Love is in the air as actress Yui Aragaki, 32, and actor-musician Gen Hoshino, 40, announced last week they will be getting married. Apparently, plans for a proper wedding ceremony are still up in the air — and, of course, it’s too soon to even ask about kids — but nevertheless it was a piece of celebratory news that lightened the spirits of many a Japanese fan.
While we can’t call the couple exceptions, statistics indicate that wedding bells are ringing less and less these days. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, only 492,908 couples tied the knot last year, down 12.8% from the previous year, and the number of newborn babies born in Japan and to Japanese nationals abroad hit an all-time low of 872,683.
So the Hoshino-Aragaki union is a bit of a morale booster when it comes to romance. The pair met on the set of the 2016 runaway hit miniseries, “Nigeru wa Haji da ga Yaku ni Tatsu” (“The Full-Time Wife Escapist”), which is about an undateable bachelor named Hiramasa (Hoshino) who slowly falls in love with his housekeeper, Mikuri (Aragaki). Eventually, he proposes.