Aki Hoshino promotes next-generation KFC store

Aki HoshinoJapan Today

TOKYO — Bikini model turned TV personality Aki Hoshino, 34, attended a publicity event for KFC in Shinjuku this week. The event, titled “Facebook Chicken Check-in Project Launch,” was held to introduce the next generation of KFC stores. The new stores, which are currently under development in the capital, now have a “vegetable menu” as well as a new look.

Hoshino dutifully reproduced KFC slogans before telling the press, “I got my first ever part-time job here. When I was young, we only had KFC on birthdays and at Christmas. I wanted to have it every day.”

When she was asked the obligatory question about her love life, Hoshino confessed that she had been taking cooking classes with “talent” and friend Yuko Ogura, 27, in preparation for married life. Asked which of the pair was likely to marry first, Hoshino replied, “I’d imagine Yuko would be first, right?”

Compiled from news reports

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Mona Yamamoto announces retirement from showbiz

Mona YamamotoJapan Today

TOKYO — Hiroshima-born TV presenter Mona Yamamoto, 35, has announced that she is to retire from the public eye. In a fax distributed to media
agencies this week, she wrote, “I apologize for the suddenness of this news, but as of June 30, I plan to retire from public life and return to my married name.”

Yamamoto, who is daughter to a Norwegian father and a Japanese mother, said, “I have been thinking deeply about what I want from my life and where my choices will lead me. I have decided to accept the challenge of becoming a working mother and housewife and to lead a more regular life. I truly appreciate all of the support my colleagues and the public have kindly given me up until now. To all of those people, I wish to say a heartfelt thank you.”

Yamamoto, an employee of Asahi Broadcasting Corp, has taken breaks from news broadcasting before. In September 2006, she was accused of having an affair with married DPJ politician Goshi Hosono and was forced to step down from her position on TBS’s “NEWS23” program, a job which she had only held for five days.

She was fired again in 2008 from her position as an anchor for Fuji TV after news broke of her affair with Yomiuri Giants player Tomohiro Nioka, who was married at the time. The alleged tryst took place on the eve of her comeback from the first scandal.

Yamamoto married her husband, the president of a real estate investment company, in 2010.

Compiled from news reports

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Maki Horikita to play doctor in postwar drama

Maki HoritaJapan Today

TOKYO — Actress Maki Horikita, 22, will play a doctor an NHK drama to air next year. The drama, which starts next April 2, is titled “Ume-chan sensei,” and is based on a screenplay by Masaya Ozaki.
Horikita plays the title character, Dr Ume, who becomes a doctor in Kamata, Tokyo after World War II. Horikita said the theme is one of recovery, and added that it is also relevant to Japan today, which is trying to recover from the devastation of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

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