Watanabe, Wakamura caught up in love affair fallout
Ken Watanabe, having missed out on an Academy Award last month but greatly enhanced in stature as an actor, is now embroiled in a four-sided love scandal, which has been fodder for the TV wide shows and tabloids for the past week.
The married Watanabe, who is in divorce proceedings with his wife, was rumored to have been fooling around with bright-eyed actress Mayumi Wakamura, herself currently married to Kanehiro Ono, leader of a religious cult called Shakusonkai, of which Watanabe and his wife were members.
Then, according to his wife's testimony, in 1998, he started an affair with Wakamura, reportedly telling the actress he wanted to marry her. At the same time, Watanabe's wife had taken a large amount of loans from her friends and Ono for unknown purposes.
According to a friend of Watanabe's wife, "Watanabe at first thought she took the loans to pay for his medical expenses, but later noticed the amounts were too big for that. Their relationship started to cool over this, but she refused his request for a divorce. Maybe she had some kind of pride, being the wife of Ken Watanabe."
However, Watanabe and Wakamura ended their affair in 2000. Says the friend of Watanabe's wife: "Yumiko (Watanabe's wife) said that Wakamura made the decision to leave him and start seeing Ono."
Ono was born in Okayama Prefecture, the son of Masahiro Ono, the well-known head of another religious cult, Daisonkai. He established Shakusonkai in 1979 after graduating from the Rissho graduate college. Shakusonkai is said to have 10,000 members.
At his headquarters in Kurashiki City, Ono holds sessions in which he advises, prays and uses his "religious power" to heal his believers. His ex-secretary says: "We used to charge 10,000 yen just for a consultation, 15,000 yen for special prayers, and even planned a 10-day pilgrimage to India twice a year for which he charged each member 600,000 yen as travel expenses."
A former member of Shakusonkai, who bailed out in 2000, adds: "Ono forced his believers to donate money, saying he needed to buy an old sacred book in India. Also, he was involved in land acquisition and charged his believers a fee to help pay for that."
Ono is known to have strong connections with top politicians, sumo organization executives, and other celebrities. He is keeping silent over his marriage with Wakamura and the Watanabes' divorce, saying it is "confidential."
It may not be until May 13, when the Watanabes' divorce hearing is scheduled, that the truth of this love quadrangle will come out. (Translated by Emiko Ichikawa)