Japanese Entertainment News

bmwracer wrote: • There has been a major leak of online data on many of the top Korean entertainment stars. The 113-page file contains embarrassing and scathingly critical information on over 100 of Korea's best-loved celebrities, including many who are currently big in Japan. It includes claims of violence and sexual perversion as well as personal and physical faults of such people as Bae Yong Joon (photo, 32) and Lee Byung Hun (34).

Sounds terribly suspicious. It's funny how something so "critical" happens now...

Ushiroyubi wrote:Sounds terribly suspicious. It's funny how something so "critical" happens now...

Timing is everything.

bmwracer wrote:
Timing is everything.

lol... you catch my drift, :mrgreen:

Ushiroyubi wrote:lol... you catch my drift, :mrgreen:

I used to play left drift in softball, but I liked shortstop better. :mrgreen: :hehe:

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January 24, 2005

There's a big music trade meet going on in Cannes, France this week. And JETRO, the Japan external trade folks, and the Music Publishers Association are doing a big sell of Japanese pop music. For the first time at the annual MIDEM show, there's a Japan Pavillion. 58 record companies and talent agencies are represented. You can listen to CDs and watch DVDs by over 100 of Japan's top young artists, including Puffy and Moriyama Naotaro. J-pop is a \1.6 trillion industry (yes, trillion - that's about $16 billion) and is second only to the US. But it exports only \2.9 billion and imports nearly ten times that, mostly from the US. Could this be the beginning of a wave of Japanese pop hitting the world market?

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January 25, 2005

Hajime Chitose (26), the singer with the "voice in a million," has given birth to her first child. She announced Sunday on her web site that she'd had a baby girl on Thursday of last week. She was pregnant when she married a restaurateur in January 2004, but she suffered a miscarriage shortly afterwards. She decided to take time off work and had an uncomplicated pregnancy this time around. She plans to resume her career this summer. • NHK chairman Ebisawa Katsuji is set to announce his resignation before the end of his third term, rather than in March as he suggested earlier. He will make the anouncement at an executive meeting this afternoon. The public braodcaster has been plagued by scandals and viewer revolt for the last year. • Singers Banba Hirofumi (54) and Hirayama Miki (55) have divorced after 27 years of marriage. Both were stars of the "new music" scene when the married in 1977 and have remained well known in the Kansai region. The main cause of the split is said to be Banaba's affair with another woman last year.

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January 26, 2005

SMAP's first single in almost two years has taken the Oricon charts by storm. "Tomodachi e - Say What You Will" easily outsold the next-best sellers from Janne Da Arc and Morning Musume. It is SMAP's 36th single release and their 14th chart topper. It was written by none other than Eric Clapton, while local music legend Takeuchi Mariya wrote the words. • Post offices nationwide today started selling postage stamps with photos of locations used in the popular South Korean TV soap opera "Winter Sonata." The drama took Japan by storm last year and made overnight stars of actor Bae Yong Joon (32) and actress Choi Ji Woo (29). Today also saw the start of Japan-South Korea Friendship Year, with opening events being held in central Tokyo. The first events will take place in Seoul on Thursday. • The latest showbiz baby has been born to actress Ishida Hikari (32). She had a baby girl, her second, at home early on Sunday morning.

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January 27, 2005

NHK chief Ebisawa Katsuji (70) has finally bowed out. He announced his resignation at an executive meeting yesterday. He will be replaced as chairman by present managing director Hashimoto Genichi. Ebisawa has been under growing public pressure to take responsibility for a seemingly endless list of scandals and arrests at the national broadcaster. It's feared that the number of households that are refusing to pay their annual subscription fees may grow to almost half a million. • "Dare mo Shiranai" (Nobody Knows), the movie that garnered a Best Actor award at Cannes for young Yagira Yuya (photo, 14), has failed to get a nomination for the Academy Awards.

bmwracer wrote:• Post offices nationwide today started selling postage stamps with photos of locations used in the popular South Korean TV soap opera "Winter Sonata." The drama took Japan by storm last year and made overnight stars of actor Bae Yong Joon (32) and actress Choi Ji Woo (29). Today also saw the start of Japan-South Korea Friendship Year, with opening events being held in central Tokyo. The first events will take place in Seoul on Thursday.

How was the rating for "Winter Sonata" in Japan anyway? Does anybody know?

tejizo wrote:
How was the rating for "Winter Sonata" in Japan anyway? Does anybody know?

