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The story
Appearing on a Bunka Housou radio program, Bakushou Mondai’s Ota Hikaru addressed reports that actress Izumi Pinko has been sued by a film production company, remarking, “When I see her, it’s always been business as usual.” On 5ch’s Geinou/Sports News+ thread, reactions split: some read “business as usual” as a sly jab implying the harassment was so routine nobody even blinked at it anymore, while others took it as a simple defense of Pinko’s trademark personality. The single remark’s ambiguity became the center of debate. Background chatter about the person at the film production company who filed the suit also drew attention.
Ota Hikaru Responds to Report of Harassment Lawsuit Against Izumi Pinko: “Looked Like Business As Usual to Me” | NEWSjp – Entertainment News
Published 2026/11/03 18:07:29
On November 3, Ota Hikaru of comedy duo Bakushou Mondai appeared as a guest on the Bunka Housou radio special “Bunka Housou Holiday Special: Bunka and Radio” (8am special broadcast) and quickly weighed in on the news that actress Izumi Pinko had been sued by a film production company.
Source: news.jp / Read the original article here
What people said
Going by Re: #1, he's not actually saying it wasn't harassment.
It's just her personality — she's not changing at this point in her life.
You're an idiot.
He means it sarcastically — "yep, exactly the usual level of harassment," as in it's always been this bad.
The kind of movie you'd hear about from Eiga Hiho, not Kinema Junpo (lol) — one's a trashy cult-movie mag, the other's the prestigious film journal.
Totally normal for old-school media.
https://note.com/13weekslaterep/n/n8cdc7c4dcb58
Can't believe Pinko worked with these people.
Her image took a hit and job offers dried up, so Pinko probably had no choice but to work with shady characters like this.
This lawsuit is shaping up like a kodoku pit — everyone trying to poison everyone else until only one's left standing. (kodoku: an old ritual where venomous creatures are sealed together to fight to the death — used here for a mutually destructive scramble)
Though it's also true people can overreact these days.
back in the Sugako Hashida era.
You'd think nobody in the industry would touch her after that, but then someone did hire her and had a rough time of it.
So that tells you everything right there.
Still, a drama producer active at 100 years old is impressive. I'd love to see Ishii make a new drama.
EK for Izumi Pinko, huh (lol)
"Business as usual" is one thing, but the real problem is she wasn't even the MC and still went around hurling abuse at people one by one — that's what crossed the line.
Muhoho (lol)… this is the "little pink grain" one. (an obscure in-joke/reference tied to the linked image)
"Wataru Seken" would hold up fine even without her.
Now if someone like Aiko Nagayama disappeared, that'd be a real problem.
In the AI version, by the way, Masami Sawada did a great job.
The whole show revolved around the daughter-in-law bullying at the Kouraku restaurant — without Pinko there's no show. (from the drama "Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari," where her character torments her daughter-in-law)
If anything, it's precisely because he's an old man himself that he can get away with saying it. If someone younger said it, that'd be the real problem.
Background and Key Points of This Story
Izumi Pinko has long been known for playing the overbearing mother-in-law at the Kouraku restaurant in “Wataru Seken wa Oni Bakari,” and as a veteran actress, her habit of coming down hard on junior performers and co-stars in variety settings had long been tolerated as part of her “character.” This lawsuit reflects a broader shift in attitudes, with behavior once brushed off as “part of the act” increasingly being reassessed as harassment — though neither the news report nor the thread made clear that this is a civil suit brought by the film production company, not a criminal case. Ota’s remark, “business as usual,” remains deliberately ambiguous: was he defending her, or quietly implying that “usual” meant harassment was the norm all along? That ambiguity became the central point of debate on the thread. It’s a story that offers a window into the generational gap in sensibilities, as behavior once considered unremarkable gets re-judged by today’s standards.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Geinou/Sports News+) thread “[Radio] Ota Hikaru on Report of Harassment Lawsuit Against Izumi Pinko: “Looked Like Business As Usual to Me”.”
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