Last spring, TV tarento Rei Kikukawa made news when she appeared in a bra commercial. TV commercials are the bread-and-butter of most tarento (media stars), and Kikukawa has done her fair share, but since gaining stardom she's managed to avoid overt exploitation of her sex appeal. That's because she has always been promoted as an "intelligent idol," a young star with brains to match her looks.
Kikukawa is a graduate of the University of Tokyo, an accomplishment that carries with it the aura of intellect. However, a survey of her TV work reveals very few obvious differences in intellectual capacity between Kikukawa and the average female idol. On the Sunday evening Nihon TV news show "Bankisha," which she co-hosts, she rarely offers opinions and mostly reads from the script. The show doesn't require her to be smart, only to represent smart.
The bra commercial may indicate that such a label is no longer enough if Kikukawa wants to maintain her workload. Intelligence, in fact, may be falling out of fashion.