It’s not really unusual for a murder case to involve sex. But how exactly is the alleged homicide of a Japanese billionaire, the self-dubbed “Don Juan of Wakayama,” tied to a pretty ordinary porn video suddenly shooting to the top of the smut charts? It’s kind of a long story.

Love & Death

On April 28, 25-year-old Saki Sudo was arrested on suspicion of murdering her husband back in 2018. The victim, the then 77-year-old Kosuke Nozaki, was a billionaire who made his fortune in sales, real estate and agriculture. Most of that money, by his own admission, he spent on young women.

In 2016, he published an autobiography titled Don Juan of Wakayama: The Man Who Has Supported 4,000 Women with 3 Billion Yen. It sold well despite the entire plot essentially being revealed in the title. Around the time the book came out, Sudo moved to Tokyo and eventually met Nozaki. They married in 2018 but their union was cut short when Nozaki died of a stimulant overdose. It took a few years due to a lack of witnesses or hard evidence, but Sudo was finally charged earlier this month with poisoning her husband in a bid to inherit his estate. And that’s when the internet discovered what looked like her old porn vids.

Before meeting Nozaki, Sudo allegedly worked as a sex worker and reportedly starred in a few XXX videos, most of them of the plotless “attractive woman having sex” variety. But in the wake of Sudo’s arrest, those movies started becoming the most viewed videos across Japan’s major streaming sites and now nearly all of them have been retitled to feature phrases like “The infamous ex-wife of the Don Juan of Wakayama.”

Bobby Ologun Fined Some Pocket Change for Domestic Violence

Bobby Ologun (born Alaji Karim Ologun in Nigeria and now officially registered as Bobby Konda after taking on his wife’s surname and becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen) first shot to fame thanks to his gaffe-ridden Japanese, eventually building a reputation for himself as a kind of lovable goofball. But over time some things came to the surface that have threatened that innocent image.

For example, in 2006 Ologun allegedly assaulted the president of the entertainment company that he belonged to. Then in 2020, he was arrested in his Saitama home for striking his wife. In a later statement, she alleged that she had been the victim of her husband’s violence for years. After taking all those facts into consideration, the Saitama District Court fined Ologun to the tune of ￥100,000 yen or just a little over $900.

 

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Saying Goodbye to Two Great Artists

Masakazu Tamura and Kentaro Miura may not seem like they have a lot in common. They were born more than 20 years apart and chose very different career paths. The former became an actor while the latter made a name for himself as a manga artist. Both, however, had a hand in shaping modern Japanese pop culture. For decades, Tamura was one of the most well-known jidaigeki historical drama actors in Japan. He appeared in NHK’s annual Taiga series five years in a row. Then in 1993, he gave the world his own take on Ogami Itto, the “wolf” of Lone Wolf and Cub: Final Conflict, in what actually turned out to be the last film adaptation of the story of the ex-royal executioner turned assassin seeking vengeance on those who caused the downfall of his family. 

Miura, on the other hand, was the creator of the dark fantasy series Berserk. That also featured themes of traversing the land seeking vengeance but wasn’t anything like Lone Wolf and Cub. It was very much its own thing and its influence on pop culture ranges from Final Fantasy VII to Dark Souls. So, it was a shock to learn of the sudden passing of Miura at just 54. More so because it was announced just a few days after news of Tamura’s death came out. Masakazu Tamura passed away on April 3, aged 77 with Miura following him on May 6. Both of their deaths were kept quiet for weeks before being made public within a few days of each other. Just another, tiny similarity between two pop-culture greats who’ve managed to leave their own mark on the world. May they rest in peace. 

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