JPop star shaves her head and issues tearful YouTube apology because she spent night with a man 
 
 By Agence France-Presse 
 
 Friday, February 1, 2013 7:59 EDT 
 
 A Japanese starlet who shaved her head and issued a tearful YouTube apology after spending the night with a man was scrambling Friday to redeem the girl next door image of all-female group AKB48. 
 
 Pictures of the roughly-shorn head of Minami Minegishi, 20, were emblazoned on national newspapers and Japan’s Twitter scene was abuzz Friday over news that the pop princess had broken the band’s cardinal rule: No Dating. 
 
 A sobbing Minegishi told fans she had decided to shave her head as an act of contrition after a popular weekly magazine published claims of a night of passion with a 19-year-old boy band member. 
 
 “I don’t believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don’t want to quit AKB48,” she says in the video, which had been viewed on YouTube more than three million times. 
 
 Minegishi, who had long, silky hair at the time, was snapped leaving the apartment of Alan Shirahama, a dancer in an off-shoot of the popular boy band Exile. 
 
 Tabloid magazine Shukan Bunshun published its article Thursday, and hours later Minegishi was pleading to be allowed to remain with AKB48, one of the world’s most successful acts by revenue. 
 
 The tryst was “thoughtless and immature” she told fans. 
 
 “If it is possible, I wish from the bottom of my heart to stay in the band. Everything I did is entirely my fault, I am so sorry.” 
 
 AKB48, a 90-strong pool of girls in their teens and early 20s, is a money-printing juggernaut that makes much of the accessibility — and the implied availability — of its idols. 
 
 Fans have frequent opportunities to meet their favorites, who are rotated in and out of the public eye, according to popularity. 
 
 In return for their chance to grace television screens, subway adverts and the covers of Japan’s countless celebrity magazines, members of the collective must adhere to strict rules of behavior. 
 
 They are allowed to have “one-sided romantic feelings” for a boy but can never progress beyond hinting at their crush — and must never disabuse their legions of male fans that they might one day stand a chance with their fantasy woman. 
 
 In June last year, another AKB48 member, Rino Sashihara, 20, made a pained apology after a magazine article revealed her free-wheeling history with a boy. She was demoted to a regional sub-group as a punishment. 
 
 While much is made of their supposed innocence, the band is heavily marketed on its sex appeal, with skimpy outfits and coquettish smiles the order of the day. 
 
 A television commercial in which the girls seductively passed candy from mouth to mouth was a huge hit, despite — or because — of its homoerotic overtones, which sparked complaints from more conservative sections of society. 
 
 Most recently, a photograph that showed naked former AKB48 member Tomomi Kasai with a young, apparently Caucasian or Eurasian child cupping her breasts, set off police probe and led to the pulping of about 670,000 copies of a popular weekly magazine. 
 
 Watch the video, published to YouTube on Jan. 31. 

 As pop star misdemeanours go, Minami Minegishi's was tame in the extreme – breaking her group's strict dating ban to spend a night with her boyfriend. 
 
 Yet hours after a magazine published photographs of her leaving his home last month, Minegishi, a member of the wildly popular girl band AKB48, went on to YouTube to issue a tearful apology. 
 
 "As a senior member of the group, it is my responsibility to be a role model for younger members," she said, before ending the four-minute mea culpa with a deep, lingering bow. 
 
 The most striking thing about her apology, however, was her appearance. She had shaved her head, a traditional act of contrition in Japan, but perhaps a step too far for a 20-year-old woman whose "crime" was to have found herself a boyfriend – 19-year-old Alan Shirahama, a dancer in a boyband. 
 
 Minegishi explained she had decided to cut off her long hair immediately after seeing her photograph, her face hidden behind a surgical mask and a baseball cap, in the weekly tabloid Shukan Bunshun on Thursday. 
 
 Her dramatic gesture underlined the strict rules to which Japan's young pop stars must adhere to project an image of unimpeachable morals. 
 
 In the YouTube video, which has been viewed more than 3m times, Minegishi said the assignation has been "thoughtless and immature". 
 
 "If it is possible, I wish from the bottom of my heart to stay in the band," she said. "Everything I did is entirely my fault. I am so sorry. 
 
 "I don't believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don't want to quit AKB48." 
 
 AKB48's management agency demoted her to "trainee level" starting on Friday, according to the band's official blog. 
 
 Minegishi is among the original members of the band, which since it formed in 2005 has built up a huge following among teenage girls and salarymen who flock to concerts and publicity events for the chance to shake hands with their idols. 
 
 The group, named after the geeky Akihabara district of Tokyo, has had a succession of million-selling singles and generated sales of more than £126m in CD and DVD sales in 2011. 
 
 Together, the AKB48 stable has more than 230 members in their teens and early 20s, with four main bands and several offshoots. Their act is more saccharine than sexual, but the band has courted controversy off-stage in the past year. 
 
 In 2012, a TV commercial in which the girls seductively passed confectionery from mouth to mouth attracted complaints, and earlier the same year one of the singer's mothers was arrested for allegedly having sex with a minor. 
 
 Last month, police launched an investigation after a weekly magazine ran a photo of a young boy cupping the breasts of the former AKB48 member Tomomi Kasai. The publisher was forced to destroy about 670,000 copies of the magazine.
– Japan's pop-culture world is abuzz today over the tearful public apology from a member of a pure-as-the-driven-snow girl band who, gasp, spent the night with a boyfriend. The mea culpa on YouTube by 20-year-old Minami Minegishi, who shaved her head in repentance, has been viewed more than 3 million times, reports the Guardian. Minegishi belongs to the band AKB48, whose members aren't supposed to even date. "I am so sorry," she says. "I don't believe just doing this means I can be forgiven for what I did, but the first thing I thought was that I don't want to quit AKB48." AFP, via Raw Story, cuts to the chase on why it's a big deal: "AKB48, a 90-strong pool of girls in their teens and early 20s, is a money-printing juggernaut that makes much of the accessibility—and the implied availability—of its idols." Band members rotate in and out of public view, based on their popularity. Now Minegishi is in danger of getting kicked out because a tabloid snapped a photo of her leaving the apartment of her beau—a 19-year-old member of a boy band.