After alleged cheating scandal, Mei Nagano to attempt comeback with calendar release
The disgraced actor Mei Nagano is to take her first real steps toward a comeback with the release of a 2026 calendar on December 21.
The 26-year-old Nagano’s career suffered a catastrophic collapse when her alleged affair with 41-year-old married actor Kei Tanaka was reported by the tabloids in April.
At the time, she was also supposedly in a relationship with a Korean actor, Kim Moo-jun, with whom she costarred in a TV drama.
Both she and father-of-two Kei Tanaka denied an affair, though admitted they were close and that he had stayed over at her apartment. Various damning photos emerged, including selfies of the two of them that looks very much like the kind of selfies a couple would take.
Further allegations emerged later in the year that Nagano had been in a relationship with actor Kentaro Sakaguchi, perhaps for as long as three years. The 34-year-old Sakaguchi was reported to be in a long-term relationship with a partner, with whom he lives.
From starring in a several projects and fronting multiple advertising campaigns, Nagano was promptly dropped as tainted goods and has been largely out of the public eye since (though her lookalike was mixed up in a crime in Shinjuku). A particularly major role she was lost was in the upcoming NHK Taiga drama, Toyotomi Brothers.
Her new calendar is her 11th and features Nagano in a variety of seasonal poses.
Aside from the fact that Tanaka is married and she possibly already had a boyfriend, the scandal was particularly big because the reports contrasted so strongly with the girl-next-door image of Nagano she and her agency had cultivated in the public eye.
As always, it is amusing to see how the mainstream Japanese media has reported the news, with some major outlets like TV Asahi simply describing the bare facts about the calendar release, while the tabloids fully contextualizing it with the scandal. The mainstream media still wants to stay on good terms with major talent agencies and even saying whatever knows is considered rocking the boat.
It remains to be seen if producers will cast her in lucrative TV drama roles. If they do, we hope she follows the example of Mariko Shinoda and takes a role that references her adultery scandal.
