Top Fuji TV Execs Resign Amid Sex Scandal Allegations, Independent Probe
Kano and Minato announced they were stepping down during a press conference at the Fuji TV headquarters in Tokyo on Monday, the Associated Press reported.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Japanese Stars Join Cast of Anky Cyriaque's 'Seasons' (Exclusive)
Jews Depicted on TV Play Down Their Identity: Study
'Marie Antoinette,' 'Of Money and Blood' Among Unifrance TV Export Award Nominees
Fuji Media Holdings, parent of Fuji TV, has launched an independent probe into the 2023 dinner at which the celebrity TV host and former pop star Nakai Masahiro is alleged to have assaulted a woman and subsequently paid out a settlement.
The allegations emerged in December 2024 magazine stories in Japan and led Monday to Fuji TV chairman Shuji Kano and president Koichi Minato stepping down amid an internal probe at FMH launched and involving third-party investigators.
'We are very sorry that we mishandled the case because of our lack of awareness about human rights and corporate governance … and as a result our responses to the involved woman were inadequate. We are very sorry to have destroyed our credibility,' Minato told the Tokyo press conference on Monday.
In a statement, FMH said it 'sincerely apologizes to our stakeholders for any inconveniences and concerns arising from recent reports involving our subsidiary, Fuji Television Network.' The parent company has faced an exodus of audience and advertisers in the wake of the widening sexual assault scandal involving Fuji TV, one the other country's biggest television networks.
FMH added the internal investigation would probe any possible involvement of Fuji TV and FMH in the 'incident' surrounding the 2023 dinner, the possibility of 'other similar incidents,' and whether a cover up at Fuji TV where Masahiro worked followed the alleged sexual assault, as has been claimed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
Best of The Hollywood Reporter
'Yellowstone' and the Sprawling Dutton Family Tree, Explained
A 'Star Wars' Timeline: All the Movies and TV Shows in the Franchise
What the 'House of the Dragon' Cast Starred in Before the 'Game of Thrones' Spinoff
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Atlantic
6 hours ago
- Atlantic
A Requiem for Puff Daddy
Black cool is one of America's great innovations, right up there with basketball, blue jeans, and the internet. It blends several forms—music, sports, fashion, speech, ways of cutting through space—into a wholly distinctive, globally influential aesthetic. There are French fashion houses in thrall to silhouettes first spotted in Harlem, Japanese men who have devoted their lives to spinning jazz records in Shibuya, and lavish murals of Tupac Shakur as far apart as Sydney and Sierra Leone. Sean Combs, the disgraced record mogul, certainly did not invent Black cool. But like Miles Davis, Muhammad Ali, and Michael Jordan before him—and like Jay-Z, Kanye West, and many others who followed—for a flicker of time he was its most formidable ambassador. That moment coincided with my adolescence, which is why the revelation of Combs's extravagant cruelties —the depravity with which he used all that he'd gained—has left my childhood friends and me feeling so betrayed. We had looked up to Diddy, whom I will always think of as Puff Daddy or Puffy. When we were at our most impressionable, he taught us what to want and gave us a model for how to behave and succeed. Seeing him fall apart in our middle age feels like a kind of heartbreak. The verve and swagger he injected into our childhood dreams have curdled into something rancid. Certain photographs of Puffy are permanently etched into my memory. In 1995, dipped in a flowing black-and-gold Versace Barocco silk chemise, liberally unbuttoned to flex a thick Cuban link anchored by a diamond-encrusted Jesus piece—the definitive signifier of inner-city affluence. September '96, on the cover of Vibe magazine: head peering from behind his greatest protégé, the Notorious B.I.G.; signature blackout shades; a perfect S-curl relaxing the weft of his fade. The cool he exuded in these moments was inspirational, even masterful. My friends and I had never seen anything like it so fully pervade the culture, certainly not from someone we felt we could relate to. I have not admired Combs for decades now, since well before his trial this year. But I will always be partial to the Puff Daddy of the '90s: from 1993, when he founded his record label, Bad Boy Entertainment, through the spectacular rise and death of the Notorious B.I.G., and peaking around 1998 during hip-hop's 'shiny-suit era,' which he pioneered with Ma$e and the Lox. By the time I got to college, Puffy was even wealthier, and my cultural references had begun to change. I vaguely remember the preposterous images of him strolling beneath a blazing Mediterranean sun while his valet spread a parasol over his head. He was mainly in the news because of a shooting at Club New York, which resulted in bribery and gun-possession charges against him and a highly publicized trial (he was acquitted). For my friends and me, his shocking newness had begun to fade. Back in his prime, though, Puffy conveyed a sense of youthful ambition that we revered. He was able to transition from sidekick and hype man to dealmaker and multiplatinum performer. Before turning 25, he had founded his own culture-defining business—soon-to-be empire—and knew precisely how to leverage his growing fortune into social capital. More than his success, we were struck by two qualities that seemed novel to us. The first was the amount of effort he openly displayed, which counterintuitively amplified his cool. Puffy made no pretense of obscuring the maniacal work required to achieve his goals. When he closed a million-dollar deal, he slammed the phone down and screamed. (Years later, he would become one of the original hustle-culture influencers on Twitter.) He showed us that flourishing was not a condition one had to be born into—that luxury and labor were connected. The second quality was his ability to make Black people and Black culture—even its less compromising, more street-inflected iteration—feel at home in places, such as the Hamptons, that had not previously welcomed them. Puffy's motto 'I'ma make you love me' felt innocent and aspirational to us, not least because he actually achieved it. We were still many years away from realizing just what he would do with all the love he was given. Helen Lewis: The non-exoneration of Diddy Puff Daddy seemed to us then like a Black man utterly free in a moment of expanding opportunity. Before the age of social media, before we'd ever stepped on a plane, Puffy represented our first intimation of an unrestricted way of being-for-self in the world. On the one hand, he was the antidote to the soul-crushing squareness of upwardly mobile middle-class life that we so feared—degrees, office jobs, bills. On the other hand, he was perfectly assimilated into the good life of the American mainstream, to which we desperately craved access. This made him dramatically unlike his peers. Tupac and Biggie were confrontational, and look where it got them. Rap entrepreneurs such as Master P and Brian 'Baby' Williams were rich but ghettoized; any number of establishments wouldn't seat them. Puffy, by contrast, looked like a marvelous solution to the problem of success and authenticity that my friends and I had been struggling to solve. Yet we were suffering from a kind of myopia. And it wasn't unique to us. The generation after us put their faith in Kanye West, whose most recent contribution to the culture is a single titled 'Heil Hitler.' Role models are like seasons. One passes irretrievably into the next, but for a moment they might reveal possibilities that outlast and surpass them.

