The singer, model, and TV personality Ricca Kanon shared intimate details on social media on August 31 about the issue of the casting couch in the Japanese entertainment industry.
The frequency of producers trying to pressure her to sleep with them has become so high that she announced that will no longer meet such people in person.
"I often receive requests for appearances (or messages posing as such) from TV program and commercial producers and creators. Please note that all future meetings regarding television projects will be conducted online."
She claims that "almost every time" she ...
Approximately 40% of women working in broadcasting in Japan said that they have received "sexual advances," according to a new survey.
A research team including the University of Tokyo Graduate School surveyed men and women who have worked in the broadcasting industry via email and other means, and found that around a significant number of women had received "sexual advances," and some had even been forced into sexual relations.
The open survey was conducted between May 2025 and January 2026, targeting people with experience working at a broadcasting station, regardless of employment status ...
A new Japanese porn release appears to parody the 2024 Masahiro Nakai scandal, in which the former SMAP member and TV staple was accused of sexually assaulting a female colleague. The woman is generally assumed to be Nagisa Watanabe, though this has never been officially confirmed.
The controversy stemmed not just over the allegation but over whether or not Fuji TV had allowed a years-long system to develop in which female TV presenters were treated like "rewards" to be given to powerful men in the industry. It abruptly ended the career of Nakai, one of the most visible presences on TV ...
Nagisa Watanabe has bounced back from personal hardship to achieve major gravure success with her debut photo book, Horizon, which has now won the top prize at the Weekly Playboy Gravure japan Award 2025.
Watanabe commented: "When I received the offer to do the photo book, I remember repeatedly telling my editor, 'Are you sure you want me? It won't sell, you know?' I was filled with anxiety from my first overseas shoot to the release date, but I am filled with gratitude to all the staff who worked with me to create Horizon."
Watanabe is a former TV announcer who is generally assumed to be ...
Now this is what we call moving on!
After quitting as an announcer at Fuji TV last summer, the future looked uncertain for Nagisa Watanabe.
When the Masahiro Nakai scandal broke, people were quick to deduce that she was probably the unnamed woman at the center of it. Though she's still not officially identified, it is generally assumed that she was the victim of the alleged sexual assault, which led to her taking a leave of absence from her job.
Nakai, one of the biggest names in Japanese entertainment, was forced to retire and Fuji TV suffered a mass exodus of advertisers.
The ...
Nagisa Watanabe is to release her first photo book, published in Japan on June 25.
Though still officially unnamed, it is very widely assumed that the former TV announcer is the woman at the center of the Masahiro Nakai sex scandal, which has ended his career and brought one of Japan's biggest broadcasters into disrepute.
It came to light late last year that Nakai, formerly of SMAP, had paid a female announcer a huge sum of money as compensation for a sexual assault. This is a common way in Japan to avoid someone pressing criminal charges.
The scandal has grown, with allegations of ...
When April Fool's Day pranks go wrong.
Yesterday, we posted about the successful April Fool's Day stunt by gravure model Jun Amaki, who teased us that she was retiring. Of course, she wasn't and it was just a prank to get attention, and she even managed to attract news articles and raise her profile.
Influencer Sarimaru Kunikida's prank, though, attracted a very different kind of reaction.
The mom of one who works in PR and recruitment posted on April Fool's Day not about herself but about a guy from her company called Yuji Mizoguchi, a well-known entrepreneur and wrestler (and former ...
Sadly, we are now quite used to tales of sexual harassment in Japan and most other countries. These cases crop up a lot in the workplace, though also often in education, where there is a clear imbalance of power between the teacher and students, who are generally young and vulnerable.
And so we were both amused and confused when we read about a harassment case at a university that very much did not adhere to this format.
According to a March 21 report in the Mainichi Shimbun, Tokyo District Court ruled that the forced resignation of a university professor over alleged sexual misconduct ...
Shortly after the allegations of Masahiro Nakai brought the career of one of TV's top stars to a screeching halt, and ruined the credibility of one of the biggest broadcasters, now come allegations against another TV comedian that he forcibly tried to take a woman to a love hotel in 2015.
Takayuki Kinoshita of comedy duo TKO has admitted trying to take the woman to the hotel, though denied coercion. As a result, Nippon Television has cut his scenes from a show broadcast on Sunday.
The allegations against the 53-year-old comedian were made by a YouTuber, originally on X but they were ...
It's almost the New Year holidays here in Japan, a time when everyone gathers with their family, eats nice food, and watches a lot of bad TV.
Likely to feature on one or more of those shows was former SMAP singer Masahiro Nakai, among the most famous male celebrities in the country but whose career is now in jeopardy after a scandal and serious allegations emerged this week.
In a scoop broken by the tabloid Bunshun, the 52-year-old is accused of paying a massive fee of ¥90 million to a woman as compensation, after a possible sexual assault in June 2023.
Nakai was in a relationship for ...
