Mei Nagano apologizes for 'misunderstandings' regarding reported two-timing
TOKYO (TR) – Popular actress Mei Nagano last week has apologized over a report that says she is dating two men, one of whom — former co-star Kei Tanaka — is married.
Prior to her appearance on Nippon Broadcasting System's 'Mei Nagano's All Night Nippon X' on Monday, she said, 'Regarding the fuss caused by the reports in some weekly magazines, I have caused a lot of worry and trouble to fans who always support me, and to the people I work with. I am truly sorry.'
Last week, a reporter for weekly tabloid Shukan Bunshun found Nagano, 25, inviting an apparently drunk Tanaka into her apartment in Minato Ward late at night on April 19. Nagano and Tanaka, 40, met when they co-starred in the film 'And the Baton Was Passed' in 2021.
Further, she spent the night with Korean actor Kim Mu-jun, her 26-year-old co-star in the TBS drama 'Caster,' the day before, the magazine reporter. Mei Nagano (X)
Nagano continued, 'I sincerely regret my thoughtless actions that led to misunderstandings. In the future, I will act with moderation so that this will never happen again. I am sorry. I will do my best to regain everyone's trust from now on.'
She then spent about a minute playing the show's jingle.
Around the time of the emergence of the report, Nagano's agency, Stardust Productions, denied the allegations. 'Tanaka and Kim Mu-jun are senior performers and colleagues. There is no truth to the fact that they are dating,' the agency said. 'However, we have sternly told Nagano to be aware that her actions have led to misunderstandings.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Japan Today
24-05-2025
- Japan Today
Hugh Mangum's book of barbecue recipes brings international flair to the grill
This combination photo shows cookbook author Hugh Mangum and the cover of his book "Barbecue: Smoked & Grilled Recipes From Across the Globe." By ALBERT STUMM When Hugh Mangum was growing up in Los Angeles, his Texan father showed off his barbecue skills in their backyard nearly every weekend. It became a ritual for the family to patiently tend to the fire. After his father's death more than 20 years ago, Mangum carried on the tradition, first experimenting with a little smoker after he moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania. 'Whenever I start a fire, there's just this kind of presence,' he said. 'I feel it in the soul of my belly, my heart, like he's there.' Now he is more steeped than ever in the barbecue world, with in-laws from barbecue-loving North Carolina and a 7,000-pound smoker. Not to mention his nine locations of Mighty Quinn's barbecue restaurants in the New York area, plus franchises in Florida and Maryland. His father's recipes formed the base of the menu at Mighty Quinn's and now of Mangum's new book, 'Barbecue: Smoked & Grilled Recipes From Across the Globe.' Where the book differs from the restaurants is its international outlook, and that was inspired by his father too. The elder Mangum had traveled the world for work, bringing back influences from Peru, Japan, Spain and elsewhere. 'He so celebrated food all over the world, ' Mangum said. 'So, I think that there was a seed planted.' In the book, the seed translates into using a meat grinder for homemade sausages spiced as they are in Bulgaria, Panama or Alsace, France. Or making skewers in the style of the Philippines, Bali, Lebanon or Croatia, for starters. Short ribs can be simply smoked with only salt and black pepper. Or other recipes call for grilling and slathering ribs with Colombian chimichurri or marinating them in Korean seasonings and serving the meat in lettuce wraps. He calls beef brisket the 'holy grail of Texas barbecue but also the most daunting cut of meat to smoke.' It requires 12 hours of consistently tending the fire, but he promises incredibly juicy meat 'with a bark that is equal parts smoky and salty with a hint of sweetness.' For beginners, Mangum recommended smoking chicken, starting with wings to get used to a new smoker before trying a half chicken. Despite all the variations on grilled red meat in the book, he said one of his favorite recipes is gai yang, whole grilled chicken from northeastern Thailand. Marinated for 12 hours with a puree of lemongrass, garlic, fish sauce, turmeric and more, the chicken is grilled first on the cool side of the grill skin side up. Just before it finishes cooking, he flips it over the high heat to crisp the skin. Served with two dipping sauces, it's smoky and lightly charred, and bursting with flavor. 'It's this incredibly flavorful, bombastic version of chicken that people will be like, 'Holy crap,'' he said. 