Superstar spiritualist Hiroyuki Ehara is the special guest this week on "SMAP X SMAP" (Fuji, Monday, 10 p.m.). The boy band will host him in the SMAP Bistro, where he orders "spiritual potato cuisine," saying that the lowly spud is "spiritual food" since it "boils up human energy," whatever that means.
The soft-spoken fortuneteller is supposedly making his first appearance on a TV show as a regular tarento rather than as a spiritualist. SMAP leader Masahiro Nakai starts talking to Ehara about his own childhood and before you know it, Ehara has unearthed all sorts of interesting things about him. He then goes on to analyze the lives of the other members of the group, changing the mood in the studio considerably.
There is still controversy over the so-called Manchurian Incident of 1931, when a section of Japan's South Manchuria Railway was blown up. The Japanese said it was the work of Chinese dissidents, while the Chinese said it was done by the Japanese military, who wanted an excuse to invade Manchuria.