On Jan. 7, 42-year-old actor Mikio Osawa gave a press conference in Tokyo to announce that his 17-year-old son by his ex-wife, actress Mai Kitajima, was not his ¡ª biologically, that is.
Last summer, Osawa filed a suit in family court to sever his legal relationship to the boy after he ran a DNA test that Osawa says proves he is not his father. Both Kitajima and her son, referred to by the media as A-kun, disagree.
The tabloids love this story because Osawa used to be the leader of Hikaru Genji, Johnny¡¯s & Associates¡¯ roller-skating boy-band juggernaut of the late ¡®80s, which broke up in 1994 when Osawa quit to pursue a solo career that was never half as successful. In 1996 he married Kitajima, the daughter of Yoko Naito, one of the most popular movie stars of the ¡®60s, after she became pregnant with A-kun. According to showbiz pundits, the marriage effectively ended his career as an idol, if it wasn¡¯t finished already. The couple divorced in 2005 and both have since married other people.
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