The model Karolina Shiino, a naturalized Japanese of Ukrainian parents, was elected Miss Japan on January 22. Since they placed the crown on her head, controversy was served. While some welcomed the choice of a naturalized citizen, others said she did not represent traditional Japanese ideals of beauty. Shiino, 26, is the first woman of European descent to receive the award in the Japanese country and a debate immediately arose about whether the selection of a woman without Japanese features as the most beautiful in the island nation was politically motivated, due to to the war that is being experienced in the country of origin of his parents. “This person who was elected Miss Japan nor It is not even a mixture with Japanese, but purely Ukrainian. I understand that she is beautiful, but this is Miss Japan. “Where is the Japaneseness?” wrote one user on X. “If I had been born in Russia, I wouldn't have won. “It’s not fair,” wrote another. Less than a month after the election and amid discussions on social media over her foreign roots, Shiino has renounced the title. But the reason has not been this debate about her origins and appearance, but rather the publication of news about her private life by the country's tabloid press.
The Japanese weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun reported that the model was having an adventure with Takuma Maeda, a doctor influencer ―known as “the muscle doctor”― who is married. At first, she denied the accusations, then said they were true, but that she did not know the man was married, and in the end, she acknowledged that her previous response was “not true” and that she knew the doctor had a wife. After all this commotion, Shiino announced this Monday, February 5, in an Instagram post, who had renounced the title of Miss Japan and apologized “for the enormous problems” she has caused “and for betraying” those who supported her. She apologized for lying, saying that she was in shock and was afraid of the exposure, and argued that she panicked, and also apologized to Maeda's family. Furthermore, she decided to leave her modeling agency.
The Miss Japan Association confirmed that Shiino has resigned from the award “for personal reasons” and that the title would be vacated. “We take our responsibility for the series of riots very seriously,” the association said in a statement. “We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused to our sponsors, judges and stakeholders who have supported the tournament.” The decision to crown Shiino as Miss Japan was made by a panel of 30 judges who voted on the “Japanese beauty” of the 12 finalist candidates taking into account three factors: internal, physical and behavioral.
This new scandal has revived criticism of Shiino on social media, but has also raised questions about why she is being the only one blamed for the affair, while the man with whom she is in a relationship has gotten away with it. Maeda he wrote on his Instagram profile that he had no intention of divorcing his wife and apologized for causing trouble to Shiino. She also promised to dedicate herself to her work and her private life, something that will be much more difficult for the model, especially in a culture like Japan, where women are publicly punished much more than men in cases of adultery. even though they are the married ones. Last year, for example, the acting agency of the famous Japanese actress Ryoko Hirosue suspended her indefinitely from her employment contracts for her alleged affair with a famous married chef.
Shiino arrived in Japan when he was five years old and in 2020 he obtained Japanese nationality through naturalization. “I have had to face barriers that often prevent me from being accepted as Japanese, so I am full of gratitude to be recognized in this competition as Japanese,” she said after winning the contest last month. The Miss Japan pageant allows any single woman between 17 and 26 years old who has Japanese nationality to participate. In the 2015 edition, the victory of model Ariana Miyamoto as Miss Universe Japan also generated a similar debate about identity in the Asian country. Born to a Japanese mother and an African-American father, Miyamoto caused a sensation and controversy due to her mixed race, and was subject to harassment by certain groups in the country, one of the most racially homogeneous in the world.
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