The big news going into the weekend was the engagement of Johnny’s Jimusho star Inohara Yoshihiko (31) and actress Seto Asaka (30), announced on Friday. The couple made it official at a press conference and of course it was all over the press on Saturday morning. Then Inohara appeared that same night with his fellow V6 members at a scheduled concert and revealed to the audience that he and Seto had got so caught up the media excitement that they had decided to change their plans and register their marriage the night before at a municipal office. V6, who along with SMAP and Tokio make up the trio of Johnny’s boy bands that established themselves in the 1990s, just started a nationwide tour on Friday. The couple first started going out about twelve years ago when they both appeared in the drama “Owaranai Natsu”, and had an on and off relationship before dating again seriously about five years ago. We reported the romance here on Japan Zone in May 2005 when they first acknowledged it in public. Seto takes her stage name from the Aichi prefecture city where she was born. She was scouted as a teenager and moved to Tokyo after graduating junior high school. After starting as an idol singer, she made a name as an actress in the mid-1990s and has been a constant presence in TV dramas and movies ever since.
• Meanwhile, the media has been wondering what the hell’s wrong with Sawajiri Erika (21). The hugely popular young actress appeared at a PR event on Friday, the opening day of her latest movie, “Closed Note”. But she scowled, kept her arms folded and spoke only three sentences the whole time she was on stage, leading veteran singer Wada Akiko (57) to lay into her on her regular Saturday morning show. “You can’t say just three sentences when you’re the star of the movie…and with your arms folded?!” said Akko, the so-called “God-sister” of Japanese showbiz. “I’ve never met her, but she reckons she’s a movie queen? Is she that full of herself? So, if I meet her, I have to call her Erika-sama? She must be quite a star.” (I have my own theory about why she’s being literally tight-lipped.)