'It's just so good.' From 'Barbecue: Smoked & Grilled Recipes From Across the Globe,' by Hugh Mangum Preparation time: 20 minutes, plus overnight marinating and at least 1 hour standing Cooking time: 50 minutes Serves: 4-6 Ingredients For the marinated chicken: 8 cloves garlic, minced 2 shallots, chopped 1 stalk lemongrass, outer leaves removed and chopped ½ cup (25 grams) cilantro (coriander) with stems, chopped 4 tablespoons soy sauce 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 2 teaspoons sweet soy sauce or dark soy sauce 2 teaspoons fish sauce 2 tablespoons palm sugar or light brown sugar 1 teaspoon salt ½ teaspoon black pepper ½ teaspoon ground turmeric 1 (2–3-kg) chicken, butterflied For the dipping sauce (Nam Jim Jaew): 1 tablespoon palm sugar or light brown sugar 2 tablespoons fish sauce 1 tablespoon tamarind paste 1 tablespoon toasted sticky rice (kao khua), ground (optional) 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro 1 tablespoon chopped scallions 2 teaspoons red pepper flakes For serving: Sticky rice Lime wedges Directions For the chicken: In a food processor, combine the garlic, shallots, lemongrass and cilantro and blend to a paste. Add the remaining ingredients except the chicken and blend well. Rub the marinade over the chicken. Cover and refrigerate overnight or, preferably, 12 hours. For the dipping sauce: Combine the sugar and 1 tablespoon hot water in a large bowl and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the remaining ingredients; set aside. One to 2 hours before cooking, bring the chicken to room temperature. Preheat a grill to high for indirect grilling (hot coals grouped on on side, or just half the burners turned on a gas grill). Place the chicken, skin side up, on the cooler side and cook for 45 minutes, or until the internal temperature of the breast reaches 140°F (use a meat thermometer). Flip the chicken and place it on the hot side of the grill. Cook for another 3 minutes, until the skin is crispy. Set aside to rest for 5 to 10 minutes. Serve warm with sticky rice, the dipping sauce and lime. Albert Stumm lives in Barcelona and writes about food, travel and wellness. © Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.
Japan Times
21-05-2025
- Japan Times
‘Crosspoint' can't quite find its target
Japan isn't known for being friendly to foreign film productions: Even big-budget Hollywood projects with Japan-centric stories are often shot elsewhere due to red tape, among other reasons. Donie Ordiales, a Filipino director and long-time resident in Japan, nonetheless found the ways and means to film his patchily plotted thriller 'Crosspoint' here and release it in the Philippines late last year. The film was a box-office hit, with the casting of local TV star Carlo Aquino drawing fans. The story — a washed-up Filipino actor and a broke Japanese businessman team up to capture a creepy serial killer — would seem to lend itself to buddy-movie comedy, but everyone plays it totally straight to occasionally ludicrous effect. Aquino is Manuel Hidalgo, an actor who was once big in the 1990s but is now hard up for roles and in need of money for the medical bills of his pregnant wife. (Given his boyish looks, he must have been barely out of the cradle when he first rose to stardom a quarter century ago.) Arriving in Japan, Manuel finds employment as a singer in a Filipino club where his Japanese audience is unaware of his one-time fame. Facing deportation because he is not working with a proper visa, he journeys to a small pub in rural Nagano Prefecture but finds it locked and its Pinoy proprietor nowhere to be found. She is, we already know, dead inside the pub at the hands of a killer (Sho Ikushima), whom Manuel catches a glimpse of as he skulks away. The actor has no idea, however, that this stranger is responsible for the crime. Later that night, without money for a hotel, he seeks shelter in an izakaya (Japanese pub), where he strikes up a conversation with a businessman, Shigeru Yamaguchi ('Shogun' star Takehiro Hira). Fluent in English, Shigeru commiserates with Manuel's problems and confesses his own: His business is bankrupt and he is deep in debt. Then, Manuel catches a glimpse of a news broadcast about a local murder and realizes he has seen the suspect. Hearing this, Shigeru has a light bulb moment and suggests he and Manuel team up to catch the killer and claim the substantial reward. Seeing this, rightly, as a harebrained idea, Manuel suggests that they go to the cops instead. But Shigeru is both persistent and persuasive and they embark on their big adventure, the trembly Manuel armed with a baseball bat and the grimly determined Shigeru with a bow and arrows. We're told he's an expert archer, but seeing these two flailing through the woods in the dark, I couldn't help but think of Harry and Lloyd, the bumbling duo from the classic Farrelly brothers' comedy 'Dumb and Dumber.' When the heroes encounter the killer, the ensuing action scenes generate a dark, chaotic impact, if with the obvious assistance of stunt actors and quick cuts that blur who is doing what to whom. Action aside, the film is realistic about both the vagaries of show business in the Philippines and the hardscrabble lives many Filipino entertainers lead in Japan, where clubs run by their compatriots often close without warning, leaving their hapless employees in the lurch. But the story drags in plot developments, such as Shigeru's opposition to the singing career of his talented daughter Mayuko (Kei Kurosawa), reminiscent of a standard-issue family melodrama. For all its entertaining and insightful moments, 'Crosspoint' is finally at cross purposes to itself.
