First up was Nakai Masahiro’s huge sex assault settlement that nearly took down a television network. I made a post about this earlier in the year. This broke at the end of last year but it sets the tone for the rest of the year.
Since that post Fuji has announced that it will sue the former excutives and president that were involved in the cover up
Fuji Television Network said it will file a lawsuit against the former president and former executive vice president over the broadcaster’s response to alleged sexual assault by former TV star Masahiro Nakai. https://t.co/4ptZQlM8Jk
— The Japan Times (@japantimes) June 6, 2025
Also this blog does a really great job translating the third party investigation if you’re really interested
Third-party Investigation Committee’s Report on the Nakai Masahiro sexual violence case & FujiTV’s role in it – Part 1: The Committeehttps://t.co/JYdNzPmL46 pic.twitter.com/vpzrZ3KYNv
— Chiaki @ Dorama World ドラマワールド (@doramaworld) April 1, 2025
Next is boy band member and BL actor Kenshin Kamimura getting arrested for sexual assault in Taiwan.
香港で日本の芸能人逮捕と報道https://t.co/UCslfBseFH
香港警察がONE N’ONLY（ワンエンオンリー）の元メンバー上村謙信容疑者を逮捕。3/1に香港で
のファンミーティング後、打ち上げで通訳の女性にわいせつな行為をした疑い。3/4に「重 大なコンプライアンス違反」により契約解除されていた。 pic.twitter.com/Q3IEZk9MyA — ORICON NEWS（オリコンニュース） (@oricon) March 5, 2025
Kenshin was a member of a mid level boy group that had been building up some amount of popularity in recent years, last year he was cast in the BL drama Miseinen: Mijukuna Oretachi wa Bukiyo ni Shinkochu and that seemed to be his break out moment. There was even set a fan meet tour for him and the other lead actor in several countries in Asia. Suddenly at the height of it all his agency announced he was no longer with them because of a contract violation and he would be leaving his group, he was quickly erased the agency website and all social media. There was a lot of confusion about it until his arrest in Taiwan was entered in to public record:
被告 KAMIMURA,KENSHIN pic.twitter.com/xuYzMSPmlk
— ᴋ_ᴍᴀʀᴜ_ᴅᴀᴜ_ʙᴀʙʏ (@k_maru_dau_baby) March 5, 2025
He was released on bail after his court date in April where he plead innocent and cried a bit. His trial will take place at the end of July so stay tuned!
It’s not just boy band members, women can also be messy!
Agency confirms Hirosue Ryoko’s arrest following car crash, announce hiatushttps://t.co/8KYkcVtYbE#広末凉子 pic.twitter.com/kJ5fwvVObf
— NANTE JAPAN (@NanteJapan) April 8, 2025
Actress Hirosue Ryoko, who’s life has sadly been on a downwards slide since having an affair two years ago got in a minor car accident and the attacked one of the nurses at the hospital. Afterwards she revealed that she has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and hyperthyroidism. Supposedly no drugs were involved and she was not charged.
Speaking of affairs the major one this year was 25 year old Nagano Mei and 40 year old married actor Tanaka Kei.
Bunshun’s latest scoop on the alleged extramarital affair of Tanaka Kei & Nagano Mei + her rumoured relationship with “Caster” co-star Kim Mu-junhttps://t.co/uCadjmdHHP pic.twitter.com/DYvaUQ52sF
— Chiaki @ Dorama World ドラマワールド (@doramaworld) April 23, 2025
Some interesting details are:
- Tanaka has been messy as heck, there have been rumors about him basically being an alcoholic and having affairs before but he’s always managed to stay above it… probably because he’s a man.
- Nagano was also caught leaving her apartment with a costar of her latest drama, in this case the guy is not married so it would have been fine if it weren’t for everything else.
- Nagano and her agency kind of tried to play it at first off like everything was just a big misunderstanding but that she would reflect on her actions but the tabloid (Bunshun) was relentless about it.
- Nagano has been being pushed hard for years now so she had a lot going on for her but now she’s lost all her commercial contracts, her radio show and future appearances in dramas. You can still see her in her current drama News Anchor being streamed on Netflix!!
- Tanaka lost some commercial contracts but his acting work has continued as normal.
