Minor talento Sakamoto Issei (36) was stabbed on Sunday morning following a car park argument. While parking his car at a neighborhod supermarket in Inage, Chiba Prefecture, he almost hit another car. This led to an argument with a man described as 60 years old an unemployed (often a euphemism for a yakuza). The man punched Sakamoto and stabbed him in the chest and was arrested on the spot. (Reports failed to mention if the man was further incensed by Sakamoto’s cheesy photos!) Real name Itoh Fumio, Sakamoto’s brief claim to fame was in the early 1990s when he debuted with the stage name Shin Kase Taishu. The name was a sarcastic move by the Interface Project management agency after they lost a court case to use the name Kase Taishu when that popular talento quit the agency. His showbiz career never really took off and in 1997 he quit only to try out a s pro wrestler in 1999. After that bid failed, he worked as a used car salesman, long-distance truck driver and restaurant manager. He is currently trying his luck again as a talento, but also working a couple of nights a week at a host club in Tokyo’s seedy Kabukicho district.
• TV Asahi announced at its regular press conference yesterday how it will handle coverage of the Diet elections if Japan’s soccer team reaches the final of the Asia Cup. With both events scheduled for July 29, the soccer would be broadcast live and the election results shown in one segment of the screen. The network also announced that oral proceedings in the court case initiated by “TeleAsa” and managing director Hayakawa Hiroshi against publisher Kodansha and others will begin on September 3. The plaintiffs are seeking ¥200 million in compensation and a published apology for an article claiming financial irregularities at the network that appeared in the “Shuukan Gendai” magazine last month.