Sunday, March 24, 2013

Meeting the right person at the right time? - Sakai Masato and Kanno Miho


Sakai Masato and Kanno Miho getting married?! Imagine my shock when i first saw this flashed across the screen on TVBS News (a Taiwanese news channel) as a headline. For something happening in Japan to be treated as a new flash item and highlight outside of Japan, that signified how important this news item was. I seriously thought I was seeing things when that headline appeared on screen that I immediately went to my regular news sites to see if this was true. When I confirmed that this was true and not some far-fetched rumour, my first thought was, when on earth did they start dating? There were no rumours at all about them being romantically linked and from the news reports on Friday, they gave the impression that Sakai and Kanno had only started dating 3 months ago so strictly speaking, this is a whirlwind romance (although it was said that Sakai had wooed Kanno since January 2012).

I came across this article from Nikkan Cyzo which I think would be quite useful in explaining why they want to get married only after a few months of dating. Since there are some rumours/speculations which were not confirmed, I thought it was better to post this here with my views rather than on the Dorama World site:


Sakai Masato (39) and Kanno Miho (35) are getting married soon after a mere 3-month courtship as confirmed by their respective agencies. It is said that they may get married as soon as next month and will hold a press conference once the marriage registration is completed. However, as some insiders reveal the details, the marriage plan wasn't supposed to be in such a big rush.


"The two of them aren't young idols who are having a shotgun marriage. What's more, they are both adults with flourishing acting careers. As such, getting married on the spur of the moment may hurt them in future as actors if things do not work out later. Besides, they have to think of the impact of their marriage on their work schedules and CM deals thus there had been advice from people around them to reconsider whether they should take things a bit slower." 

The two of them had only started dating last December as a result of Sakai's aggressive wooing of Kanno. An insider revealed this, "When Sakai confessed his feelings to Kanno, she had accepted him on the condition that their relationship had to be built on the premise of marriage. With response to that, Sakai agreed to it immediately. In addition, Sakai even went to Kanno's agency personally to ask for permission to marry Kanno, not just to date her."

It has been known for a long time that Kanno has a strong desire to get married but she has not been seeing anyone of late. During filming of her dramas and movies, she would proactively talk about her views about love and relationships. According to an entertainment reporter who had been following Kanno's career and interviewing her for a long time, it is believed that Kanno suffered a traumatic experience due to her ex-boyfriend Inagaki Goro's indecisive attitude towards her.

"A Johnny's artiste would have to go against the agency's objections in order to get married or else marriage is out of the question for them. However, Inagaki could never bite the bullet and kept Kanno waiting during their 8-year relationship. Kanno even went to the extent of leaving her former agency which wanted to stop her from getting married and joined Ken-on later. Despite this, Inagaki kept brushing her off by saying that his agency wouldn't agree to let them get married so they went their separate ways in the end."

In stark contrast to Inagaki, Sakai's decisive stand towards marriage was probably what made Kanno budge in the end although she didn't accept him initially. "Actually, from the time Kanno broke up with Inagaki till she started seeing Sakai, there were rumours of other celebrities who wanted to woo her but they all gave up upon hearing her marriage premise condition. Apparently, comedian Jinnai Tomonori was one of them who tried to use his divorce from Fujiwara Norika as a reason why he didn't want to get married so Kanno didn't give any of these people a chance at all."

Kanno is said to be very interested in books about astronomy these days and her interest is in line with Sakai who's of the indoor type and likes reading. Although it looks like a sudden marriage on the surface, it could be a long-awaited spring for Kanno after all.




Kanno and Sakai's relationship seems to be a great example of meeting the right person at the right time. This other report from Cyzo Woman mentioned that ever since Sakai broke up with Tomita Yasuko after a five-year relationship, he had been romantically linked to a number of actresses all these years e.g. Takeuchi Yuko, Tabe Mikako and Aragaki Yui but there was no concrete proof that he was in a serious relationship with any of them. On the other hand, Kanno's famous on-and-off relationship with Inagaki for a long 8 years seem to place her in stark contrast against Sakai's "colourful" dating history. It almost seemed as if they were so different and they were like parallel lines which did not meet at all.

However, I think why things worked out for them in the end had a lot to do with the fact that they met each other at the right time. If it had been that Sakai was much younger and wasn't sure about getting married, he would not have accepted Kanno's condition (assuming if she did set this rule before dating someone) and she would not have agreed to date him. On the other hand, if Kanno did not have a strong desire to get married and had not suffered a long wait to get married in her last relationship, Sakai might not have won her heart with his decisiveness and "aggressive wooing". It does appear that Kanno did not respond to Sakai favourably at first if he really did tell her about his feelings back when they were filming the Ooku movie. It could be that Kanno thought that he wasn't serious then and only became convinced about him after seeing Sakai in a different light when they were doing the promotions.

