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| Ayumi Hamasak
(left) sings to her adoring fans. |
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A movie director's arrest last month for using a 12-year-old
prostitute has opened up a can of worms exposing sordid details
of the past of Ayumi Hamasaki, the undisputed queen of Japanese
pop, according to Shukan Gendai (5/22).
Hamasaki got her first big break in the Japanese showbiz
world as a support actor in the 1995 film "Sumomomomomo,"
directed by Akiyoshi Imazeki, the over-amorous auteur nabbed
because of his preponderance for the pre-pubescent.
"Sumomomomomo" was one of Imazeki's most highly regarded
works. The large number of teenage girls in the cast, including
then 16-year-old Hamasaki, earned Imazeki the moniker of "Maestro
of Cute Little Girl Movies."
Hamasaki played a central role in "Sumomomomomo," acting
as star Maki Mochida's younger sister. One scene in the movie
features Hamasaki's character sniffing her sister's skirt,
then advising her older sister to refrain from sex with her
boyfriend, or at the very least insisting that he wear a condom.
During her mid-teens, Hamasaki played several brazen hussy
roles, such as in "Nagisa no Sinbad," where she played a schoolgirl
who taunted a boy she despised by slowly rubbing a vibrator
across his face and neck.
"At a time when most teen idols would strive to present a
pristine image, Ayumi stood out because of her willingness
to play tough girl roles," Idol watcher Fuminori Takakura
tells Shukan Gendai. "She was the type you could imagine
really see roaming the streets of Shibuya. She was a cute
girl and had a realism that was sexy."
Takakura says she was a natural choice for Imazeki, the maestro
of cute little girl movies.
Never short of hawking herself, Hamasaki, according to the
teenybopper expert, is not quite as keen to flog her wares
when it comes to this part of her career.
"What she did then doesn't really go with the charismatic
pop diva image she presents nowadays," Takakura tells Shukan
Gendai. "All the details of her time as a teen idol have
been eliminated from the bio she's put up on her official
site."
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