At the very same time bunshun was breaking the KeiMei news they also had a scoop on actor and BE:FIRST member RYOKI
BE:FIRST’s RYOKI secretly accepted ¥100 million from fiancée, reports Weekly Bunshun https://t.co/TlzCtGkuQs
— tokyohive (@tokyohive) April 23, 2025
Interesting details here are:
- The woman involved here is R-Chan, she’s a youtuber and she spoke to Bunshun and gave them the pictures they used in the artical. She’s currently looking for a new boyfriend!!
- She was planning on marrying Ryoki but he was cheating on her and when she found out she made him sign a contract with a lawyer and everything promising not to cheat again but the relationship did not last long after that.
- She gave him a lot of money and gifts but he also gave her expensive gifts, the craziest thing was she paid for his mother’s dental work.
- During their relationship he was caught with a younger actress by tabloids.
- He’s now going out with another actress and they were planning on announcing their engagement in May, it was pushed back because of this but it’s believed to be shotgun wedding,
RYOKI has announced a hiatus from BE:FIRST after their world tour wraps this month:
[BE:FIRST] Regarding RYOKI’s future activities pic.twitter.com/vjpQoouerl
— BE:FIRST Updates (@BEFIRSTupdates) May 24, 2025
In even more disgraced boy group member news, JO1 member Shion admitted to using illegal overseas online casinos.
JO1鶴房汐恩、過去にオンラインカジノ利用で10日間の活動自粛発表「本人の反省の
深さなどを踏まえて総合的に判断」https://t.co/nSzLuhPc1R — ORICON NEWS（オリコンニュース） (@oricon) May 31, 2025
He went on a ten day hiatus to reflect on his actions. Surely withdrawing from public activities for ten whole days should be enough punishment for breaking the law right? Turns out it’s not…
Tokyo police have referred Shion Tsurubo, a member of boy band JO1, to prosecutors on allegations of engaging in illegal gambling on an online casino website. https://t.co/RapgqOtRLi
— The Japan Times (@japantimes) June 16, 2025
Shockingly the police have different ideas. This was announced after he had already returned from his hiatus and the company was silent for days about it before announcing that he would be going on another hiatus. According to him he didn’t know it was illegal and also he lost over $49K.
Now it’s time to come full circle with the scandal that made me decide to make this post. I started with an old sexual assaulter from Johnnys Entertainment and now I’m ending with one. Kokubun Taichi from TOKIO has been a mainstay in Japanese television for decades, suddenly on June 20th he was fired from his main television show for committing “multiple compliance violations”
Nippon Television Network will remove Taichi Kokubun, a member of the pop group Tokio, from its popular TV show “The Tetsuwan Dash” as he has been found to have committed compliance violations. https://t.co/Su9dKBjnyO
— The Japan Times (@japantimes) June 20, 2025
Although the violations have not been publically revealed, you can pretty much guess.
His group, TOKIO who’d only just been hanging on with three members left have decided to disband.
The Japanese pop band TOKIO has announced it is breaking up on Wednesday, after breaches of compliance rules by member Kokubun Taichi came to light.https://t.co/w1Dsq541WW
— NHK WORLD News (@NHKWORLD_News) June 25, 2025
On a sad note though TOKIO had done a lot to support the region of Fukushima after the earthquake and nuclear disaster in 2011, they promoted vegtables from the area on one of their shows. The plan for now is that the show will continue with the former TOKIO members (other than Kokubun) and other idols.
I’m not done quite yet! Here’s a couple of other things that happened recently that aren’t really scandals but they’re still interesting,
Rapper NENE released a diss track calling out Chanmina, the new girl group she created HANA, and the company they work for (BSMG).
She accuses Chanmina of stealing her style.
It was announced yesterday that ME:I member RAN would be going on indefinite hiatus
ME:IのRANが精神的疲弊により活動休止、グループは8人体制で活動https://t.co/VI82daq44J#ME_I #미아이 #ミーアイ pic.twitter.com/tF4cpYRfZS
— 音楽ナタリー (@natalie_mu) July 1, 2025
Well that’s fine right? Her company is giving her the time and space she needs to focus on her health. Except for the fact that she is the THIRD member of her group to go on indefinite hiatus in less than a year and the first two haven’t come back yet either, on top of that their company (LAPONE) is also in charge of another girl group with only four members and one of them is also on indefinite hiatus. These groups were formed by members who won and participated in Produce 101 JAPAN so they’re pretty big name groups.
I really only pay attention to pop stars and not people like comedians or politicians so it’s possible I missed some stuff but these were the ones that were interesting to me!
