Singer Koda Kumi is officially the talk of Japan. The flamboyant Kyoto native’s revealing stage outfits have earned her the label “erokakkoii”, a newly-coined phrase that is a mixture of erotic and cool, and certainly haven’t hurt her image with both female and male fans. Publishing company Shogakkan chose her to be their Notable Person for 2006 in their annual awards to mark major trends for the year, held this week at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo. Koda’s been around since 2000, but she made her big break last year with the help of a series of chest-revealing, hip-hugging outfits and has managed to consolidate that this year with a slew of hits and eye-catching publicity events. She started off the year by releasing a new single every week for 12 weeks, all of which made it into the charts. She also earned herself an appearance on NHK’s Kohaku Utagassen, the New Year’s Eve song spectacle.
• Irish rock band U2 played their first show in Japan for eight years at the Saitama Super Arena last night. They had the 20,000-seat venue jumping to the strains of “Vertigo” and a slew of other hits. The 22-song set included the first live performance of their latest single “Windows in the Skies”. They have two more shows, tonight and December 4, and yours truly will be there rocking out with the Dublin boys.
• One can only hope that the rumored romance between Ishida Junichi (52) and sweet sixteen-year-old Fukuda Saki is no more than a silly publicity stunt. The young actress herself laughed off the whole thing when her minders tried to stop reporters asking her about it, saying “He’s older than my father. He and I laughed about it.”