Kusanagi Tsuyoshi will hold an apology press conference tonight at 9pm Japan time after he was released from custody this afternoon at 2.30pm. He was at the Tokyo Prosecutors' Office in the morning and was then released at Harajuku Police Station as the prosecutors deemed that there was little probability of him skipping bail or destroying evidence of his offence. About 150 members of the press were outside the police station waiting for his release and Kusanagi was seen bowing to a female police officer at the exit before he boarded a car arranged by his agency.
Source: Sankei
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Toho has announced that all promotional trailers, posters and phamplets for the movie, "BALLAD Na mo naki Koi no Uta" will be removed from immediate effect until further notice. The company has informed all cinemas affected by this move. As to whether the movie will go on roadshow as scheduled on 5 Sep, Toho said that this is dependent on how the situation develops but the release date is tentatively unchanged. This movie is the real life adaptation of the 2002 movie, "Crayon Shinchan Arashi wo Yobu Appare! Sengoku Daigassen" which won various awards including the Ministry of the Arts' Media Arts Festival Animation Award. Kusanagi plays a servant who protects the princess played by Aragaki Yui.
Source: Cinema Today
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FujiTV's CEO Toyoda Hiroshi expressed regret at what Kusanagi Tsuyoshi did, during the company's regular press conference. When asked about the TV station is planning to seek any damages regarding the breach of contracts, Toyoda said that the extent of the impact is still unknown so there is no intention to seek damages as yet. The CEO also said that he had met Kusanagi many times and was very impressed with his polite and nice personality. He was also full of praises for the efforts he put in for the terrestrial digital broadcasting campaign but reminded Kusanagi that he has to do a lot to restore the trust lost and damage done to his image.
Source: Sankei
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Pulling off Kusanagi Tsuyoshi's CMs can deal a big blow to Toyota's rental car business especially at this point in time. With the Golden Week coming up, this is a boom period for the car rental industry. However, Toyota is unable to air their CMs or do any promotion within a short period of time as they have to redo all promotional materials. This is especially painful to the company as CMs are essential in drawing consumer attention.
Toyota has been using Kusanagi as their CM personality since April 1998 and he is already synonymous with the brand name. As such, this incident will bring a certain degree of bad press to Toyota.
It is expected that the rental car business will experience a small boom this year during the Golden Week holiday with the launch of the 1000-yen expressway flat toll fee. Many consumers are expected to rent cars during this period to go on domestic holidays. The timing of this incident only serves to reinforce the notion that this is a double blow to Toyota which has been chalking lesser sales these days due to the sluggish economy.
Source: Yukan Fuji
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Kusanagi Tsuyoshi revealed to investigators that on the day before he committed the offence, something happened which made him very angry. That was why he drank so heavily that night with his friends within such a short period of time.
Source: Sanspo
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News of the press conference will follow soon.
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