President of Johnny’s, Japan Talent Agency, Apologizes for Alleged Sexual Abuses by Founder

BLACKPINK member Jennie sang part of the classic ‘Killing Me Softly With His Song’ while performing as part of a Chanel showcase in Tokyo, Japan this week.Jennie sang the song – first released by Lori Lieberman in 1972, and popularised through renditions by both Roberta Flack and the Fugees – during Chanel’s 2022-23 Métiers d’art collection show in Tokyo.She performed the song as part of a mashup that also included a section of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’, penned by Bart Howard in 1954 and notably recorded by Frank Sinatra. The performance also included a jazzy version of her unreleased solo song ‘You & Me’.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Netflix is to launch a new Japanese reality show “Is She the Wolf?” which was developed with broadcaster Abema and adapted from the original show “Who Is the Wolf” which previously ran for 13 seasons. The show follows five men and five women on a quest for love through dates and a group project. However, some female participants are “lying wolves” who cannot fall in love. They must navigate the entire season without being discovered or accepting any declarations of love. It includes a diverse group of participants aged 22 to 32, including actors, artists, models, and athletes. “Is She the Wolf?” streams exclusively on Netflix in Japan beginning June 11, with new episodes streaming each Sunday. Outside Japan, all episodes will be released on Netflix in September 2023.

Netflix is headed to Japan for its next spin on the dating reality genre.

A new study has found that a drug used to treat Parkinson's disease is able to safely slow the progression of an incurable form of motor neurone disease for over six months.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief Responding to an increasingly global demand for Japanese pop culture, the Kodansha comic book publishing firm is to debut a web version of K Manga, its recently-launched U.S. serialization app. The storied firm will mark the launch of the ‘browser version’ of K Manga with a June 22 online party that is held in Japan, but hosted in English and targets manga (comics) and anime (animation) fans in the U.S. With a theme of “The Stories Behind the Stories,” the event will take multiple behind-the-scenes peeks at manga production and include fan greetings from more than a dozen manga creators.

ENHYPEN have announced their 2023 ‘Fate’ world tour, featuring shows in the US, Japan, South Korea and more.ENHYPEN are set to embark on a tour of Asia and the US this year, featuring 13 shows over three countries so far. The boyband’s ‘Fate’ world tour will kick off this July with a two-night concert in Seoul’s KSPO Dome.In September, ENHYPEN will play four shows in Japan.

AB6IX have announced the dates for their upcoming 2023 ‘The Future’ world tour.AB6IX are set to go on a 12-date world tour from July to September this year, in support of their new mini-album ‘The Future Is Ours: Lost’. The upcoming tour will feature shows in Asia and across North America.AB6IX’s ‘The Future’ world tour outside of South Korea will kick off in Macau, China on July 15.

Talk about legs — or, more appropriately, wings: Paramount/Skydance’s Top Gun: Maverick is still playing in Japanese cinemas a full year on from its debut. Continuing on from a stratospheric and super-leggy run, the sequel, on its 365th day of release, became Tom Cruise’s biggest film ever in the market. In doing so, it overtook 2003’s The Last Samurai with JPY 13.71B ($101.5M) — and Maverick is still flying on local screens. It had become Paramount’s No. 1 movie of all time in Japan in August and also marks the same milestone for Skydance.

attending the Cannes Film Festival last week, Scorsese visited Italy and had a conversation with Antonio Spadaro, editor-in-chief of the magazine “La Civiltà Cattolica” — translated to the “Catholic Civilization” — Monday.He revealed in the chat that he recently saw the pontiff, 86.“I responded to the Pope’s appeal to artists the only way I know how: by imagining and writing a screenplay for a film about Jesus,” he said. “And I’m about to start making it.”The “Aviator” director — who was raised Catholic and often deals with religious subjects in his films — also spoke with Spadaro about his acclaim for Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 epic “The Gospel According to St.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent David Thion, the French producer of Justine Triet’s Palme d’Or winning “Anatomy of a Fall,” is reteaming with Guillaume Senez for “Une part manquante,” a Tokyo-set drama which Be For Films is representing in international markets. “Une part manquante” will also reunite Senez with popular French actor Romain Duris, who starred in his 2018 film “Our Struggles” and earned a Cesar nomination for it. Brussels-based Be For Films had sold “Our Struggles” in most major territories and presented at a flurry of international festivals. Duris will play Jay, who hasn’t seen his daughter for nine years since getting separated from his Japanese wife. As a foreigner residing in Japan, Jay was denied custody of his daughter. Hoping to find her somewhere in the city, he abandons his career as a renown chef and becomes a taxi driver. After all these years searching in vain, Jay is about to give up and move back to France when Lily hops in his cab. But she doesn’t recognize him.

