A former music idol and her old high school homeroom teacher just became the latest “wait, what?” couple on Japanese TV.
The July 31 episode of Abema’s Women Who Can’t Keep Quiet featured 25-year-old Aki and 41-year-old Shinichi, who are now married with a child. There’s a 16-year age gap between them, and their story started when she was still his student.
Aki was relentless. She wrote “I love you, Teach” in the class attendance book. She handed him a bottle of cola rigged so the word “Love” appeared after she finished drinking it. She brought him homemade bento with a heart-shaped hamburger steak. She even stood up in class during an essay assignment and announced, “In the future, I want to be your wife.”
Her feelings reportedly started early in high school when she got sick and he looked after her. That care stuck with her.
Shinichi claims he never intended to date a student and kept telling her to stop. But after graduation she refused to disappear. The connection continued, and eventually he confessed his own feelings on her birthday. Seven years after they first met, they got married.
The show presented it as a determined love story. Online, people are split between “aww” and “uhhh, that sounds a lot like grooming.”
Interestingly, none of the coverage names her former idol group, so it was probably a smaller one.
Either way, they’re married, have a kid, and went on national TV to talk about it. Make of that what you will.