Man may face charges for cyberbullying of late ‘Terrace House’ star Hana Kimura
The man in his 20s from Osaka Prefecture is suspected by Tokyo Metropolitan Police of having defamed Kimura on Twitter several times, posting abusive comments asking why she was still alive.
Mother of 'Terrace House' star Hana Kimura files ethics complaint over death
The mother of Hana Kimura, a cast member of Fuji Television's popular reality show "Terrace House," filed a complaint with a broadcast ethics watchdog Wednesday alleging a human rights violation over her daughter's death in May following cyberbullying. "Terrace House" came under heavy criticism and ...
Media giants Fuji TV and Sankei Shimbun apologize for fake opinion polls
Bogus answers appeared in 14 joint Fuji-Sankei surveys between May 2019 and May this year, including Cabinet approval surveys.
Five Japan TV networks to offer simultaneous online streaming in bid to entice younger viewers
The firms are aiming to attract a wider viewership, though their streaming will be limited to times of day with the highest demand.
Tokyo's five major private TV networks to trial simultaneous online streaming next year
Private networks are apparently waking up to the reality that their online presence will fade if they do not keep up with the trend of streaming on smartphones.
The small screen needs the small mercies of 'Terrace House'
Television has long been my connection to home. White Walkers ushering in an apocalyptic winter, Cold War sleeper agents going rogue, robots running amok in an Old West theme park — all of these have but a passing resemblance to my former life in ...
'Ainori' teaches lessons in love ... and soft power
Netflix Japan's reboot of the reality show "Ainori" features plenty of drama — most of it interpersonal, but some geopolitical. The streaming-era version of the show, a joint effort between Fuji TV and Netflix, debuted last fall. Like the original incarnation that ran from 1999 ...
NHK tries to clear up LGBT misconceptions
Last month, publisher Iwanami Shoten was criticized for its definition of “LGBT” in the newest edition of Kojien, which is considered to be the most authoritative dictionary of the Japanese language. The complaint was specifically about the meaning of the acronym’s “T” portion, which ...
2018: Year of the 800-pound Gorilla
Four topics dominated Japan's non-Twitter news cycle for the last quarter of 2017. Two involved sports: the signing of 23-year-old baseball superstar Shohei Otani to play for the Los Angeles Angels of the American League; and the resignation of sumo grand champion Harumafuji after ...
Fuji TV's home-improvement wrecking ball
A popular sub-genre of reality TV is the home-improvement show, and as with many things having to do with television, Japan did it first. On TV Asahi's "The Before and After," which launched as a weekly series in 2002, superannuated, usually cramped properties are magically ...
Fuji TV's wishful thinking is food for thought
Since 1987, Fuji TV has owned Monday night, specifically the 9 to 10 p.m. time slot, when it broadcasts fluffy romantic drama series starring the season's hottest actress and often a prominent member of a boy band. This phenomenon has its own name — getsu-ku ...
A Japanese TV network apologized Monday for making viewers "feel unpleasant" over a comedy program that revived a 30-year-old stereotype character depicting a gay man. The character called "Homo-oda Homo-o," a name incorporating "homo" — a derogatory term in Japan for homosexual men — twice, ...