With all the oba-sans watching, I'd say easily 20-30%. :hehe:

eightysix wrote:

With all the oba-sans watching, I'd say easily 20-30%. :hehe:

16.1% viewership and finale got to 20.6%

It's actually pretty rare to see a drama get to 30% nowadays let alone be consistently in the mid 20s.

anyone know which drama had the highest viewership ever? someone told me that it was 'gto' w/ 40%!! honto??

jholic wrote:anyone know which drama had the highest viewership ever? someone told me that it was 'gto' w/ 40%!! honto??

I think it was for only that high for the last ep. :sweat: :hehe:

eightysix wrote:

I think it was for only that high for the last ep. :sweat: :hehe:

actually the last ep only got to 36% GTO never broke 40%, I think the last drama to do something like that was the finale of Beautiful Life. I used to have a link for the top 10 highest viewership dramas of all time. I'll try to look it up.

I think (according to this also) Oshin has the highest rating ever for a drama. But that was back in the 80's though.

It attracted a 62.9% rating and it is estimated that 98% of Japanese viewers have tuned into at least one of the show's three hundred episodes and it was broadcasted to forty countries.

But yeah, it's really really hard nowadays to hit 30% rating.

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January 28, 2005

SMAP's Kimura Takuya (32) is coming back to the Monday 9pm "Golden Time" slot again. The new Fuji TV drama series is yet to be titled, but Kimutaku will play a racing driver who finds romance. His legions of fans have boosted ratings for such successful series as "Love Generation", "Gift", "Good Luck!" and "Pride." • The trial of disgraced former talento Tashiro Masashi (48) came to an end yesterday at the Tokyo District Court. He was arrested last September for drug possession, his fourth arrest. He has put on about 18kg in the subsequent five months. Prosecutors asked for a prison sentence of four years and six months, saying he had a history of repeated offences. Sentencing will take place on February 7.

elt & 86: thanks for the info. would be cool if you could find that link. it would be interesting to find out what the highest viewed dramas were.

tejizo wrote:I think (according to this also) Oshin has the highest rating ever for a drama. But that was back in the 80's though.

yeah, here in hawaii, oshin was super popular too. surprised no one has released it on dvd. i still see that actress sometimes on other dramas. everytime i see her, i go, 'hey, that's oshin!!' and my japanese friends just laugh. :sweat:

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January 29, 2005

Shimizu Takeshi (32) is to direct "The Grudge 2," the Hollywood remake of his own hit horror movie. "Juon 2" was released in Japan last summer. The Sarah Michelle Gellar version of the 2002 original first movie pulled in $110 million at the US box office last autumn. It was the first time for a Japanese-directed movie to make the No.1 box office ranking for two weeks running. That project got the green light after "Spiderman" director Sam Raimi saw the Japanese version, and Raimi has been encouraging Shimizu to go for a sequel. • Former sumo star turned talento Konishiki (41) spent almost a month in hospital over the New Year, according to a statement by his wife Chie on his official web site. He was hospitalized on December 23, just three days after his younger sister died in Hawaii of a heart attack.

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January 30, 2005

Actress Koizumi Kyoko (38) was involved in a minor hit and run incident in Tokyo this week. She hit a newspaper delivery man's scooter parked on a narrow road in Meguro ward early on Wednesday morning, but didn't stop. The man noted the registration number and reported the incident to the police. On Friday, Koizumi paid him minor compensation for damage to the scooter. • Yoshimoto comedian Takada Akinori (47), better known as Hanshin of the manzai duo All Kyojin Hanshin, was involved in a collision with a scooter in Osaka on Friday. The bike rider suffered a broken leg when he was thrown after hitting Takada's car, which was making a right turn. Police are still looking into the case. • Mochida Kaori (26), vocalist of pop group Every Little Thing, has come down with acute bronchitis and has had to cancel two concerts in Hokkaido.

bmwracer wrote:Former sumo star turned talento Konishiki (41) spent almost a month in hospital over the New Year, according to a statement by his wife Chie on his official web site. He was hospitalized on December 23, just three days after his younger sister died in Hawaii of a heart attack.

If he keeps on eating all the crap he's eating in the islands (ie: plate lunches w/mac salad and all that other kinds of "grease" and fat food), he's going to end up like his sister. Especially with his weight problem. He better start working off all of that fat.