The 3-year relationship between actor Kane Kosugi (photo, 30) and pro golfer Higashio Riko (29) has come to an end. A sports newspaper revealed the other day that the couple split up during the summer, having decided to each follow their own dreams. Unlike many celebrity couples, they had been very open about their relationship, often appearing together in public. They were considered an ideal match – Kosugi was born and raised in the US, while the bilingual Higashio graduated from the University of Florida – and marriage was thought to be inevitable. But both have had increasingly busy schedules as a result of their success. Kosugi has become a regular on TV, especially in the Lipovitan D commercials, but is pursuing the same Hollywood career that his father, ninja-movie star Sho Kosugi, realized. He will make his Hollywood debut in the upcoming movie “DOA,” which will also feature popular model Devon Aoki. Meanwhile Higashio, daughter of baseball star and former Seibu Lions manager Higashio Osamu, has moved to the US and is playing on the LPGA tour.
• Singer Koda Kumi (22) said she would open a nightclub in downtown Tokyo for one night if her greatest hits album sold a million copies. Well the album “Best – First Thinds” has reached No.1 in the Oricon charts, is set to sell a million copies and Koda’s dream will come true. After her national tour finishes in mid-November, she will rent a club in Ginza for one night and will be “mama” to a crew of “cool & sexy” Koda lookalikes. Entry will be decided by lottery. meanwhile, another 22-year old is top of the singles chart. Utada Hikaru‘s 14th single, “Be My Last” is her first chart-topper for almost a year and a half.
The feud between record label Avex and members of 2Channel, Japan’s most popular BBS, has escalated to the level of death threats. Avex has been cashing in on the wildly successful song “Koi no Maiahii” by East European group O-Zone. Part of the song’s huge success has been an amateur Flash animation featuring a cat singing along in Japanese to the song (except the lyrics are actually Rumanian!) which became an underground hit largely thanks to 2Channel. Board members named the cat Monaa and consider it to be their own mascot. They are furious that Avex is making money from it, selling merchandising and even trying to patent their slight variation of the cat character, which they named Noma-neko. Last week one 2Channel poster threatened online to kill Avex employees with a knife as they left work, while at the weekend, another threatened to set fire to the home of Avex president Matsuura Masato (41) and “barbeque” his family. The company is not taking the threats lightly and has brought in the police. Yesterday, several hundred “2Channel-ers” gathered near Shibuya and Harajuku stations and handed out thousands of leaflets to passers-by.