Mark Schilling Japan Correspondent After opening on April 28 in Japan, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” has hit the JPY10 billion ($71 million) milestone in just 31 days – the quickest ever by a non-Japanese animation in the Japanese market.In the latest three-day period from May 28 to 28, the film earned JPY632 million ($4.5 million), bringing its cumulative box office to JPY10.1 billion ($71.7 million), according to figures supplied by distributor Toho-Towa. Based on an iconic Japanese game series, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” currently ranks third all-time at the worldwide box office for animated films, behind “Frozen” and Frozen II.” Toho-Towa has not issued a final earnings forecast for the film. And the title still has a way to go to catch Japan’s all-time box office leader, the locally-produced “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Mugen Train.” That earned JPY40.4 billion ($288 million) in 2020.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief China’s NetEase Games has established PinCool, a Tokyo-based game studio focused on developing titles for game consoles. That is a significant diversification, considering that PC and mobile are the major formats for games play in China. And the company says the company it will also be involved in planning and producing a range of additional forms of entertainment. The new company is headed by representative director and president Ichimura Ryutaro, a 20-year veteran of the games industry and long-time producer of the “Dragon Quest” games franchise. Beyond serving as lead producer for games such as “Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King” and “Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies,” Ichimura also led other areas of the Dragon Quest IP franchise including live events and exhibitions.

K-pop boyband Stray Kids have released a teaser for their upcoming music video for ’S-Class’.On May 29, the JYP Entertainment act shared a first look at their music video for ’S-Class’, the lead single of their upcoming studio album ‘5-Star’. The record and music video are due out later this week on June 2 at 1pm KST/12am ET.Stray Kids appear to be leaders of an uprising in the new visual, with cloaked figures raising their fists towards members of the group in solidarity.

The official synopsis for Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” is one of those rare occasions when a tightly-described premise encapsulates the immensity of a film: a janitor in Japan drives between jobs listening to rock music. In this case, the janitor is Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), an older man whose job is cleaning Tokyo’s elegantly designed public toilets.

A24 has unveiled a raft of key territory deals for Jonathan Glazer’s hotly tipped Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or frontrunner The Zone Of Interest ahead of the awards ceremony on Saturday.

EXCLUSIVE: Neon is nearing a deal for North American rights to Cannes competition entry Perfect Days from The Match Factory in a deal pegged in the mid-to-high six figures.

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Wscripted, the talent platform sourcing women and non-binary writers, has unveiled the nominees for its third Cannes Screenplay List, an initiative launched in partnership with MUBI. The final selection was curated by an inaugural jury of international female filmmakers, including Mounia Meddour (“Papicha”, “Houria”), Funa Maduka (“Waiting for Hassana”), and Camille Griffin (“Silent Night”). The list features 10 English-language and two French-language film projects by women and non-binary screenwriters and celebrates original projects from development to early financing stages.

The dignity of labor is explored with gentle humor and a very melancholy sense of joie de vivre in Wim Wenders’ second 2023 Cannes entry after his 3D documentary Anselm. Shot entirely in Japan, with very little English spoken, Perfect Days is an unusual film from a westerner since it does nothing to “other” a country that is often romanticized as a series of specific cultural signifiers (as in the well-meaning Lost in Translation, for example). It’s a compliment to say that Jim Jarmusch could have made it.

Guy Lodge Film Critic Before you ask, yes, Lou Reed’s rock standard “Perfect Day” does indeed make an appearance in Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days”: on the protagonist’s stereo as suitably ideal sunlight pours into his small, neat Tokyo apartment, before swarming the soundtrack as we head out into the city on a calm weekend afternoon. If that sounds a little obvious, basic even, said protagonist Hirayama — a mellow, soft-spoken toilet cleaner beautifully played by Kōji Yakusho — would probably agree with a shrug. He’s into simple pleasures, not deep cuts. His solitary life is built around the things that make him happy and the work that keeps him solvent. He’s not inclined to wonder what other people make of it. Wenders’ film, in turn, is sincere and unassuming, and owns its sentimentality with good humor.

Mark Schilling Japan Correspondent Ichikawa Ennosuke, a leading Japanese Kabuki actor, was discovered in a semi-conscious state in the family home in Tokyo’s Meguro district by his manager on the morning of Thursday last week (May 18). First responders found his father, Kabuki actor Ichikawa Danshiro IV, and his mother lying together in a separate room. Both have since been pronounced dead. A note, apparently written by Ichikawa Ennosuke, was found. Authorities have not confirmed a cause of death for the two parents.Shochiku, a leading Japanese film studio and Kabuki theater management company that also serves as Ichikawa’s management agency, said in a statement Friday that, “We are deeply saddened by the sudden passing of Mr. Ichikawa Danshiro, who had supported the Kabuki world for many years, and his wife.”