Trends in Japan - CScout Japan Blog » American-style celebrity tabloid Gossips hits Japan

American-style celebrity tabloid Gossips hits Japan

Written by: Rebecca Milner on December 11, 2007 at 12:01 am | In Fashion & Lifestyle Trends |

When I saw this advertisement on the subway the other day, I couldn’t believe my luck. Could it be true that US Weekly style Hollywood gossip is finally available in Japan?

I immediately went to the convenience store to pick up a copy. Though the new magazine had pretty good display position, only the headline “Gossips Press” was visible, explaining why I had previously overlooked it. (It should also be noted that the woman in line in front of me was buying a copy of office lady glossy 25 ans, a half-liter bottle of umeshu, and a mixed bean salad that couldn’t have contained more than three spoonfuls. Yikes!)

While pictures of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are regular fixtures in many domestic magazines, they usually show the stars looking polished and sufficiently enviable, happily shopping or playing in their native land or on visits to Shibuya.

The new Gossips Press, however, actually shows all the diet before and after, stars caught with no make-up or bad outfit type photos in the style US Weekly et al—the first magazine of this kind in Japan. In fact, the format and the photos seem to be lifted entirely from those American predecessors and contains absolutely no coverage of Japanese celebs. Trashy tabloids do exist in Japan (like Friday, Asahi Geinou, and Josei Seven) and are quite popular. They are usually printed on newsprint and sold weekly at high profile locations like train platform kiosks where they are typically bought and read by commuting salarymen.

I wonder, however, if after the novelty wears off, there will be an actual market for a monthly Hollywood celeb-driven gossip glossy? After a survey of some blogs that mention the magazine, it seems that those who manage sites devoted to the worship of ikemen (hot guys, like Johnny Depp) are definitely interested, while those with a passing interest in fashion and pop culture are keen to flip through it but not necessarily buy it.

Gossips Press is from TransMedia, the same publishing house that offers the domestic versions of Nylon and Dazed and Confused. They seem to be expanding on their to this date successful formula of introducing successful overseas magazines into Japan, although it could be said that this latest one is in a somewhat different vein.

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