Saying that she wants to turn the whole world into one big dancefloor, Madonna (47) announced in New York on Monday that she plans to bring her Confessions Tour to Japan. No venues or dates have been announced, but would probably be Tokyo and Osaka and no earlier than mid-September. While she performed a few songs during a visit to Tokyo last December to promote the album “Confessions on a Dancefloor”, she hasn’t played an actual concert here for 13 years. The problem is that when announcing both of her previous two world tours, Madonna has mentioned Japan but the shows never actually happened. The reason is thought to be that she demands too much money. Tickets for the upcoming Los Angeles gig have sold out even though they were priced at over ¥40,000, a lot more than even top artists demand here. Tickets for the recently postponed U2 gig were priced at ¥10-15,000. Warner Music Japan has said that Monday’s announcement, though mentioning Japan, does not make shows here “official”.
• It was revealed yesterday that recently divorced talento Sonomama Higashi (48) and actress Kato Kazuko (48) will appear together on an upcoming edition of Fuji TV’s “Quiz $Millionaire”. They had already agreed to appear on the April 20 show, which was recorded on Monday, before their split in February. Reportedly Higashi – whose decision to return to his hometown and pursue a career in politics led to Kato’s filing for divorce – tried to convince his ex that they should get back together but was rebuffed.
• NHK’s latest morning drama serial has got off to a very bad start. According to Video Research, the ratings in the Kanto region for the first episode of “Junjou Kirari” only reached 17.7%, better only than last year’s “Faito”. In the Kansai region, the 14.6% rating is the worst ever for the slot. The pre-WWII story features popular young actress Miyazaki Aoi (20) as the heroine, and the series has a strong cast that includes Miura Tomokazu and Takeshita Keiko as her father and mother.