Idol singer and former Morning Musume member Goto Maki (20) yesterday became the first pop act to perform at Narita Airport. 250 fans were selected by lottery to watch the performance, broadcast live on BayFM. The brief show was held in the southern wing of Terminal One, which is currently undergoing renovations and due to reopen in June.
• Yesterday’s final of the World Baseball Classic, which saw Japan crowned as the World’s No.1, drew a TV audience rating of 56%, according to Video Research. It’s the highest rating for any show so far this year, and the third-highest ever for a baseball program. The figure only covers TVs in private homes, and doesn’t include the tens of thousands of people who watched the games in electrical stores, sports bars and on outdoor big screens across the country. The nation’s enthusiastic support for its national baseball team stands in stark contrast to rapidly declining audience figures in recent years for the Yomiuri Giants, the country’s most popular team.
• Pop group Kome Kome Club are to reform nine years after they broke up. Last June they played a few songs at the 50th birthday party of musician Char and decided to start working together again in the future. Starting from April 1, they will get back together as a group, releasing a single in July and an album in September, to be followed up by a nationwide concert tour. But currently there are no plans to stay together after the end of October. The group gave a farewell concert at Tokyo Dome in March 1997, after which members including vocalist Ishii Tatsuya (46) pursued solo careers. With a pair of dancers and a horn section, Kome Kome were one of the most colorful bands of the 80s and early 90s and were famous for their elaborate stage shows.
• Composer Miyakawa Hiroshi died of heart failure at his Tokyo home yesterday. He was 75. Best known in recent years as the conductor of the closing theme for the Kohaku Uta Gassen every New Year’s Eve, he composed over 10,000 tunes in his time. These included many TV themes, including the theme for the hugely popular anime series “Uchusenkan Yamato”, as well as hits for such 60s pop acts as The Peanuts. His son Akira is also a composer and wrote “Matsuken Samba II”, the hugely successful 2004 hit for Matsudaira Ken.