Daily Archives: March 25, 2008

Nippon Ham Fighters young star pitcher Darvish Yu (21) got some good news before the start of what should be a key season for him. He announced on his blog yesterday that his wife, actress Saeko (23), gave birth to a baby boy. The two took the media by surprise in August of last year when they told the world about their engagement and Saeko’s pregnancy in rapid succession. The young half-Iranian pitcher made his breakthrough when the Fighters won the Japan Series in 2006, though they failed to defend that title last year, losing the 2007 series to the Chunichi Dragons. Popular not just for his good looks, Darvish is considered one of the best young pitchers in Japan. He’ll be on the Japanese team at the Olympics this summer and a year from now he may well lead the team at the Baseball World Championships. And then the inevitable comparisons to Matsuzaka Daisuke and his move to the Major Leagues.

Actress and singer Nishikawa Mineko (49) has filed for divorce from her husband. In an interview in today’s issue of weekly magazine “Josei Jishin”, she says they are separated and have already held their first hearing at the Tokyo Family Court. The couple married in July 2001, after Nishikawa proposed on just their sixth date. The following year, thanks in part to his wife’s fame, Murakami Takashi (42) successfully ran in a municipal election in his native Shimane Prefecture. Nishikawa paid to have a new home built there and she later also funded a restaurant in Tokyo’s Setagaya ward. But last April saw the end of Murakami’s five-year term, the closing of the restaurant, and the beginnings of divorce. Nishikawa has moved back to the Tochigi Prefecture home where she lived before getting married. That home was in the news in 1998 when, just one month after it was built, it was destroyed by a typhoon. Now a fairly minor name, Nishikawa’s heyday as a singer was in the late 1970s. She got back in the headlines in 1993 when she published a book of nude photos. She is currently appearing in an afternoon drama series on TBS.

• It’s been a while but Amuro Namie (30) is back on top of the pop charts. Her latest single “60s, 70s, 80s” entered the Oricon rankings at No.2 last week and became her tenth chart topper this week. That’s an unusual pattern these days, with most strong releases going straight to No.1. The latest album from Utada Hikaru (25) has done just that. Her sixth No.1 album, “Heart Station” has sold almost half a million copies in its first week.

• One of Amuro’s idols was in the news yesterday. Mariah Carey (37) announced that she’s coming to Japan at the end of May to promote the follow up to her 2005 comeback album “The Emancipation of Mimi”. The new album, which goes on sale April 16, will include a lottery ticket that offers fans a chance to meet the star.

• Veteran actor Tanaka Kunie (75) is to take on his first drama lead role in more than five years, it was announced yesterday. Best known for the long-running “Kita no Kuni” series, which was most recently revived for a special in September 2002, Tanaka will star in the Fuji TV special “Kujira to Medaka”. The story tells of a company president who is ousted by his son and unsure how to live out his remaining years. He encounters a junior high school girl (Shida Mirai, 14), also trying to figure out how to live her life. Written by director Matsuyama Zenzou (82), the drama will air in May.

• Tsunku (39), Sharan Q vocalist and the “father” of the Hello! Project and Morning Musume, is to be an actual father, it was revealed yesterday. His wife Kanako (27) is expecting their first child in mid-May. The music producer and the former model married in June 2006. Through his various musical projects, Tsunku has brought to life some 1,100 J-pop songs that have sold somewhere in the order of 53 million CDs.

• The latest romance rumor about recently divorced kabuki actor Nakamura Shido (35) links him with actress Suzuki Sawa (35). The two were photographed at a posh yakiniku restaurant in Tokyo by the weekly gossip magazine “Flash”. They worked together in 2004 on the NHK taiga drama series “Shinsengumi”. Nakamura split with his wife, popular actress Takeuchi Yuko (27), last year but their divorce was formalized less than a month ago.