Celebrity News

Tabloid Reports About Yu Darvish’s Love Life: Kirara Asuka & Miho Koga?

Taiwan’s NMA news reports on how Texas Rangers pitcher Yu Darvish has been “dating” adult film actress Kirara Asuka:

Even though baseball season hasn’t started just yet, Japanese baseball star Yu Darvish has generated US$258 million in advertising revenue in January alone — the same amount generated by the 2nd and 3rd most popular Japanese stars, an advertising research company has calculated.
He is also reportedly dating a Japanese adult video star known for her “electric tongue.”

More recent tabloid reports have claimed that Darvish is in a relationship with golfer Miho Koga.

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Does K-Pop Group KARA Have Ties to North Korea?

Some Japanese netizens have a theory about this man, who has often been seen accompanying the South Korean pop group KARA:

They think he’s the same person as this ruffian who clashed with police outside the offices of Chongryon (Chosen Soren), an organization of pro-DPRK Korean residents of Japan:

They both share some facial features:

Those that see the “Korean Wave” in Japan as a fabrication are claiming that this is yet another example of how Korean pop culture’s popularity in Japan is part of an anti-Japanese conspiracy. They are not at all surprised that KARA would be seen associating with North Korean agents.

According to an article on the Rakuten/Infoseek Woman news site, the entertainment company that handles KARA has stated that the man is a “schedule manager” for the music group. They are looking into the accusations that he is a member of Chongryon.

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Sara Errani Admits She Avoided Tennis Tournament in Tokyo: Feared Radiation

Italian tennis player Sara Errani has confessed that she skipped the September 2011 Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo because she was afraid of radiation:

Sara Errani has admitted fears of a radiation leak after last year’s tsunami in Japan forced her to withdraw from a tournament in Tokyo.

Errani…..had previously cited only personal reasons for missing the event.

Had the tournament taken place in March or April, one might have been able to sympathize with her decision. Fearing a trip to Tokyo in September, however, was ridiculous.

Update: Christopher Johnson, the Canadian freelancer responsible for the infamous “Gaijin Gulag” article, has used his Twitter account to lash out at JapanProbe:

The sensational reports he filed after fleeing Tokyo in March 2011 were bad enough. Now he’s insisting that a short term visit to Tokyo in September would have been dangerous. And, just as he did back in March, he’s trying to insult those of us who stayed in Tokyo instead of fleeing. What an astounding display of stupidity.

It’s no surprise that event organizers asked reporters not to ask players about the radiation: the tennis tournament was not being held in a contaminated area and had nothing to do with Fukushima.

Update 2: Johnson has continued public tantrum about this post.

If you’re critical of a tennis player’s decision to avoid Tokyo because of radiation fears you are: a coward, a sexist, a dweeb, a geek, and a tool of the older male authorities.

VK has commented about this on Tepido.org:

Mr Johnson has been going off on one on Twitter about JapanProbe. They reported on an Italian tennis player who refused to play in Tokyo last September because of radiation fears.

Johnson retorted: extreme cowardice: blame healthy young female athletes for fearing nuclear radiation during meltdown.

“Nastiness” I could understand as a coherent comment, whether or not I agree with it. “Patronising wankiness” would pass the sense test. But “cowardice”? About people who didn’t flee, talking about someone too scared to come, said by someone who fled? Shaky grip on the language. And he’s quite clearly got a phenomenally loose grip on sciencey things. I’m surprised he’s got the courage to touch his computer.

Stay classy, Mr. Johnson.

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Why’s Zippei So Quiet? TV Dog Had Vocal Cords Removed

If you watch Nihon TV’s Zip! morning show, you probably recognize the dog in the picture above. It’s Zippei (ジッペイ), a cute and fluffy Samoyed dog that travels around Japan as the television show’s mascot.

Every day, Zippei visits a different area, interacting with locals and spreading awareness about the show. The clip below shows a typical Zippei segment:

As you can see, Zippei is extremely well-behaved and never seems to make any noise. This bizarrely unnatural lack of barking gave rise to internet rumors that the Zippei had undergone surgery to remove his vocal cords. Some netizens who claim to have attended Zippei events said they saw the dog trying to bark, but not making any actual bark sounds.

The Asahi Shimbun is now reporting that the internet rumors were true: Zippei had a vocal cordectomy. The procedure took place before Zippei appeared on TV. It was supposedly not a pre-condition for the dog’s participation on the program. NTV is not commenting on whether it approves or disapproves of such surgical procedures .

According to Wikipedia, some people in the United States and Europe consider it cruel. It has even been outlawed in some areas:

The procedure is outlawed as a form of mutilation in the United Kingdom and all countries that have signed the European Convention for the Protection of Pet Animals. In the United States, devocalization is illegal by state law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and by city ordinance in Warwick, Rhode Island. Efforts to ban devocalization are underway in other states.

If the 2channel comments picked up by Itai News are any indication, it seems that quite a few Japanese people also strongly disapprove of de-barking surgery and are disgusted by NTV [むごい話だ / 動物虐待じゃん / ひどいね / 日テレは動物をオモチャにするのが好きだな ] .

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Yu Darvish Arrives in America Wearing Marijuana Leaf Shirt

A couple days ago, pitcher Yu Darvish signed a $60 million deal with the Texas Rangers. When he arrived in in Texas, he was wearing a very strange shirt:

Darvish arrived about three hours earlier at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport, where he was greeted by a large group of media cameras and a handful of Rangers fans.

There was a bit of a stir created by the photos of the arrival, when Darvish wore a T-shirt with the phrase “I Will Survive” surrounding the image of a Japanese Maple Leaf, which looks similar to a marijuana leaf.

“In Japan, anything that’s like a T-shirt with English words on it,” he said. “We just tend to wear it, we don’t really actually know what it means.”

It’s true, shirts like that are sold all over Japan. And most people don’t really see them as a bad thing. To them, it just looks neat.

Related video: With its usual wackiness, Taiwan’s NMA reports on Yu Darvish.

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Tommy Lee Jones to Play General Douglas MacArthur in New Film About US Occupation

Tommy Lee Jones has been cast as General Douglas MacArthur in an upcoming film about the American occupation of Japan:

“Tommy will bring strength, intelligence, and gravitas to the portrayal of, a legendary American hero,” producer Gary Foster (“Ghost Rider,” “Daredevil”) said in a statement.

“Emperor” is set in the days following Japan’s surrender in World War II, when MacArthur effectively presided over the country as the supreme commander of the Allied forces.

Mathhew Fox will also appear in the movie:

Fox will portray General Bonner Fellers, an attaché to the General, who is given the responsibility of deciding the fate of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito. The film has been scripted by David Klass and Vera Blasi.

According to Variety, the film is a combination of historical drama and post-war romance. Fox’s character is in the midst of a great love affair with Aya, a Japanese exchange student from his past. At the same time, he struggles with the decision of whether or not to try Hirohito as a war criminal. In true Hollywood fashion, the two stories will intersect and force Fox’s character to make a monumental decision.

And here’s a short line about Bonner Fellers’ role in the war crimes trials, from Wikipedia:

Fellers played a major role in the occupation of Japan. He met with the major defendants of the Tokyo tribunal. According to historians Herbert Bix and John W. Dower, Fellers—under an assignment by the code name OPERATION BLACKLIST—allowed them to coordinate their stories to exonerate Emperor Hirohito and all members of his family. This was at the direction of MacArthur, now head of SCAP, who wanted no criminal prosecution of the Emperor and his family.

Perhaps Hollywood will alter history, and blame the Japanese girlfriend for Fellers’ controversial actions?

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