What's Wrong with Being Naked?
It was a mid-late April night (More specifically, 2:55 AM) in Tokyo. While most people were asleep, a lone man can be heard yelling "Wooooo~ Ohhhhhhh~" in Roppongi. After all, the big city is a lonely place. Police was alerted about this disturbance, and they began looking for the source of these sounds. This lead them to discovering a visibly drunk and naked Tsuyoshi Kusanagi (Member of the popular boyband SMAP) in the park.When police confronted him, he blurted out "What's wrong with being naked?"
After being covered with a towel and taken by police, Kusanagi apologizes for being naked, but doesn't recall why he became naked. He also revealed that he was drinking with two acquaintances prior to the event. This scandal had a big impact on both his career and SMAP as a whole. Kusanagi had a clean image prior to this event, making him an excellent choice for commercials. However, he lost multiple major sponsor deals and forced to go on hiatus for a month. The incident also caused people to speculate the potential downfall of SMAP due to the incident tarnishing their image. In the end, SMAP and Kusanagi were both able to recover from this scandal and maintain a successful career leading upto their 2016 disbandment. Kusanagi also stayed sober since the incident until last year (The host of a variety show he appeared in heavily insisted in him having one beer and that the beer wouldn't hurt). While the incident is behind SMAP and Kusanagi, that one phrase became immortalized, and nobody can truly forget this scandal.
Rotten Amniotic Fluids
Before having children at an older age became a hot topic on ONTD, pop star Koda Kumi pioneered this taboo topic in 2008. During a radio apperance at "All Night Nippon", the topic switched to her manager's marriage. This lead to a conversation about her manager having children in the future, and Koda Kumi stated, "When women turn 35, their amniotic fluid goes rotten, so I’d like them to have a child by 35".
This statement caused controversy due to its medical inaccuracy as well as some viewing it as sexist and/or ageist. In response, avex suspended Koda Kumi from doing any activities for a month. Unfortunately, this came at the worst timing: she just released a new album a week ago. This unfortunate timing resulted in her not promoting her latest album at the most crucial moment. To make matters worse, she lost multiple commercial deals such as popular makeup brand KOSE. On the one hand, "Kingdom" was able to maintain its #1 position in its second week. But on the other hand, one can only imagine how many potential sales she lost due to lack of promotion.
But not all is bad for Koda Kumi. In late 2011, Koda Kumi announced her
Violent Breasts
SxWxAxG chanteuse. Queen of duck lips. Girls Day Cover Artist. These are some of the titles bestowed upon Itano Tomomi. However, none are more iconic than the one given to her by Japanese netizens: violent breasts. During the entertainment coverage of a news channel, a preview of AKB48's then upcoming single "Kibouteki Refrain" was released to the public. A key selling point of this single was the apperance of popular graduated members Maeda Atsuko, Oshima Yuko, Shinoda Mariko, and Itano Tomomi in the music video. It was later revealed that these members would be running and passing two black bags containing golden microphones. This chase eventually ends with Watanabe Mayu and Miyawaki Sakura receiving the bag and its contents as a symbol of passing down the torch to the next generation.
But despite Aki-P serving us Artpop symbolism, netizens focused their attention on Itano Tomomi. Specifically, they noticed her breasts were larger than usual. While the topic itself is boring, what makes this "scandal" iconic is netizens' use of words to describe the alleged boob job: violent. Netizens described her boobs as "waving in multiple directions quite violently" in the running scene and some female netizens commented that the violent shaking [of the breasts] must have been painful. Needless to say, the international fans had a good laugh at the translated description.
Grass Diet
Oh, come on, do you think I would make a Japanese entertainment scandal post without taking a jab at Maro the grass-grazing gazelle? *insertjokeabouthimstaringathisdinnerhere*
Once upon an Ayu album era, Ayu decided to date her longtime backup dancer Uchiyama Maroka (Also known as Maro). As usual, she featured her newest fling in her music video. But wait, wait, wait...! He's on the cover of her mini-album, too! And Ayu promoted him into a choreographer position! It's true love, y'all!
... Or not. Not long after the release of the mini-album, Ayu dumped and fired him. After finding inspiration from the elusive chanteuse, Maro decided to pursue a solo career as ex-boyfriend-turned-actor-singer. But in order for him to achieve his dreams, he would have to gain the general public's side on the breakup. His strategy? To appear on multiple variety shows to spill the details regarding the breakup. Specifically, he tried to play victim and claim that he became homeless and lived in a cardboard box because of Ayu. Oh, and he also ate grass because "I thought that leaves must be good for the body since they take in a lot of sunlight".