Frankly speaking, I don't really think that Johnny's Jimusho is the sole reason why Inagaki didn't agree to marry Kanno. Sure, he may not be like Kimura Takuya who literally "forced his way through the barriers" to get married to Kudo Shizuka but there are other Johnny's idols who still managed to get married i.e. Yamaguchi Tatsuya from TOKIO who married his girlfriend after dating for 8 years and Inohara Yoshihiko who married Seto Asaka after they broke up once. Inagaki may have his difficulties then for not being able to get married (perhaps the traffic offence?) but now that Kanno has finally found her man, there's no point anymore harping on the reason why he couldn't bite the bullet when they were still dating. Just that I think the tabloids would probably have a field day following Inagaki around to see how he reacts to his former girlfriend's wedding news.

Although Sakai and Kanno's courtship period is indeed short, I guess for a couple in their 30s who have already taken their fair share of hard knocks along the way when it came to love, if they are sure that the other party is who they want to live with for the rest of their lives, there's really no issue of getting married after just three months. And the fact that they are not doing a dekichatta-kon really does help in making sure that people won't ridicule them for getting married for the sake of the baby. Frankly speaking, a dekichatta-kon usually takes a little lustre off the wedding news announcement especially if we are talking about young idols. This couple would have gotten to know each other quite well during the filming and while going on the promotion trail together so the dating period's length is not really the key indicator of the right time to get married. It certainly doesn't mean that dating for 5, 8, 10 years will definitely lead to marriage.

Now, the next thing the media is eagerly awaiting will be, when the couple will register their marriage and what they'll say during the press conference. I'm hoping to see them appear together and give their side of the story instead of fax statements a lot of celebrity couples issue. Perhaps they may not open their wedding ceremony to the press but I'm sure Kanno would want to have a proper wedding rather than go low-key or have no ceremony at all because this is after all the day she has been waiting for a long time. Sakai on the other hand would probably be smiling so much that his eyes can't be seen. ^__^

Looks like spring is a wonderful time for love with all these romance/marriage reports coming one after another! Any bets on who will be the next one to continue with this trend?

6 comments:

  1. Hi,
    Just found your blog.Anyway,the news about Kanno Miho getting married is shocking to me as well.It seems like I just finished the series kekkon Shinai not too long ago...lol

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  2. Hi Evelyn, thanks for taking the time to leave your comment here. I can understand what you mean because I also finished watched Kekkon Shinai just weeks ago! Kanno really nailed that role down to the finest detail and made me feel as if I was watching her own personal struggle with marriage so I guess the news about her and Sakai was a very pleasant surprise for many (oh well, except those who are still hoping for her to reconcile with Inagaki Goro, I guess.) ^__^

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  3. Well,Kanno's decision might be shocking to some of us but i guess we all know of her wish to get married for some time already.
    Anyway,you know what what would be the ultimate shocking marriage announcement??
    If Amami Yuki suddenly announces she is getting married!!!

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  4. Yeah, I agree with your view about Amami Yuki. Although she didn't say explicitly that she was shunning marriage or giving up on it, it didn't appear that she is enthusiastic about it too (at least not like Kanno). As such, it will be nice if she finds a companion too. :-)

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  5. Sakai also has a strong desire to get married too from his interviews. The report from Cyzo Woman has not been fair to Sakai. If he really wooed Kanno right in january 2012 when they filmed the movie, how could he has a relationship with Gakki or Tabe Mikako whom he met later in the year when filming Legal High and Ooku Tanjou respectively. If Kanno was not that persistent with her relationship with Goro and willing to lay her eyes on somebody else, she could have married long time ago. I really like Kanno and Sakai and hope they are happily married forever!

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  6. Hi eliyeung, this is purely my conjecture but I'm guessing that since Sakai was sort of rejected by Kanno right from the start when he made his interest known, it doesn't mean that he could not have dated other people until he and Kanno got together in a serious relationship at the end of the year. Anyway, his reported relationships with Gakki and Tabe Mikako seemed to be rumours (not like they had been caught on dates or anything) that feel like publicity stunts so we can't really tell if he did get serious with them.

    Such reports which claim to have the inside story can sometimes feel a bit biased i.e. putting someone at a better position than the others so let's just say that generally, the media seems to be portraying Kanno as someone who wanted to get married eagerly while Sakai was someone who pursued her relentlessly and got his girl at the end. What matters most that they are now happily married. ^__^

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