There haven't been many silver linings to the dark cloud of the recession that descended more than a year ago. One is the media's general loss of interest in ostentatious displays of stuff that most of us could never afford anyway. Nowadays, it's easier to boost TV ratings with features about places to buy ¥250 bento (boxed lunches) than features about three-star French restaurants.

So even the tabloids were slightly put off by 48-year-old actress Naomi Kawashima's ¥100 million wedding reception on June 23, which was broadcast live on Nihon TV. One could expect withering derision from a semihip weekly like Aera ("this sort of gaudiness is so out-of-date"), but Nikkan Gendai's observation that such an event is bound to "rub people the wrong way," and that both Kawashima and NTV demonstrated a serious misreading of the public's mood, was quite a turnaround for a paper that habitually sucks up to celebrities.

But Gendai still covered the reception, which had less to do with Kawashima's nuptials than with a lineup of interests that started with her brand-image and ended with NTV's bottom line. And there were plenty of others sharing the PR booty, including Kawashima's new husband, patissiere Toshihiko Yoroizuka, and eight culinary masters of the "Iron Chef" caliber. In fact, at least one of them, Hiroyuki Sakai, appeared regularly on that legendary show, which epitomized the age of conspicuous consumption better than any other. Their respective businesses aren't doing as well as they used to, apparently, so they need to remind people — or, at least, a certain class of people — that they're still out there.