NHK Loves Using SMAP - Set on Having Nakai Masahiro in Taiga Drama

NHK announced earlier this week that their 60th Red and White Singing Contest will be hosted once again by Nakai Masahiro and Nakama Yukie. While there's nothing out of the ordinary with this pair, what's interesting is that NHK has continued using SMAP even with Kusangai Tsuyoshi's arrest for public indecency earlier this year. Rumours began circulating yesterday that NHK and Nakai in fact have a secret arrangement in place.

This will be the fourth year in a row that Nakai has hosted the Red and White Singing Contest. Before there were rumours that the job would be passed onto Shimada Shinsuke and Fujiwara Noriko. However NHK still settled on Nakai and Nakama at the end. According to Nikkan Sports, NHK is staying on good terms with Nakai because they have an agreement in place for him to film the next Taiga drama airing in 2011. According to an insider: "The rumours of him starring in a Taiga drama has been around for a while. His image is very fresh and would be very appealing in a period role.

The lead role for next year's Taiga drama 'Ryoma den' was originally offered to Kimura Takuya. After he refused, the role of Sakamoto Ryoma went to Fukuyama Masaharu. It's rumoured that NHK is insistent on using SMAP. However, they seem to have changed their strategy and decided to use leader Nakai instead to take on the Taiga drama.

Source: udn
Translated by: sparkles_n15 @ asianfanatics.net