The Public Advertising Corporation who engaged Kusanagi Tsuyoshi to appear in an environmental CM with Korean actress Chae Ji Woo, has decided to terminate the CM with immediate effect. The original term for the campaign was from 1 July 2008 to 30 June 2009. At the same time, their Korean counterpart also issued a statement about the termination of the campaign and expressed regret about this incident as Kusanagi is a popular artiste in South Korea with a high level of fluency in the language.
Source: Sponichi
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Kusanagi Tsuyoshi is well-known for liking alcohol. As seen in an episode of PuSma in the past, he became extremely chirpy and striked weird poses once he was drunk. This led his co-host Yusuke Santa-Maria to remind him that he was still at work. Kimura Takuya also said before that Kusanagi becomes very lively once he drinks.
During drinking sessions, Kusanagi is usually the fastest at finishing his drinks. Even when people are just starting on their first glass, he is already done with the second. During the celebration party of SMAP's concerts, he is one who never stops drinking and would even continue after his members have gone home. He is widely known as the drinker in the group.
However, when he is in the midst of a concert tour or has lots of work to do, he would abstain from alcohol altogether. During press conferences and interviews, Kusanagi always knows what to say and do and exhibits a clear-headed and calm personality. When he drinks, his personality undergoes a major change. He becomes very hyper, cracks jokes and laughs loudly.
Kusanagi is known for separating alcohol from his work so as to deliver a professional performance and even quit smoking once he hit 30. As such, people working with him are wondering if he has been harsh on himself all the time thus leading to this outburst.
Source: Sponichi
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Kusanagi Tsuyoshi has been sent to the Prosecutors' Office at 9am today for the prosecution procedure of his alleged public obscenity offence. He had spent the night at the Harajuku Police Station after the initial investigation at Akasaka Police Station. About 100 members of the press were gathered at the Harajuku Police Station.
Source: Sponichi
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SMAP is set to continue with their work activities without Kusanagi since their agency has announced that he will be going through a period of self-restrain.
SMAP was scheduled to do the recording of SMAPxSMAP at FujiTV on 23 April and couldn't cancel it because they had to do a singing segment with Richard Carpenter from The Carpenters who was in Japan for a limited period of time. As such, the four of them went through the recording and took over the parts which Kusanagi was scheduled to sing. According to insiders, the four of them were visibly shocked by the news but tried to behave as per normal during the filming. The 27th April episode of SMAPxSMAP will be a best-scenes SP which will omit Kusanagi's scenes.
At the same time, Kusanagi's name has been removed from the official website of "Waratte Iitomo". He was the regular for the Friday programme. In addition, FujiTV announcer Takashima Aya will take over the narration for "Bokura no Ongaku" for the time being. The 25th April episode of "Chonan Kan 2" will be replaced with a last-minute SP on Korean artistes.
Kusanagi was also scheduled to act in a summer drama showing via FujiTV where filming begins in Saturday. However, he will now be removed from the lineup. This drama is scheduled to be shown right after the current offering "BOSS" ends its run.
Over at TV Asahi, the promotional SP for his movie, "BALLAD" will be replaced with a SP of "Red Cliff Part 2".
As SMAP is now down to 4 members, it is expected that they would not be doing the national concert tour this year.
Source: Sponichi
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Sponsors who have engaged Kusanagi Tsuyoshi for their CMs are now cancelling the campaigns one after another or suspending the airing of the CMs for the time being. According to advertising insiders, the production fees of a CM is usually 30 million to 40 million yen. Coupled with the fact that Kusanagi charges a fee of 50 million to 60 million yen for an endorsement deal and that the sponsors must now remake all CM-related items, damages may run up to 100 million per deal. Sponsors now have the choice of requesting for damages on a pro-rated or full basis.
In addition, NTT East Japan has a deal with SMAP since Jan 1995 which is scheduled to stop at the end of this month. Although Kusanagi is not appearing in the current set of CMs, the sponsor is watching the situation before deciding.
Source: Sponichi
1 comment:
Poor guy. I read this first from The Times UK and the people there were very sympathetic of him being overworked.
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