Pinko Izumi, a veteran actress, was a guest on the 21st of July broadcasting of Naruhodo Highschool, and created an online uproar for being harsh to Mayu Watanabe of AKB48.
Right after the show started, when Mayuyu introduced herself with her popular catchphrase “Mi~nnano Shisen wo Itadaki Mayuyu~~”, Pinko burst out, “Huh?? Why you are being in this business?” “I don’t want her anymore. I hate her!”
When the host of the show named Mayuyu as a partner for Pinko for improvisational comedy, Pinko interrupted Mayuyu, saying “Shinoda!!! I want to do it with Shinoda!!”, and completely refused to play with Mayuyu.
Although she was completely rude to Mayuyu, she showed sympathy to one newcomer, Miorin. When Miorin introduced her catchphrase “Freshlemon ni naritaino~~”, Pinko firmly told her: “It just make people puzzled and embarrassed.” But she also gave her advice, saying “Don’t waste your time… We have really short half-life if we do things thoughtlessly in this business…” with a tender tone.
In the opening of the show, Pinko appeared on the set, saying “It’s a chance for you to be favored by me!!! Make the most of your chance!!!” It might take a while for Mayuyu to be her favorite though…
Pinko was also pointing out Mayuyu’s very strange and unique choice of ingredient in the cooking section of the show. Check out the scene below! In the last portion of the video, you can see Pinko showed her kinder side to Miorin, as she’s bravely quoting her catchphrase to the Wataru Seken ha Oni Bakari Actress.
(Subtitle starts from 0:47)
Most of the fans reacted, showing anger and leaving comments like:
“Don’t bully our Mayuyu!”
“She suppressed herself when thrown harsh words…. she’d better have displayed her brave…”
“Her career as an actress is gonna be difficult…”
“It’s usual of Pinko. She is famous for explicitly express her disgust to people who she doesn’t like.”
“I guess she’s treated as like a princess by many people. It’s gonna be a good lesson for her.”
“Tomochin, Acchan and Mayuyu get really mad when they are thrown severe words…”
“Since these days Mayuyu is having a tough time to widen her field of work, I think it’s a good thing sometime she experiences this kind of ordeals to grow.”
“First I felt pity of Mayuyu, but I came to think Pinko was also not so bad.”
“Pinko always deal with people this way, she wasn’t only harsh to Mayuyu but to everyone including Miorin and Miichan.”
“Why did they not let Sashiko join this episode…. this would be perfect chance to show her unique character.”
“Fresh Lemon FTW”
“What’s good about Miorin was she never gave up after Pinko’s bashing, and bravely continued her appeal.”
This show was the triumph of Fresh Lemon (Miorin)
10 months after this incident, Mayuyu was ranked in the top 5 of the Drama Academy Award for Main Actress prize for her role in Drama Saba-Dol, despite all criticism.
During the filming, Cyzo, a Japanese gossip magazine, wrote that the filming of this drama was filled with tense emotion and anger because of Mayuyu’s selfish behavior and described her as a spoiled idol.
The director of the drama, Futoshi Satoh immediately reacted to this article via twitter and claimed that Cyzo’s story was not true and he had no idea how they got that idea for their article. When the filming session was wrapped up, Satoh wrote a post on his blog, on which he expressed his gratitude for the main cast of the drama, especially Mayuyu, and titled the post “This is why I think it was a blessing that Mayu Watanabe was the star of this Drama.”
“We arranged the filming in a way that each cast has a different timing to end the filming of their part. We filmed single cuts for each cast, and as they finished this, we exchanged goodbye. (skip) While I was telling my gratitude to one cast…. Mayu Watanabe, who were changing her costume and makeup for her next scene rushed to us and expressed her gratitude for the cast. She did this for all casts. Each time one cast wrapped up his/her filming session, Mayu Watanabe dashed to them and sent her gratitude.”
“As I wrote again and again, because Mayu showed her spirit and worked so hard, we were able to have done our best, too. But when I told this to her, Mayuyu said…. ‘Because all staffs tried their best, I could have tried my best.’ So, this is why every cast and every staff feel ‘It’s a blessing that Mayuyu was the star of this Drama.’ It’s sometimes difficult to team up whole casts and staffs in the real sense… but I think this Drama is one of few works of mine that I could successfully accomplish this goal. But it’s mostly because of the personality of the star, Mayu. You can never underestimate her, seriously.”
Mayuyu Ranked in Top-5 For for Drama Academy Award for Best Actress