Prosecutors on Thursday demanded 17 years in prison for the man who attacked a pop idol he was obsessed with in Koganei, western Tokyo, after she spurned his gifts and social media messages. "It was an extremely self-centered act," the prosecutors said at the Tachikawa ...
Japan's all-girl idol group AKB 48 is launching yet another sister group, this time to be based in the Seto Inland Sea area. STU48 stands for Setouchi, the Japanese name of the coastal areas surrounding the waterway in western Japan. It will have its theater ...
The man behind AKB48 expresses regret after a different act performed in outfits resembling Nazi-era military uniforms.
The idol group Keyakizaka46, a branch of Japan's top-selling girl band AKB48, has sparked outrage on social media over their Halloween costume, which resembled the uniform worn by Nazi SS officers before and during World War II. During a show Oct. 22 at Yokohama Arena ...
Police failed to record an earlier stalking incident of another woman by the 27-year-old man arrested last week for attacking an idol singer with a knife in Tokyo. Tomohiro Iwazaki was arrested Saturday for viciously stabbing Mayu Tomita, 20, during an event in Koganei, Tokyo, ...
The attack on idol singer Mayu Tomita has sparked a discussion over the effectiveness of the anti-stalking law, which some experts say should include a clear statement on preventing online stalking.
Uh-oh! What have the young women of Kamen Joshi gotten themselves into? On Sunday the idol group, whose name in English means Masked Girls and which is made up of 18 members in three separate teams, released a video titled "Kamen Joshi: Idol Magic for ...
When a pop singer who has long faded from the limelight suddenly starts appearing in your Twitter timeline in the form of glowing, nostalgic re-evaluations, they're either gearing up for a comeback . . . or dead. In the case of 28-year-old singer Aya Matsuura, ...
Offering non-Japanese people free entry to Moshi Moshi Nippon was a risky move on the part of Asobisystem, but it seemed to have paid off. Nearly 15,000 punters showed up for the Sept. 28 event at Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium, and organizers say that 7,000 of ...
One new act who has been creating a buzz in music-industry circles this year is quirky singer-songwriter Seiko Oomori. The music video for her song "Midnight Seijun Isei Koyu" ("Midnight's Pure Relationship Between the Sexes") depicted a possibly murderous tale of lesbian obsession. Her new ...
The eldest member of six-member idol unit Especia was born in 1989, so when I ask them about life during Japan's early '90s bubble era they can only imagine what it was like. "I picture people throwing a lot of money around," says Haruka Tominaga, ...
Last month, Meiji University's law department announced it would offer a social-psychology course on the boy band Arashi. The syllabus includes lectures about the group's individual members; its work in TV dramas and advertising; and the "culture of Johnny's Jimusho," Arashi's powerful production company. ...