Needless to say, netizens skewered him. Many pointed out that it's impossible for him to suddenly become homeless and living in a cardboard box right after breaking up with Ayu (Especially given how he claimed to be one of the top 3 most paid dancers in Japan prior to the breakup) and made fun of how blatantly obvious his lies are. However, both international and domestic audiences found joy in making fun of his grass diet advocacy. One Japanese netizen commented "In any case, I planted grass for your breakfast tomorrow. Please don't hesitate". International netizens also made comments such as "I hope Japanese grass is more nutritious and less pesticide filled than American grass for his sake tbh!" and "Maybe I'll try the grass diet too..." (Context: The comment was in post about his cover on gay-oriented gravure magazine "badi"). Other gems from international netizens includes "A promise of fresh healthy grass as an alternative to unhealthy snacks consumed by tokyo's youth" when he announced he was running for a city assembly position and "I love this site features up and coming vegan Indie Acts like Maroka Uchiyama!"
Receipts later revealed the obvious: He never really lived in a cardboard box. In reality, he lived in his car for a day, then checked into a hotel. As for his career? These twoposts should sum things up.
Betsu Ni ("Not really/I felt nothing")
Let's be honest, there is no contest for the most iconic phrase for a scandal in the Japanese entertainment scene. Erika Sawajiri was one of the most in-demand actresses during her peak and was even able to translate her success as an actress into a music career with her first two singles hitting multi-platinum. However, her career shifted from famous to infamous during a press conference for the then upcoming movie "Closed Note".
Throughout the press conference, Erika clearly didn't want to be there. Her arms were crossed and she was frowning. But what was most telling was the times in which she was talking and being interviewed. When she was asked to give a message to the audience, she said "Thank you everyone for coming" in a monotone voice. When the interviewer asked her if there's any memorable events or scenes from shooting the movie, she said "toku ni nai desu" (Nothing in particular). Later in the interview, she was asked about how she felt about baking cookies for her director, and that's when she delivered one of the most infamous words ever muttered in the Japanese entertainment industry: Betsu ni (In this context, it'd translate to "I didn't feel anything" in a negative context/connotation).
The incident blew up, and Erika was forced into apologizing for the incident and hiatus for years leading upto her agency (Stardust Productions) to terminate her contract and her transferring to Avex. Erika Sawajiri's view on the incident also changed over the years. In a 2010 interview with CNN, she regretted apologizing and revealed that she did not actually want to apologize. Erika stated that agencies (And the people managing them) are too old fashioned, force too much onto the idols they manage, and need to change. But in 2013, she stated that she is now at a point of her life where she can genuinely apologize for what she did and explained that she was fed up with the demands and expectations placed on her as an actress, but was too immature to properly address that issue. She has also reached a point where she can now laugh at herself regarding this incident as seen by her Snickers commercial making fun of the incident.
As much as I would like to say that all things ended well for Erika, it's honestly more of a mixed bag that ultimately highlights a problem that is prevelent both in Japanese and general media. On the one hand, Erika Sawajiri is still able to get roles in dramas and movies, and she's still given credit as a bonafide actress. On the other hand, she is commonly percieved as hard to work with because of the incident. It has gotten to a point where Erika even addressed it in a press conference for her drama squel for "FIRST CLASS" and assured everyone that she just wants to properly do her job. It also appears that the general public is still not over the incident. Ever since the "betsu ni" incident, Erika Sawajiri always appeared in Shunkan Bunshun's yearly Top 10 Most Hated Actress survey (Usually within the top 3 including last year). In other words, Japan still holds a 9 year grudge against her, and it doesn't look like they're not going to get over it anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Kanjani8's Shibutani Subaru pulled something similar last year, but faced nowhere near as much consequences as Erika, and even got some fans going "oniichan didn't mean it" and playing M.D. and diagnossing him with Tourettes to explain his behavior. Just something to bring up. Totally not insinuating anything at all. Definitely not trying to suggest sexism. Nope. i totally am. kyary should just keep wearing giant bows to piss off kanjani fans tbh
Sources:
Tsuyoshi Kusanagi 1
Koda Kumi 1
Itano Tomomi 1
Uchiyama Maroka 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
Erika Sawajiri 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
maro didnt pick up a new occupation, so i guess we'll have to settle with this for now.