Asian men don't get a good deal in Hollywood. When was the last time that you saw an Asian leading man in a Western movie treated as a sex symbol in the same way as a white actor? Leela Rose set out to challenge this. We sympathise. Many foreign female residents in Japan face problems: sexism and harassment by both Japanese and foreigners as well as romantic issues (foreigners may not be interested because there are so many Japanese ladies to pursue while local men may be too intimidated by a confident Westerner). She did it by going around Roppongi and essentially forcing ...

Tokyo Reporter had an intriguing (if worrying) article recently from the Japanese media about a maid cafe in Roppongi being raided for employing underage girls. Officers took Ryuji Shimizu, 41, the manager of Archangels Tokyo, into custody for allegedly employing a 16-year-old girl as a waitress after 10 p.m. — a violation of the Law Regulating Adult Entertainment Businesses. The girl, who was attired in a light kimono known as a yukata, received an hourly wage of 1,050 yen per hour. This reminds us of the recent girls' bar scandal in Osaka and it seems police are now cracking ...

Famed fashion photographer Leslie Kee (41) has been arrested by Tokyo police for the sale of "obscene" imagery at a Roppongi Gallery. Kee, Singaporean by birth but based in Tokyo, is one of three arrested for selling photo books with pictures of male genitalia. The trio are suspected of selling seven books to two customers. The photo books are from Kee's new male nude series, "Super Goh" and "Super Miki", taken over the course of a year. However, the police got wind of non-mosaic "porn" being sold at hiromi yoshii roppongi gallery and swooped in on the dangerous cock-festered ...

It was just the other day that we blogged about sexy singer Takako Uehara getting her knickers in a twist about being accused of mafia links. Is any sexy celebrity in Japan safe from the shadow of the mob? It seems not. Now it's the turn of Erika Sawajiri, long a troubled and tempestruous celebrity. Erika is still a mere sprig of a gal at 25 but has already retired from the entertainment industry and returned once. But now a magazine has dug up and published photos of an 18-year old Erika in a Roppongi club with an allegedly yakuza-connected guy. Half French, half ...

Former actor Manabu Oshio has written a letter detailing his despair, according to tabloid claims. The fifty-page document has been released via his lawyer and is being nicknamed "note from hell." Oshio is, of course, the guy who last summer was arrested for fleeing his Roppongi apartment. Not such a big deal, right? Well, unfortunately there was a dead girl in there. And naked. And a hostess. Dead from an overdose. Yep, not a good combination. Of course, the media paints Oshio as the bad boy: promiscuous, arrogant and obviously guilty. The girl was just a victim. Um, if a hostess was ...