Comedian Arino Shinya (36, photo left) has been hospitalized with an abscess on his lung. Thought he condition was discovered early, he is expected to be in hospital for at least a month. According to his management agency, he underwent tests about a week ago after experiencing fever, exhaustion and loss of appetite, and was admitted to hospital on May 27. The other half of the duo Yoiko, Hamaguchi Masaru (36, photo right), is to step in for Arino on the six weekly TV and radio shows on which he is a regular. They include the popular Fuji TV comedy show “Mecha Mecha Iketeru!” On a recent edition, other cast members teased Arino about the huge amount of money he’s been making in recent years away from TV, mostly through video games and books.
• It seems the relationship between actress Kimura Yoshino (32) and actor Iseya Yuusuke (32) is over. The media has been reporting on their romance since May of last year. But at a PR event on Saturday, Yoshino described Isetani simply as a “wonderful co-star,” and said that work was her “first, second and third priority.” The pair started their relationship after appearing in the Miike Takashi movie “Sukiyaki Western – Django” in spring of last year, and they worked together in Canada for several months last year on the Hollywood movie “Blindness.” And they were both in Cannes recently when the movie opened the major film festival. Kimura next appears in the movie “Orochi”, which is due to open here in the autumn and received distribution offers from ten European and Asian countries at Cannes.
• 300 lucky students at Yokohama National University were the first to get a look at Oshii Mamoru’s latest anime feature. The famed director of “Ghost in the Shell” and “Innocence” also took part in a prolonged question and answer session and said he wanted young people to be the first to see “The Sky Crawlers,” his first movie in four years. Adapted from a series of five novels by Mori Hiroshi, the story tells of a group of young fighter pilots involved in dogfight warfare and struggling to discover the meaning of life. The voice cast includes top names such as Kikuchi Rinko, Kase Ryo, Kuriyama Chiaki and Tanihara Shosuke. The movie is due to open in theaters on August 2. A game version for the Nintendo Wii is also due to be released this summer.