Tomorrow is Midori no Hi, (Greenery Day), a national holiday and the begining of Golden Week. Japan Zone entertainment news will be updated periodically until Friday, May 6.
Popular band Southern All Stars are to release their first original album in seven years. The band are currently in the studio recording their 14th album, which is scheduled for release on October 5. They will go on a national tour to promote the album. They also plan to release all their previous 44 singles on CD on June 25, the band’s anniversary. In 2003, rock band B’z reissued 10 singles on CD at once and completely took over the Oricon Top 10 chart. It remains to be seen if SAS can beat that, but with 44 CDs coming out at once, it looks likely. Southern’s last release was the 2000 compilation “Ballads 3”, while their last original release was 1998’s “Sakura.” they had planned to release a new album last year, but instead put out three singles and did a lot of live work, including benefits for AIDS.
• Former Luna Sea drummer Shinya (35) and talento Ishiguro Aya (26) announced plans for their wedding ceremony yesterday, five years after they got married. They will hold the ceremony in Shimane on May 12, Ishiguro’s birthday. The couple have three children.
• NHK director Shima Hiroyuki (39) was arrested on Tuesday for molesting a 16-year old high school girl on a train in Kanagawa Prefecture. He was apprehended by a 17-year old boy from a different high school and handed to police. He has denied the charges. Shima works on the popular late-night English conversation show “Eigo de Shaberanaito.”
Actor Kubozuka Yosuke (photo, 25) is to make his movie return after his horrific near-death experience last year. He will star alongside Hong Kong’s No.1 young star Edison Chen (24) and Kuroki Meisa (16) in “Onaji Tsuki wo Miteiru” (Looking at the Same Moon), the new feature by director Fukasaku Kenta (32). Kubozuka will play a doctor at a research hospital. He plans to appear at a PR event for the film, set to be released in November, in Tokyo tomorrow. It will be his first work appearance since the fall from his 9th-floor apartment balcony last June. Rumors that the eccentric actor was on drugs or trying to commit suicide have never been confirmed.
Singer 
Talento Abiru Yu (18) has made her TV comeback after a couple of months away from the small screen. She caused a huge fuss when she admitted on a late-night variety show in February that she and friends had been involved in stealing on a regular basis from a store. The NTV network also took a lot of heat for airing a show with only the slightest warning that shoplifting was a crime. Abiru appeared yesterday on the TBS morning variety show “Akko ni Omakase,” where she apologized but still got a good dressing down from veteran singer and “God-sister” of the showbiz world 
There will be a strong Japanese presence at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. “Umoregi,” the latest feature from Oguri Kohei (photo), had both the official selection committee and the Director’s Week organizers fighting over it. They agreed to “co-sponsor” it and it will be shown as part of the Director’s Week lineup. The title “umoregi” means lignite, a rare fossil wood. Oguri’s “Shi no Toge” (The Sting of Death) won the Grand Prix and the International Critic’s Award at Cannes in 1990. Also: Kobayashi Masahiro’s “Bashing” is entered for the Palme d’Or competition section; “Operetta Tanuki Goten,” starring Odagiri Jo and Zhang Ziyi and directed by Suzuki Seijun, will get it’s world premiere; “Eli, Eli, Lema, Sabacthani,” starring Asano Tadanobu and directed by Aoyama Shinji; and newcomer Uchida Kenji’s “Unmei Janai Hito” has been chosen for the Critic’s Week.
Entertainer Pooru (Paul) Maki died early yesterday morning after jumping from the balcony of his Tokyo apartment. He was 63. Police found evidence of his having climbed onto the railings of his 9th-floor Nishi-Shinjuku apartment and are treating the death as a suicide. He is believed to have jumped at around 4:48am and was found by a taxi driver seconds later. He was taken to the nearby Tokyo Medical University Hospital but died about two hours later. The driver said, “I was driving when I heard a thud. His lower body was bleeding very badly and he was already unconscious.” Maki had two children but divorced his wife in 2000. He is said to have had a history of depression and recently had been undergoing treatment after seeing his career on the variety circuit dwindle away. He also took an overdose of sleeping pills back in 1983, though he denied that it was a suicide attempt. Real name Hanzawa Kazumichi, he was born into a Hokkaido Buddhist temple family in 1941. He started to study to become a monk at the age of 10, but gave it up at 17 and came to Tokyo. he went through dozens of jobs before becoming a comedian. He achieved fame in the early 1970s with something as simple as a finger snapping routine, which became his trademark. he set up his own theater group in 1979 and also was a regular on the TV variety circuit throughout the 80s and early 90s.
Only yesterday we reported on a major divorce story and also the return to the spotlight of singer Go Hiromi (49). Well, it turns out that Go himself is getting divorced. He announced yesterday on his official web site that he and his wife Nami (34) are to split, saying it was a mutually agreed decision. The couple married in November 2000. It was Go’s second marriage – he was married to former actress Nitani Yurie from 1987 to 1998. Nami is the daughter of a wealthy New York-based entrepreneur.
The divorce of actor 
“Engine,” the new Monday night Fuji TV drama series starring Kimura Takuya (32), got a flying start off the grid. It is the only drama series in the spring lineup to break the 20% viewer rating barrier, pulling in 25.3%. At the other end of the scale, the new variety show hosted by long-time News Station host Kume Hiroshi (photo, 60) has had a terrible start. Titled “A,” the NTV show seeks to use “live” Internet feeds to look at daily life in other Asian countries. But as the show was recorded a month ago, it failed to keep up with the recent problems developing between Japan and neighbors Korea and China. The first show, at 8pm on Sunday, only drew an audience rating of 9.3% despite the fact that the popular Kume was making his comeback after taking a year off.
Actor Kashiwabara Takashi (28) is back at work after a break for “self-discipline.” He started shooting on the movie “Juusankagetsu” (13 Months), the directorial debut by actor Ikeuchi Hiroyuki (28). The movie had been planned to start at the end of November last year. That date was put back to the New Year, but on December 30, Kashiwabara got into a fight over a parked car and punched the owner, a man in his 40s. He later apologized and shaved his head in the traditional sign of repentance. Ikeuchi said he would wait until his friend was ready to return to work.