reblog

Actress Mao Inoue will finally be making her long awaited return to acting! According to Yahoo! Mao will be playing the role of a female teacher in a Fuji TV drama series that will begin airing in October.

This will be Mao’s first appearance in a drama series since the 2015 Taiga drama “Hanamoyu”. After the release of “Hanamoyu” Mao did not sign on to appear in many projects, her sole role being a voice acting spot in the CGI children’s movie Rudolf the Black Cat. The same month the movie was released Mao announced that she would be parting ways with her agency “Seventh Avenue”, whom she belonged to since the start of her career as a child actress.

Even though Mao signed to another agency, tabloids had a field day using this as evidence that Mao was ready to settle down and perhaps marry her longtime rumored boyfriend Jun Matsumoto, member of the Johnny’s group Arashi. No marriage announcement was made and Mao continued to keep a low profile. She would occasionally be tracked down by paparazzi who would ask her about Jun, only for her to dodge the question.

The drama series is tentatively titled “Tomorrow’s Promise”, and will deal with the heavy issue of suicide among high school students. It’s rumored that Yukie Nakama will also be starring in the drama series.

Mao debuted at 1992 in the drama series “Gakko ga Abunai!”, she was only five years old! Her breakthrough came with the 1999 TBS drama series “Kids War: Zaken na yo“. Eventually Mao went on to star in a remake of “Hana Yori Dango” in 2005 which further launched her career to new heights. Mao continued to appear in multiple acclaimed and successful projects including “Oba: The Last Samurai”, “Ohisama”, and “Rebirth” cementing her status as one of Japan’s top actresses.

Since the mid-2000s, a huge topic among fans of J-Pop Empress Ayumi Hamasaki has been about the gradually worsening condition of her hearing. From feelings of sorrow, to worry, to being the butt of a joke from haters, as a singer, it has no doubt affected her vocal technique.

Today, the Ayu took to her Team Ayu blog to talk about her current health condition and revealed that her right ear is beginning to weaken after years of compensating for her fully deaf left ear.

After talking about her knee injury recovery, Hamasaki writes:

Just before this year’s tour began I received a second blow – my hearing started to deteriorate further. My semicircular canals had blown, and I was experiencing crippling dizziness. I wasn’t able to walk in a straight line, and was often reduced to vomiting in the restroom at the rehearsal studio. I tried to put a brace face on things, but was told after various hearing tests that my right ear (which had been working overtime to compensate for my deaf left ear) was weakening fast. I don’t have a clear memory of my journey home after that. I just remember wondering how I, as a singer, would cope with two useless ears. Other than that, I was in darkness.

None of this is surprising considering how her left ear got in such awful condition.

During her concert tour 2000 Act 1, Ayu caught a cold accompanied by an ear infection. She was warned by her doctor that she needed to ease up her exposure to loud noises so her ear infection could heal. However, she only spent a few days in the hospital to recover to get back to touring and surrounding herself with loud noises. Being the hard-working and motivated business woman she is, at the top of her game and fame and devoted to her art and the coins, she did not cancel or postpone any tour dates until Act 2.

During performance rehearsals for her DOME TOUR 2001, it was believed that Ayu began suffering tinnitus, a ringing in the ear that is caused by constant exposure to sound.

Despite the numerous warnings for years that she should avoid loud noises and ease up on her immense touring schedule, Ayu continued at full speed. For years to come, she continued her schedule of at least one tour per year, a New Year’s countdown concert event and appearances at a-nation each year.

In 2007, just before the Countdown Live concert celebrating the start of the new year and her 10th anniversary as a singer, Ayu’s ear began bothering her again. She insisted her new ear monitor was bothering her, but expressed privately that she was concerned about the health of her ear.

In late 2008, the condition was deemed irreversible by her doctor. Ayu went to a doctor and was given the unfortunate news that her ear had gone completely deaf, and there was no treatment. She posted on her TeamAyu blog a few days later to notify her fans, promising to continue being a singer regardless and vowed to go ahead with an upcoming tour of Asia.

“Nevertheless, I would like to continue as a singer. That’s why I would like to continue singing until I reach the limit with my remaining right ear,” she wrote at the time on her members-only fan site. “I won’t stop. I won’t make excuses. As a professional, I would like to deliver the best performance for everyone.“

Feeling lost with the possibility of not being able to do what she loves, a message of encouragement from a friend reminded her who she was. In today’s post, Hamasaki admitted that she should “probably stop performing,” but that isn’t something she is prepared to consider:

The stage is where I belong. It’s the only place I really, truly exist. I don’t know anything else. There’s no point in worrying about what lies ahead. I will keep listening, even if I can’t hear. I will keep moving, evening if I can’t move. I’m not looking for sympathy or pity. I will hold my head high and keep going forward until my last breath.

