...
Japan has love hotels, sex shops, adult goods...It's an erotic paradise. But this is all carefully pigeonholed. Anyone who's watched mainstream TV here will immediately notice how boring it is. No sex, no nudity, no controversy. Yeah, it's pretty boring except for the occasional cute presenter.
Well, one such cute lady got herself into some trouble earlier this year.
A picture of Miku Natsume giggling while holding up a box of condoms (Exhibit A on the left), seemingly while lying on a futon with the photographer, led to the sweet gal being sacked from her conservative ...
