Yasushi Akimoto, the producer behind AKB48 and its cohorts, never misses an opportunity to make money, even when the stimulus is safety and a nearly tragic event.
After the saw attack incident that saw two AKB48 idols Rina Kawaei and Anna Iriyama hospitalized, along with a male member of staff, and a maddened "fan" taken in custody by police, many predicted the end of the group's famous hand-shaking events. AKB has always promoted itself as "idols you can meet" but were they now just too big to be safe from madcap young men?
What to do?
Metal scanners? Checks on all bags ...
She may well have only come second this year but she still has her die-hard fans.
Exiled former AKB48 idol Rino Sashihara finished runner-up in the AKB48 General Election last weekend but this was in spite of the best efforts of a farmer, who voted for her 4,600 times.
A strawberry farmer apparently with money to burn was personally responsible for over 3% of Sashihara's winning 150,570 votes last year.
He claimed he would get at least 4,600 votes for her this year, despite having a wife and two children of his own. Regardless, it didn't help as Mayu Watanabe beat Sashiko to the ...
As spotted by Kotaku and now doing the rounds on the Internet to much hilarity, ex-Morning Musume idol cutie Ai Takahashi has been photographed posing innocently with a t-shirt that says boldly "I am a whore".
Another Morning Musume graduate, Yuko Nakasawa, had the offending image of Ai Takahashi taken when the 27-year-old Takahashi visited Fukuoka for some filming. After it was then uploaded to her blog it quickly went viral and Ai Takahashi's reputation as a sweet girl-next-door-type immediately went out the window.
Takahashi also uploaded it to her blog (both posts now long ...
An otaku has made a shocking confession that he bought 3,000 CDs due to his obsession with Rina Ikoma, the 18-year-old idol and member of girl group Nogizaka46.
Naturally he is also a regular attendant at Nogizaka46 handshaking events.
These meet-and-greet sessions are where they can have a few seconds of bliss stroking the hand of the idols they adore.
He told Rina what he had done at a recent handshaking event.
Unfortunately he was less than impressed with her muted response to his confession, crushing his dreams of happiness with the teenaged idol.
He now claims to ...
The year is almost over. It's time to look back over the past twelve months at the ladies who made the biggest impression.
Here are our picks, in alphabetical order.
Haruka Ayase
The former idol is now a respected actress and one who confidently assured the country that she need not be typecast in the ditzy girl-next-door roles anymore when she took the lead in the year-long Taiga drama, "Yae no Sakura". We still love her curves, though.
Mitsu Dan
Another big year for the thirtysomething curvy lady. She seemed to be on everyone's lips, figuratively speaking. She even ...
Following the orbital rise of Korean girl unit Girls Generation, Japanese pop has been searching for who can combat the continental ladies' incredible leg power.
This answer, it is being touted, is this new group, Bikyaku Jidai -- literally "Beautiful Legs Era" -- who have been formed for this express purpose.
The main qualification for the seven ladies in the group was that they had lovely legs.
With such single-minded approach we suspect their musical success may be rather limited. This is one of their masterpieces.
By way of comparison, here are the Korean ladies in ...
Maki Goto is proof that you can have a life after being part of a multi-member pop band. A former Morning Musume starlet, Maki is one of the few who has made that transition to soledom with some degree of success.
Around a year ago, though, sadly she basically retired from showbiz, but not before posing for some nice risque ...
Only yesterday we were lamenting the victory of K-Pop over Japanese rivals.
And now we see news that kind of confirms how stranger and strange local pop music is getting. As if the boy band Sexy Zone (comprised of kids only just into their teens) or the army of AKB48 (not as young as they look, but looks are everything), now comes a new group with a much-trumpeted average age of just 13.7.
Formed by an agency to appear in TV dramas and sing terrible songs, Her Best is made up of 14 girls. There were over ten thousand applications to audition, leading to the name Her Best (sounds ...
Ayumi Hamasaki surprised the entertainment just over a year ago by announcing her sudden marriage to an Austrian model and actor who had starred in one of her music videos.
Hamasaki's sales have ailed in recent years and we speculated that perhaps she might retire and start a family.
The latest twist is that Ayumi and Manuel Schwarz are already divorced! Less than a year is not a great length for any marriage, to be sure, but Ayumi officially blames the March 11th earthquake, which forced her to stay in Japan and remain close to her beloved fans. Rather than move to America with ...
Singer and model Takako Uehara (28) is suing the editors of a magazine for 30 million yen ($400,000) after claims it made in an article about disgraced comedian Shinsuke Shimada.
Shimada famously had to resign after allegations that he has had long connections to the yakuza -- it's well known that the whole entertainment industry in Japan is in cahoots with the mafia -- and Shimada, no stranger to scandals, was made an example of (probably so he could go and do other things, including reportedly hoping to enter politics!).
In the article in the September issue of weekly tabloid Shukan ...