20-05-2025
Chiikawa Goes Global: 'Kawaii' Characters Make It to the Top
Chiikawa, a contraction of the Japanese phrase nanka chiisakute kawaii yatsu , which means something like 'so small and cute,' refers to the adorable animal characters that appear in a manga series launched by the illustrator Nagano on Twitter (now X) in 2017. The series, reflecting her image of an ideal lifestyle, grew so popular that she launched a dedicated account in January 2020. Their spread is linked to an explosion in the number of yuru-kyara , as Japanese call supercute mascot characters. This was triggered in part by the explosion in social media and image-sharing tools from around 2011 onward, as illustrators posted their character and manga creations on Line, Pixiv, Twitter, and other online properties. The debut of the Line Creators Market in May of 2014 gave creators a 50% share in the revenues from the sales of digital stickers featuring their characters, which users purchased to decorate their messages to one another. This encouraged even more artists to submit their creations, in the beginnings of what is now known as the 'creator economy.' The incredible popularity of Gudetama, a character released in 2013 by Sanrio, is a perfect example. After being posted to social media, it was widely shared in the years to follow. By January of 2018, as seen in the chart below, the official Gudetama Twitter account reached 1 million followers. As the COVID-19 pandemic caused lockdowns around the world, the number of creators participating in digital spaces skyrocketed, fueling the growth of the Line sticker business. In 2021, LINE reported ¥100 billion in sales. The top ten creators took in an average of ¥1.18 billion from their creations, while 154 creators made more than ¥100 million. But with 3.9 million total participants, not even 0.01% are able to earn a sustainable income. Becoming the Artist of Her Era Nagano distinguished herself early on in the fiercely competitive sticker-creator business. She released a string of characters, including Jibun Tsukkomi Kuma (Joke Bear), Pagu-san, Burikko Usagi (Too Cute Bunny), and more, hitting the top spot on the Line Creator Marketplace numerous times. When she began drawing Chiikawa, she was already positioned as a top creator, with 330,000 followers on Twitter. How does a stand-alone character gain more popularity than those that appear in high-budget, heavily marketed video games and anime? All of Nagano's creations have a common denominator: they are caricatures, a form of satire once widely seen in newspaper cartoons and other mass media. In a Twitter post titled 'Living together with cats,' Nagano writes how 'Both move independently, from time to time coming into my view. What happiness!' In another post titled 'Ice cream manjū ,' she captures the moment of biting into the sweet with the observation, 'plump vanilla; sticky bean paste,' painting a picture in the reader's mind. In a way, her work resembles illustrated haiku poetry. Nagano also shows her genius in capturing the happiness of everyday moments in single-panel manga. In the world of Chiikawa, the characters are engaged in a kind of survival. They are small and fragile creatures who come together to savor tiny moments of joy amid a relentless cycle of eating, working, and sleeping every day. But the reason the series resonates so deeply among so many is because it doesn't settle for whimsical fantasy. It serves as a quiet message of encouragement to those facing the harsh realities of modern life. From Minor Sensation to Major Hit Nagano released Chiikawa Line stickers in July of 2020. In March 2021, Line named her as the monthly MVP in its Top Creator category, which recognizes top stickers and emojis based on number of downloads, usage frequency, and buzz. From the press release for the Chiikawa Restaurant in Tokyo's Ikebukuro. (Courtesy The Guest Café and Diner; © Nagano/Chiikawa Committee) To capitalize on this momentum, Nagano partnered with Spiralcute, a company specializing in the licensing of character merchandise. Together they launched a full-scale entry into the character business, opening an online store and releasing a range of official products. In April of 2022, an anime adaptation began airing as one segment of Fuji TV's Mezamashi terebi morning program, cementing Chiikawa's popularity. This can be seen in the explosive growth of the number of followers on Chiikawa's official X account. 2020: 10,000 → 400,000 2021: 400,000 → 800,000 2022: 800,000 → 1.7 million 2023: 1.7 million → 2.8 million As you can see, Chiikawa has built an incredible following over the past four years; by the end of 2023, it reached a level comparable to megahits like the anime series Demon Slayer (2.94 million followers), Pokémon (2.34 million), and One Piece (2.06 million). As of April 2025, the account has almost 4 million followers. It goes to show that Chiikawa is an all-star among Japanese characters. It's important to remember that Chiikawa isn't based on a manga or anime. It emerged organically, from the daily posts of single-panel illustrations and short stories on social media. The mass media has long treated the internet as the periphery of pop culture, but in recent years creator-driven platforms like the video-oriented sites Niconico, TikTok, and YouTube have transformed the media landscape, paving new ways for amateurs to compete on the same playing field as seasoned professionals. Chiikawa symbolizes this shift. Chiikawa may have emerged from the fringes, but it went on to win prestigious awards chosen by professionals, including the SNS Buzzword Award (2022), the Japan Character Award (2022 and again in 2024), and the Grand Prize of the Japan Cartoonists Association Award (2024). There's no question about it: The fringe has overtaken the mainstream. Huge Popularity in China Chiikawa sounds cute and cuddly, but it's a power player in the world of Japanese characters, representing a massive franchise in its own right. An overseas merchandising initiative kicked off in March of 2024. In China, where Chiikawa gained popularity ahead of other nations, a great deal of pirated merchandise fills the marketplace alongside officially licensed products. In order to better compete there, Spiralcute decided to partner with Miniso, a major Chinese variety store chain. They opened the first official Chiikawa pop-up shop in Shanghai at the end of March 2024; in just three days, sales reached some 8 million yuan, or over a million dollars. At one point, the line of customers grew 7,000 people long, prompting local police to break up the crowd. But the frenzy continued, quickly spreading to Beijing, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and South Korea. Additional pop-up shops in New York and Las Vegas enjoyed huge success as well. In 2024, Chiikawa proved popular enough to enter the top 10 best-selling intellectual property franchises in China. At Minoso's 2024 Super IP Awards, it was honored alongside globally renowned franchises such as Harry Potter and Disney characters. Chiikawa no longer belongs only to Japan, but to the whole world. Apps: a New Frontier Key to Chiikawa's success is its constant presence. In the first three years after launching the account, Nagano only had 200 days when she didn't post. New content is released on a near-daily basis, and the anime is showing on TV. And then there are the numerous events and collaborations—it's almost impossible to walk the streets in Japan these days without a glimpse of Chiikawa. Chiikawa merchandise released in collaboration with the MLB season opener held in Tokyo on March 7, 2025, at Tokyo Skytree Town. (© Kazuki Oishi/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect) The combination of an easy-to-understand take on the world and constant updates is what differentiates Chiikawa from previous generations of cute characters. Today frequency and high visibility are the norm, indispensable assets in expanding new character content franchises. And now, Chiikawa is expanding into new media. The mobile game app Chiikawa Pocket ( Chiipoke ) came out in March of 2025, racking up 3 million downloads in its first week. Having conquered social media, televised anime, and merchandise, Chiikawa is breaking new ground in the mobile gaming space. It's a big new stage for the now-international star. (Originally published in Japanese on April 28, 2025. Banner photo: A Chiikawa-themed pop-up store opens in Shanghai, China, on March 29, 2024. © Xinhua/ Kyōdō News Images.)
