Pop idol-turned-actress Noriko Sakai was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years, Monday by the Tokyo District Court for possessing and taking illegal stimulant drugs this summer.
A week after actor-singer Manabu Oshio was given a suspended 18-month term for taking the synthetic drug MDMA, the ruling on a bigger-name celebrity comes as a fresh and vivid reminder that the Japanese show business industry is not immune to illegal drugs.
The highly publicized case attracted 3,030 people to seek a chance to draw by lot the 21 gallery seats available on the judgment day, the court said.
At the one-day hearing of her trial Oct. 26, Sakai admitted to the charges of smoking a stimulant drug on or around July 30 during a family trip to Amamioshima Island, Kagoshima Prefecture, and of possessing 0.008 gram of the drug on Aug. 3 at her Tokyo home.
Her husband, Yuichi Takaso, 41, has also been charged with stimulant drug possession and use and is awaiting the Nov. 27 verdict. Prosecutors demand he receive two years in prison.
Since Takaso was arrested and drugs were found at Sakai's home Aug. 3, the Japanese media has covered developments as extensively as to prompt the Broadcasting Ethics & Program Improvement Organization to warn last week that the reporting was "overheated."
The case has been widely portrayed as a betrayal by Sakai, known by her nickname "Nori-P," of her image as a pure and innocent idol and more recently as a good mother in a happy family.
Sakai debuted in 1986 in a TV drama, released her first record the following year, and gained popularity in other parts of Asia, including in mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, in the early 1990s. She married Takaso in 1998 and gave birth to their son in 1999.
In the wake of the coincident cases involving Sakai and Oshio, the Japan Association of Music Enterprises held an antidrug seminar for artists' managers Friday, which an official said was part of its "long-term efforts" to break off connections to drugs.
Grouping around 100 talent agencies, the association is considering mobilizing performers for antidrug campaigns from the viewpoint that illegal drug use is a problem not only in show business, it said.
But the industry tends to easily pardon artists and musicians convicted in drug cases, said Masaru Nashimoto, 64, an entertainment reporter calling for this tendency to change.
Hope lingers among fans and industry insiders for Sakai to stage an early comeback, which Nashimoto said is usually realized in a year in cases involving stimulant drugs and half a year in those involving marijuana.
