tokyographers

First off, let me revisit the hot topic from last time: Ai Otsuka. It appears the Oricon daily estimates were rather low, and I ended up being wrong about her expected total sales for the week. “Ai am BEST” actually ended at around 350,000 copies sold, which beats out her previous album “LOVE COOK” by about 15,000. Awesome! So her album sales have continued to increase throughout her career (these are numbers for first-week sales):

• “LOVE PUNCH” (Mar 2004) - 190,000 copies, ranked #3
• “LOVE JAM” (Nov 2004) - 224,000 copies, ranked #1
• “LOVE COOK” (Dec 2005) - 335,000 copies, ranked #1
• “Ai am BEST” (Mar 2007) - 350,000 copies, ranked #1

So things are looking very good for her, and hopefully she’ll put out her 4th album sometime later this year.

Now for who’s not hot: unfortunately for Morning Musume fans, Ai Kago’s career is looking pretty dead at the moment. (If you haven’t already read about the scandal from last week, read here and here. And if you want to see some of the fan reactions, go check out Hello!Online.) Even though Tsunku has publicly said he still supports Kago, it’s pretty unlikely that he can bring her back to Up Front Agency. She committed two pretty big no-nos:

1. caught for underage smoking not once, but twice (after she had supposedly reflected on her actions, and we all know that wasn’t her first smoke since the first time)
2. caught in a relationship (with a much older man, no less, and one who seems to already have a more serious relationship going on)

So what’s up with her? Where did she go wrong? Does she just not care anymore? Maybe. Hello!Online posted a report saying she’s not sorry and she’s naturally developed a big head because of her success. Estimated income at the time she was fifteen: 40 million yen (roughly $33k U.S.)… per month. Damn.

Nikkan Gendai wrote up an article about Kago’s background - I’m not sure how accurate it all is, but Nikkan Sports reported some of these the details as well, and I trust them. It kind of explains why she hasn’t really been sailing smoothly throughout her life.

According to the magazine, when she was born in 1988, her parents were only 17. When Kago was 1 year old, her parents broke up and her mother was in charge of raising her. Because she had few opportunities to see her father, she is suspected of having developed a “father complex” (which is probably more common than you think, but I’ll save that topic for another time). Other sources have said that this recent scandal isn’t the first time she’s expressed an attraction towards older men.

(On a sidenote, you may also have noticed that Yasuyuki Ishimoto, the cafe owner she was seen with, is actually older than her father.)

Anyway, Kago’s mother later married a truck driver, and she eventually gained three siblings, with more than a ten-year age gap between her and them. Even though her new father showed her affection, she left the house and entered show business right after the first sibling (a brother) was born. Barely 12 at the time, she went on to build herself a career in the industry.

If all this is accurate, then she very likely had additional complications at home. Based on her reported situation, it seems she’s not just saying “screw you” to her fans (and her fellow H!P members, particularly Nozomi Tsuji). In any case, all this is just to give some perspective on the issue.

So what’s in store for her now? Well, often when an idol loses a career because of a relationship, marriage soon follows, but that doesn’t look likely in this case. Either way, it looks like she’ll be gone from show business for a while, and even after the scandal has blown over, it’s almost a certainty that she won’t be taken back in by UFA. Will she be able to successfully return as a talento or singer? Maybe. There’s also the possibility she’ll end up like other idols whose time has passed, and eventually move towards nude work.

But don’t give up hope yet - for example, Ami Suzuki seems to have successfully bounced back from being blacklisted in the industry several years ago. Like Suzuki, Kago has heavy fan support. If she plays her cards right, she may able to make her way back into the spotlight.

This entry was posted on April 3, 2007 at 4:26 am and is filed under The Trend. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.