They topped the U.S. charts last summer. Many fewer people know the blueprints for the genre mostly came from Japan. A group there called SMAP played a big role in shaping the pop idol landscape ...

The scandal centers on Masahiro Nakai, a former leader of Japan's once-hugely popular boy band SMAP, and his costly settlement with a woman over the alleged sex assault at a 2023 dinner party that ...

Japan’s entertainment industry is in the midst ... including the one to which Nakai belonged, SMAP. Last Friday, Fuji TV President Koichi Minato acknowledged the company had been aware of ...

The report centers on Masahiro Nakai, a former leader of Japan’s once-popular boy band SMAP, and how Fuji Television handled the 2023 case in which Nakai allegedly sexually assaulted a Fuji ...

The scandal centers on Masahiro Nakai, a former leader of Japan's once-hugely popular boy band SMAP, and his costly settlement with a woman over the alleged sex assault at a 2023 dinner party.

TOKYO – A career-ending sex scandal involving one of Japan’s most bankable stars has ... who was the leader of defunct male idol group Smap, and mainstream broadcaster Fuji Television.

Nakai – a former leader of Japanese male idol group Smap, which swept charts across Asia in the 1990s and 2000s – announced his retirement from show business in late January. “I alone am ...

Japanese boy band SMAP will break up at the end of the year, its promoter said recently, disappointing legions of fans in Japan and other parts of Asia just seven months after its members pledged ...

TOKYO -- Japan radio and TV stations and companies are suspending advertisements and upcoming episodes of programs featuring Masahiro Nakai, a former member of the now-defunct idol group SMAP ...

FILE - This photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency shows Masahiro Nakai, one of Japanese pop group SMAP members, posing for a photo during an exclusive interview with Xinhua in Beijing ...