Kazuko Hosoki was fated to achieve fame in an era when bad behavior still had consequences. During the early 2000s, the celebrity fortune teller was known as Japan¡¯s queen of TV ratings, hooking viewers with a caustic, bullying screen persona that now feels depressingly familiar.
When she retired from the small screen in 2008, she claimed it was to ¡°recharge her batteries.¡± The more likely reason was a series of articles published in Weekly Gendai magazine under the title ¡°The Witch¡¯s Resume,¡± which exposed her ties to organized crime and a long history of shady money-making schemes.
While her devoted followers continued to buy her books and pay handsomely for lectures and private consultations, Hosoki had faded from view by the time she died in 2021, at the age of 83. Her demise prompted a few retrospective articles, but I doubt many people have had cause to think about her recently.
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