Actress Mizuki Alisa (34) will star in a new TBS drama series this summer, making her the first person ever to have a lead role in a drama series for 20 consecutive years. Her part this time is in “Hanawake no Yon-shimai,” based on a manga by Saimon Fumi (“Tokyo Love Story,” “Asunaro Hakusho”).
Serialized from 2005 to 2008 in Kodansha’s magazine Morning, “Hanawake no Yon-shimai” is a comedy depicting the ups and downs of four sisters. Mizuki plays the second eldest Takemi, who has divorced twice and is a single …

Oricon has released official sales numbers for AKB48’s latest single “Everyday, Kachusha,” confirming that it has set a new record for highest first-week single sales. With roughly 1,334,000 copies sold, it eclipses Mr.Children’s “Namonaki Uta,” which set the previous record of 1,208,000 in February 1996.
Before “Everyday, Kachusha,” the top five singles in first-week sales were all released during the 1990s, during the height of CD sales. Despite the continuing downturn in CD sales, AKB48 has managed to buck the trend and it seems as though their popularity still has room …

Rokuhana Chiyo’s award-winning manga “IS ~Otoko Demo Onna Demo Nai Sei~” is being turned into a live-action series on TV Tokyo, co-starring actresses Fukuda Saki (20) and Goriki Ayame (18). This will be Goriki’s first lead role in a drama series.
“IS” stands for “intersexual,” a term referring to people who cannot clearly be classified as male or female, and who may biologically possess characteristics of both sexes. Rokuhana’s manga primarily deals with the troubles faced by the young Hoshino Haru (played by Fukuda), an intersexual who was registered as a …

Well, that’s one way to breakup a romantic rendezvous.
While visiting his wife Katy Perry on tour in Japan, Russell Brand was reportedly deported on Saturday. Both Katy and Russell gave a play-by-play of the situation on Twitter….
Last night, Katy tweeted the news: "So…my husband just got deported from Japan. I am so. sad. I brought him all this way to show him my favorite place #tokyodreamscrushed"
Read the rest of the story: Russell Brand Deported From Japan.

Ubisoft is putting together a whole bunch of Assassins Creed exclusives to sell on eBay with all proceeds going toward gaming relief effort Play For Japan.All of the packs are up for bid right now!
Learn more about Play for Japan.
Read the rest of the story: Ubisoft Details Assassins Creed Packages For Play For Japan – News – www.GameInformer.com.

Youve likely heard the idiom, "politics makes strange bedfellows." In Tokyo, at the U.S. Ambassadors Residence, the saying came to life as teen heartthrob Justin Bieber, the American and Canadian ambassadors to Japan and nine children from the tsunami-ravaged region of Japan gathered in a small room in front of the international press.

The 17-year-old Canadian pop star walked into the room with the children and squeezed onto a couch with them. The girls and boys, all representatives of some of the hardest-hit communities in northeastern Japan, shyly peered at Bieber …

Veteran actor Kodama Kiyoshi has passed away at the age of 77. His management agency broke the news that he succumbed to stomach cancer at a Tokyo hospital at 12:28pm on Monday, May 16.
According to his agency, Kodama began feeling ill in late February of this year. A medical examination discovered that he had stomach cancer, and he began treatment in late March. Unfortunately, the cancer also spread to his liver, and last weekend his condition turned for the worse.
Kodama, whose real name was Kitagawa Kiyoshi, was born in 1934 …

The latest film from director Gu Su-yeon (“Guuzen ni mo Saiaku no Shounen”) will star actor Matsuda Shota (25), it has been revealed. Titled “Hard Romanticker,” the film is based on Gu Su-yeon’s debut novel of the same name, a partially autobiographical account of his experiences as a second-generation Korean in Japan.
Matsuda plays the part of Gu, a high school dropout who works as a part-timer. He gets tangled in trouble through a gangster that he has known since he was a child (Maki Kurodo), leading to the involvement of …

Researches in Japan are hard at work developing an internet-enabled kissing simulator that will allow lovers – or perfect strangers – to reach out and buss someone.
"This device is for communications within the mouth," researcher Nobuhiro Takahashi of the Kajimoto Laboratory at The University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo told DigInfo TV. "In other words, the goal is to obtain the feeling of kissing."
Leering across the intertubes
Takahashi and his fellow researchers’ project is boffinistically described on the Laboratory’s website – and, in our opinion, rather less-than-alluringly illustrated (right) – as "Development …

Japan, home to electronics giant Sony, will not let the company bring its PlayStation network back online there until it convinces Japan that the game-playing network is secure.
Over the weekend, Sony started restoring network service, including to users in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East, after a massive security breach resulted in its shutdown for more than three weeks. The company said it is phasing in the network, and that it should be up and running worldwide by May 31. No date yet is set …