The reality of the situation brings on mixed feelings: Ayumi Hamasaki’s outlook and dedication to what she loves doing is both commendable and inspirational, but at the same time, her determination to actively work against her health is entirely distressing.

Selling over 50 million records throughout her career, making her best-selling Japanese solo artist of all time, she has definitely changed the landscape of the music scene in Japan but it’s incredibly disheartening to think about her career’s impending expiration date.

Time for yet another Girl of the Day for you all to cast your eyes over and enjoy and, once again, we are bringing you a very beautiful woman as our Girl of the Day. Following the success and popularity of yesterday's Girl of the Day, Japanese star Ai Shinozaki, we decided that we would stick with what works and bring you another beautiful Japanese talent as our Girl of the Day for today.

As with yesterday's Girl of the Day, if you know much about the Japanese entertainment industry, then there is no doubt that you will know of the name Reon Kadena and will have seen some of her work. As well as being a beautiful and successful model, doing a number of modelling shoots in Japan, Reon Kadena has also tried her hand at acting, appearing in a number of low-budget Japanese movies over the course of her career.

During her acting career, we have seen Reon Kadena appear in such low-budget Japanese movies as Triple-H (2004), Leon (2004), Girl’s Desire (2004), Virginity (2005), Style (2005), Make You Happy (2006), and My Reflection (2006), while it is probably fair to say that the biggest movie she has worked on to date is God's Left Hand, Devil's Right Hand (2006), which is a chilling horror movie from the highly respected Japanese director Shusuke Kaneko.

Reon Kadena is one of those Japanese women that has a body to die for but, as well as that, she also has the cute, sweet and innocent face which gives the perfect balance of seduction and innocence. The tiny gap between her teeth gives Reon Kadena a gorgeous smile that goes towards giving her the whole package. Reon Kadena is a stunning model and we look forward to seeing what is next for her career.

The blurb of 2023 Japanese Netflix Original film Call Me Chihiro describes the titular Chihiro (Kasumi Arimura) as an unapologetic former sex worker. Unapologetic is possibly too strong of a term for the passive protagonist of prolific filmmaker Rikiya Imaizumi’s latest film. Based on the manga of the same name, by Hiyoyuki Yasuda, we follow Chihiro (Kasumi Arimura) as she leaves her old life behind and serves bento to a welcoming town of friendly faces.

While it’s true that Chihiro (Arimura) displays no shame or remorse for her life choices, in this sedentary seaside town she doesn’t need to, the stigma of sex work isn’t really present. There is an allusion to the hardship she has faced, but this is definitely a more sanitized portrayal of that world. It’s an interesting choice of past life for the main character, but it’s almost irrelevant; it’s as if Chihiro would be equally lost if she was an architect or a doctor. The very adult nature of her previous life does, however, provide a stark and interesting juxtaposition to her childish attitudes and playful way of seeing the world.

This childishness becomes quite grating but makes sense for a character somewhat stuck in arrested development. Her companions are teenaged Okaji (Hana Toyoshima) and school boy Makoto (Tetta Shimada), though she is notably not in a position of authority with these two. If anything, they are her peers.

Chihiro’s ex-employer, Utsumi (Lily Franky) describes her as missing something inside, and Kasumi Arimura’s acting has to be praised. She does a great job of portraying this lack of engagement with the wider world, wearing the same expression whether she’s apologising for some unauthorised babysitting, watching a bar fight, or burying a corpse.

The film is brilliant at showing rootlessness and transience. Chihiro’s loneliness is made evident as she crawls on all fours to get attention from a disinterested cat. Inhibitions don’t plague her, and the eagerness she displays for some attention is very telling.

One aspect that is interesting in the first quarter of the film is Okaji’s obsession with Chihiro, the voyeurism and photographs a potential metaphor for the ownership of sex workers. But as the film goes on, and the two become friends, this doesn’t amount to anything. It is simply never explained why this teenage girl has taken hundreds of photos of a nearly-thirty-year-old woman playing on the swings.

Alongside food, which is an obvious motif – the rice and vegetables nourishing the characters’ bodies whilst the conversations and interactions nourish their souls – the other main theme running throughout the story is the importance of found family. Unfortunately, parents don’t fare well in this world, all of them unable to offer their children what they need. Chihiro’s found family are a motley crew, as lost and lonely as she is. But her impact on their lives, whilst on the surface wholly inappropriate, is nothing but positive.