Singer Utada Hikaru (23) is gearing up to go back on the road. Following the recent release of her first original album in four years, she is set to go on tour from July 1 to September 10. She held a rehearsal at the Makuhari Messe convention center in Chiba Prefecture on Sunday, her first live performance since playing at Nippon Budokan in 2004. The show was attended by about 3,000 people from the press and music industry. She put on almost a full show, based around tracks from “Ultra Blue” but also including almost all of her 19 singles, which have sold over 17 million copies to date. Her upcoming tour, the first since her exhaustion-interrupted debut national road trip six years ago, will take in 11 cities across the country. The “Utada Unite 2006” show will feature visuals designed by her husband, Kiriya Kazuaki.
• Hamasaki Ayumi (27), Koda Kumi (23) and Otsuka Ai (23) were among the stars performing at a special show yesterday for 4,400 Avex shareholders at the Tokyo International Forum. The record label saw record sales last year of ¥89.7 billion, with profits up more than five-fold, and seems to have overcome the internal power struggle that shook the company in 2004. Hamasaki arrived on stage accompanied by birds before launching into her latest single, “Blue Bird”.
• Master emcee Shimada Shinsuke (50) has taken time off work to recover from illness. One of the hardest working people in showbiz, the former comedian was recently diagnosed with tonsilitis and forced to cancel the recording of one of his several regular weekly shows.
• Fuji TV presenter Ogura Tomoaki (59) was robbed during his recent visit to Germany. The host of the daily “Tokudane” morning wide show was in Germany for what was to be Japan’s final World Cup game against Brazil. His room at a top-class hotel in Dortmund was broken into while he was at the game. His money and passport were in a safe and untouched. But various country team shirts that he had bought as souvenirs were stolen – all except the Japnese shirts.