11 hours ago
Horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa to bring eerie storytelling to his first samurai film
TOKYO -- Japanese director Kiyoshi Kurosawa, known as a master of horror films set within the neurotic realism of the modern day, will bring his signature edge-of-your-seat storytelling to a genre he has never tackled before: the samurai movie. 'I do want to do it once, and it looks like it might be really happening, although things are still uncertain. I may finally be able to make my samurai film,' he told The Associated Press, noting he couldn't give much detail just yet. His upcoming samurai film will not have sword-fight scenes or action-packed outdoor shots that characterize the genre, known as 'jidaigeki.' Instead, it will be the same creepy quiet narrative of Kurosawa movies, where the action takes place almost claustrophobically, in this case, in a castle that just happens to be set in the samurai era. That concept alone is enough to pique a movie lover's interest. The horror master was just honored at this year's Japan Cuts film festival in New York. The festival presented him the Cut Above award, international recognition that follows the Silver Lion at the 2020 Venice Film Festival for 'Wife of a Spy,' centered around a troubled married couple during World War II. Kurosawa, who is not related to 'Seven Samurai' and 'Rashomon,' director Akira Kurosawa, said period pieces are difficult to make due to the extraordinary costs of sets, props and costuming. He also made it clear he isn't interested in directing science fiction, but rather pursues realism. However, he readily acknowledged that his films are all made up, in fact, 'a lie.' 'Maybe this is my weakness, or my characteristic; I want to tell my stories in a setting of a very real modern-day society, yet I want to entertain," he said. "And so it's a contradiction that I aim for every time," 'You create a lie, like a horrific character (in a realistic framework),' he said. Kurosawa, who has managed to produce a film a year over his 40-year career, invests a lot of time researching the setting and backdrop of his films, including much reading, to make it as realistic as possible. In his most recent thriller, 'Cloud,' a man who is down on his luck, portrayed by Masaki Suda, makes dubious profits by reselling items he finds online at far higher prices. It starts harmless enough, except, as the plot thickens, the protagonist is confronted by victims out for revenge. Kurosawa is not one to hold back on violence, often gory and extreme but beautifully shot, sometimes almost comical in its bizarreness. 'Cure,' a 1997 film about a police detective investigating a series of gruesome murders, starring Koji Yakusho, uses continuous shots purposely without cuts to bring out the varied emotions, and the coldness of the characters, sometimes changing viscerally within the same scene, to explore madness. Despite his insistence on realism, Kurosawa, who counts Alfred Hitchcock among his influences, doesn't rule out the addition of tiny unreal elements for that perfectly subtle and eerie effect. But his movies are never happy-go-lucky, he said. 'Everything being happy is not possible if you start with the realism of modern-day Japan,' said Kurosawa. Kurosawa believes that while filmmaking is usually a giant confusing project where multiple players must work together, producers worrying about the box office and actors concerned about their roles, it is ultimately about dealing with what feels right to your deepest self. 'In the end, it all boils down to: I understand there are many opinions, but we must choose what is right. What does being right mean? To figure that out is the creator's job,' he said.


Business Insider
11 hours ago
- Business Insider
Massive Elden Ring Sales Boost Kadokawa Stock (9468)
Kadokawa (JP:9468) stock was up on Friday alongside sales data for FromSoftware's Elden Ring series. The latest sales data included 30 million copies of Elden Ring being sold, with another 10 million sales for its Shadows of the Erdtree downloadable content (DLC). That's a strong conversion rate with roughly one-third of Elden Ring owners having bought the DLC. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. On top of this, Elden Ring Nightreign has also performed well in the short time it's been on the market. The multiplayer cooperative game was released on May 30, 2025, and has already sold 5 million units. There have also been leaks of upcoming DLC for the game, which will likely translate to more sales for FromSoftware. FromSoftware is a subsidiary of Japanese publishing company Kadokawa, with Sony (SONY) also owning a 14% stake in the video game developer. Sixjoy Hong Kong is another major shareholder of FromSoftware, with a 16% stake in the company. Kadokawa Stock Movement Today Kadokawa stock was up 0.53% when the Japanese stock market closed on Friday. This jump came with heavy trading, as some 680,000 shares changed hands, compared to a three-month daily average of about 509,000 units. The shares were also up 20.84% year-to-date and 38.5% over the past 12 months. Bandai Namco (JP:7832), the publisher of Elden Ring, also saw its stock rise on Friday. It secured a slight 0.06% gain when markets closed today, extending a 29.83% year-to-date rally and a 54.66% increase over the last year. Is Kadokawa Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold? Turning to Wall Street, the analysts' consensus rating for Kadokawa is Moderate Buy, based on one Buy and one Hold rating over the past three months. With that comes an average Kadokawa stock price target of ¥3,895, representing a potential 3.37% upside for the shares.