Ex-AKB48 Minami Minegishi gets married to YouTuber

Sometimes, things do have a happy ending.

When AKB48’s Minami Minegishi shaved her head back in 2013 to apologize for a sex scandal, it prompted immense controversy over the control that management has over idols’ private/person lives, and sparked headlines around the world. Her tearful video, head shaven like a nun, was painful to watch (though images of Miichan seeming to pose happily for photos with her peers either just before or after suggested to some that the video was purely performative).

As a 20-year-old, she had to undergo a traumatic and humiliating experience in public just for doing what almost anyone else her age would have done: having a relationship with someone.

Coming in the same year as the infamous Tomomi Kasai photo shoot with a child appearing to cup her naked breasts, the scandal arguably marred AKB48 more than it did Minegishi’s reputation.

Now aged 29 and having left AKB48 behind in 2021, Minami Minegishi is finally free to find love. Which she has done — and got married.

Miichan, who had the longest stint in AKB among the original generation of members who started in 2005, has wed the YouTube star Tetsuya, the leader of the YouTuber comedy group Tokai On Air.

The couple announced the news on August 16 simultaneously on their respective social media channels, posted alongside a striking picture of them posing together. Their relationship became known in September last year, shortly after Minegishi had graduated.

Minegishi languished among the ranks of “research student” (trainee) for a while following her sex scandal, but soon bounced back and has remained a popular member of the supergroup. The year 2016 was an especially busy and productive year: she released a sexy photo book, did a “hand-bra” nude shoot, and got fat and then slim again for a campaign. The shaved-head scandal perhaps also won her more sympathy from fans and the public that more than outweighed the actual damage from the sex scandal itself.