She was caught smoking about a year ago and suspended, I think. By doing it again she’s getting what she asked for. Maybe another agency will pick her up?

If she has any talent, which she’s shown to have some screen presence. She’ll make it back on TV.

If not, one nude photo book later and she’ll extend her career for a few more years.

In a sense it is refreshing to see that somewhere in the world there are music agents that aren’t manipulative creeps. In the US they probably would have covered up this mess and continued to let the girl do pretty much whatever she wanted as long as she sold records. By the age of 25 she’d be another version of Britney Spears.

In another sense, this could be the perfect opportunity for Ai. She could cultivate the bad girl persona. Take advantage of the graying society to become the “grandpa whore” for salarymen, and create a larger following than the Hello! Project. Then grow older and by the age of 25 be a successful, married, attractive, vindictive woman like Christina Aguilera.

[Apologies in advance for some serious off-topicness. I didn't anticipate that someone would interpret my quip above as an ignorant attack on precious freedoms.]

remora – I’m quite familiar with 2ちゃんねる. Besides learning all the Japanese slang I know there, I also used to post quite a bit of AA, some of which still shows up in sigs around the net. I don’t need to read its history, since I’ve witnessed it from the beginning.

Just how have I come out against free speech? For goodness’ sake, in another thread here I spoke in defense of Gov. Ishihara’s ridiculousness, as I think he has a right (maybe even a public responsibility) to say stupid things. Sheesh… I even have a PC set up as a free proxy server so that people who don’t have a protected right to free speech can express themselves anonymously. Have you ever heard of the Peacefire project?

But when threats cross over into real-life stalking, that’s something else entirely. Especially when those people are trying to take away someone else’s right to free speech. Those are your chicoms — the ones who set a very dangerous precedent when they succeeded in silencing someone they disagree with.

at last an adversary! – now lets have pun.

Damn, you can throw away your career by smoking a cigarette when you are 19? Thats like being on probabtion.

I could care less if she’s been fired or not for doing something illegal. The Hello! Project has a right to enforce conduct standards contained in the contracts of its employees–especially when its selling image, rather than talent, as product. I think Alex raised a very interesting question. Can she work again in Japanese entertainment?

The talent agencies control everything so strictly, that she might literally be black listed and never work again. It’s the same way that no one ever investigates or says anything bad ever about Johnny’s (sp?) talents. If they do, they’ll never be given access to the Johnny’s stable of entertainers again.

If she can work again in entertainment, selling herself as an early Britney Spears type pseudo “Bad Girl” would work very well (sexual, yet innocent)–getting fired for smoking (bad, but not too bad) and liking older men would work very well.

Kago was not kicked out of Morning Musume for smoking. She graduated from the group two years prior to the first smoking incident a year ago (and she was 17 at the time the pictures were taken anad 18 at the time they were released). She was “suspended” from her new group, W, for a year and her comeback was in the works when this latest incident occurred.

As you stated, Hello!Project is very strict when it comes tot he imaages of its members. This latest incident is not so much about her smoking again (the reporter who made this accusation had no photographic evidence to prove this) but about the fact that she has a boyfriend. H!P girls are effectively forbidden from fraternizing with the opposite sex (a different member of Morning Musume resigned after the magazine Friday, which also broke Kago’s smoking scandal, published pictures of her and her boyfriend).

Kago was photographed taking a trip to a hot springs resort with this older man and spending the night with him in one hotel room. Upon confrontation with reporters, the man lied and said that he and Kago were cousins and that they had been attending a family function. The man is also allegedly married.

These sorts of fluff pieces make my day for the sole reason that there is no greater proof that one is living in a land of peace, freedom, and prosperity and all the really good things in life that these values render possible.

[...] see which ones remain true to the image of a good idol throughout (idols aren’t supposed to smoke underage, date, have boyfriends, etc) and which ones just can’t follow the [...]