evergrn

Japanese media's funny. Total bs that she got torched so much over this. The guy was married (not her), and she supposedly didn't know at first that he was married. In contrast, how did Enraku come out scot free with his deal? Given the treatment Becky got, Nonstyle's Inoue should've been banished for a couple years.

I know one person who'll never make it back is Atsuko Takahata's son.

Pickles

http://www.theonion.com/article/repo...e-23-yea-35690

msp3

Is it possible to buy one of these not online but in a physical store?



Would a Don Quixote carry something like this?

evergrn

What is that? Is that one of those rolling foot stools seen at libraries?
Did you check Amazon?
Even if you find it at a store, are you going to be able to bring back such a huge thing?

Donki just opened a mega store in Shibuya. That will now surely be the top attraction in Tokyo.

hailstorm

It's a bath stool.

evergrn

I see. Donki (esp their mega stores) carries just about everything. But probably better chances of finding this at a place like Unidy or Cainz Home.

evergrn

Is there a Japanese singer worse than this guy?
(click on 'watch on youtube')

hailstorm

The dude is a legend from the 60's, so at this point we're in his "we're just happy to see him still alive and performing at his stage" phase of life.

Still a hell of a lot better than the "singing" of Phil Collins on the current Genesis tour.

evergrn

No this guy is still in the prime of his career, even though he�s almost 70. He�s the star of the long running police drama Aibou, and he�s probably currently in more TV ads than anyone.

His singing gives me hope that I can make it in Japanese music industry one day.

seigex

Whereas I get my motivation from no other than Shinjuku's own Starduck Tony

evergrn

damn this guys good.
Lost all confidence about making it in Japanese music scene. I can�t compete with this.

AlwaysAisle

Yutaka Mizutani is going strong with his current TV drama Aibou (相棒), which just finished Season 20. He is going to be 70 this July, talking about the longevity of his career! I do think he became famous in the '70s TV drama Kizudarake no tenshi (傷だらけの天使). His character was a social outcast. Criminals and yakuza (Japanese mafia) were nothing unusual in Japanese movies and TV, but his character in Kizudarake no tenshi was not criminal or yakuza. His character in that TV drama simply did not fit into society. I think social outcasts who are not criminal or yakuza was something new in Japanese TV drama back then.

Yutaka Mizutani had another TV drama hit in the '70s playing a detective and I think that song is from that TV drama. I think it was a standard formula back then, have a hit TV drama and actors/actresses release a record just because they were popular, nothing to do with singing skill. Not that the Japanese entertainment business today has evolved from that...

Talk about Japanese singer worse than Yutaka Mizutani, how about Kumiko Ooba?

Pickles

A friend of mine acquired Japanese reading fluency by watching these kinds of shows and reading the subtitles as the singers "sang" along. She is also a karaoke fiend, so that's how she learned the translation aspect.

seigex

It works. I started my Japanese learning path listening to and singing karaoke from the Okinawan folk music band Begin around 2002. Helped me immensity both in written and spoken and huge for recall.

hailstorm

Maki Itoh was a lower tier idol in Japan when she was fired by her agency for having "a big head". I'm unsure if that was meant literally or figuratively, but she has since parlayed that into a career as a professional wrestler, using her "massive head" as a weapon of mass-destruction. Against all odds, she actually appears semi-regularly on American television.

And she has not forgotten her singing roots: