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The story
It’s been announced that former Morning Musume member Kago Ai will voice a role in the TV anime Yani Neko (“Smoker Cat”). She’ll also appear on the promotional obi band of the original manga. Given the title’s obvious nod to smoking, fans see the casting as a perfect fit for Kago, who left the group as a teenager back when her smoking was exposed. On 5ch’s Hello! Project board, posters reminisced about her career at length, and the nickname "Boss Lady of the Smoking World" caught on — alongside plenty of talk about the circumstances of her departure and her life since. The mood was less about approval or disapproval and more just nostalgic.
What people said
A comment from Kago Ai!
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Still, that's where she spent her teenage years, so I'd bet there's still some kind of knot left in her heart over it.
The woman who snatched the "Boss Lady of the Smoking World" crown away from the fired members of Onyanko Club (a famous 1980s idol group).
https://youtu.be/agI79PiZds0?si=JQ7vcF6XcNWhqOKN
These two were adorable back then
I wish I could've watched them grow up still looking like that
Survival instincts on par with Hirosue Ryoko
It's honestly a little scary at this point
Don't sleep on Hirosue's will to live — she'll outlast even Otani before she ever heads to the afterlife.
She said that once she got fired, the singing royalties stopped coming in too
I'll go right ahead and sing them anyway
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3T96Y64CTlM
Apparently she's on IQOS Green (a heated-tobacco flavor variant)
She didn't do anything that scandalous
She just took a casino trip to Korea, that's all
she's pulled off the strong-style move of never letting anyone dig up her affair lawsuits or DV divorce instead.
She can actually sing well and has a cute voice too
Background and Talking Points
Kago Ai left Morning Musume in the early 2000s after being caught smoking while still a minor, and “yani” (smoking) has been closely tied to her public image ever since. Her casting in Yani Neko is being read as a role that turns that history into a selling point, with the thread filling up with comments calling it a “perfect fit” and crowning her the “Boss Lady of the Smoking World.” At the same time, Kago has repeatedly made headlines over the years for a string of personal scandals — a post-departure hiatus, divorce, and her ex-husband’s arrest among them — and plenty of posts in the thread dredged that history back up. Some of the rumors floating around, including claims about drug use, couldn’t be confirmed, so this article excludes posts built on that unverified information. The renewed attention could also spill over into questions about her activity as a Hello! Project OG (graduate) and whether she might turn up at the group’s upcoming anniversary events.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “Boss Lady of the Smoking World Kago Ai-bon Joins the Anime ‘Yani Neko’ as a Voice Actor! She’s Also on the Manga’s Obi Band! “Smoking Really Does Change Your Life…””.
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