Regular readers will remember the cautionary tale of gravure idol Miyu Murashima, who was forced to apologize and put her burgeoning career on ice in mid-2024 after her affair with a married basketball player came to light.
She was effectively sacked by her agency and announced later in 2024 she would no longer do gravure, instead focusing on producing her own content on YouTube and TikTok.
The basketball player with whom she had an affair seemed to suffer no professional consequences.
Over two years on from the scandal, what is Murashima doing?
Now 27 years old, the former idol announced ...
It's one of those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories. And it's got a bit of everything. Bribery. Expensive dinners. An elite educational institution. Sex. Lawsuits. Even CBD.
A University of Tokyo professor has been arrested for accepting over ¥1.8 million in bribes in exchange for research favors. Leading dermatologist Shin'ichi Sato (pictured below) also allegedly received complimentary visits to high-end hostess clubs and soapland brothels. The 30 visits to clubs and soaplands reportedly brought the total amount of his bribe to ¥3.8 million.
The 62-year-old is a professor at the ...
What happens to all those millions of yen that flow through the coffers of Japan's hostess clubs?
A lot goes into the pockets of the hard-working hostesses, of course, plus plenty is spent the expensive decor and upkeep of the venue.
Not very much goes to the taxman, it seems.
At the end of September 2025, a high-end hostess club in Roppongi was found to have concealed approximately ¥500 million in income. In addition to Fabric Lounge Tokyo's owners reporting lower income and fabricating fictitious expenses, the National Tax Agency said that some of the top hostesses themselves had failed ...
The former HKT48 idol Haruka Kodama has announced that she has worked as a hostess in Ginza.
After making a stunning comeback in gravure last year and released a digital photo book in January, is the model and actor in need of some regular work to keep herself in clover?
Not quite. Along with some ravishing pics of herself in full hostess garb, Haruppi released a video in which she "snuck" into a club for one night and got to try out a shift as a hostess.
The 28-year-old is playing a hostess in the April episodes of Tokyo Kanojo (a YouTube drama series), so she says she was gaining ...
Rui Sakuragi was one of the biggest adult video stars in Japan in the first half of the 1990s. She made her debut in 1989 and then left the industry in 1996 at the peak of her popularity.
In her subsequent career, she was a stripper until the year 2000, and did some acting on TV during those years.
But in the past quarter-century, fans didn't know what she was up to and rumors swirled that she had passed away.
That silence ended recently.
So what is the now 56-year-old Rui Sakuragi doing today? She's working as a hostess at a club in Ginza run by another top ex-porn star, Hitomi ...
In a sign of just how much affective labor is valued in Japan, the popular hostess Miyako Sakurai has moved to another high-end Roppongi club in a deal worth reportedly ¥100 million.
The move was announced on August 7.
Sakurai was a hostess at Jungle Tokyo in Roppongi, where she apparently earned the club around ¥300 million in three months. She will now be available to entertain patrons with the wherewithal at Club Rio, also in Roppongi.
Jungle Tokyo is regarded as the most exclusive hostess club in Japan.
Sakurai previously worked at the members-only lounge club 45 in Gion, Kyoto, ...
The television announcer and model Kasumi Mori has become a high-class hostess.
Well, kinda. She pretended to be one to film a TV show.
Mori is riding high now from lots of media appearances and exposure as she tries to follow the likes of announcer-turned-actress Minami Tanaka and break out into the mainstream as a model and general celebrity.
The 28-year-old recently released her debut photo book that featured some pretty sexy shots and has been a minor hit, it seems.
In the show, which was broadcast on TV Asahi (and with the full version available on Abema), Mori wore an alluring ...
The model Yukina Kinoshita continues to pursue an unusual path following her scandal, divorce (after multiple allegations of adultery), and losing her agency.
She has released a nude photo book and focused on social media channels like YouTube to keep herself in clover, her celebrity lifestyle apparently unaffected by her complete disappearance from fashion magazine covers.
The 36-year-old mother of two, who is currently dating 30-year-old soccer player Hidetoshi Miyuki, is gradually working more in the mainstream media and recently made an appearance on a TV show called Ai no Hyena on the ...
Politicians in the Kanagawa assembly were recently filmed by the media sleeping on the job.
Over several days, FNN's cameras spotted multiple lawmakers having a nap during sessions of the assembly, instead of doing the job the public elects (and pays) them to do.
Plus ça change. We could fill this blog with examples of politicos sleeping on the job.
But the cameras also spotted one lawmaker doing something a bit more cheeky.
Yusuke Terasaki of the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan was observed using his computer to look up non-work-related matters. In fact, he was planning his ...
You may never have heard of Marie Tachibana, but pretty much everyone in Kabukicho seems to have heard of her.
Perhaps the first thing to remark about her is that she is biracial (her father is American). The second is that she comes from a Christian family (that father was a missionary) -- and a big family at that, with seven siblings.
Instead of pursuing the conventional academic path, none of the children went to high school. Marie went to volunteer in India when she was 15, for instance.
If you were following J-Pop closely in the 2000s, you might have already seen Marie Tachibana ...
