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One of the country’s best-known celebrities announces his retirement after admitting ties to Japan’s equivalent of the mafia It is almost impossible for evening TV viewers in Japan to avoid the gravelly voiced and impressively coiffured figure of Shinsuke Shimada. Now, though, millions of viewers will have to find a new primetime companion after Shimada, one of the country’s best-known celebrities, was forced to resign over links to organised crime. The 55-year-old sobbed, but showed little remorse as he announced his retirement at a late-night press conference, called just two days before a popular weekly magazine was due to run an exposé of his alleged links with the yakuza, Japan’s answer to the mafia. Shimada conceded he had exchanged text messages with the leader of an Osaka-based gang affiliated to the Yamaguchi-gumi , Japan’s biggest underworld organisation. “We have met in person just four or five times as we were aware that entertainers and crime syndicate members should not mix,” he said. He said the gangster had helped solve an unspecified “personal problem” more than a decade ago, but denied he had paid him for his troubles. “I felt indebted to him. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything wrong. To me the relationship was safe, but I learned the day before yesterday that it wasn’t.” His management agency, Yoshimoto Kogyo, insisted the disgraced star had not been involved in any illegal activity. But it added: “Regardless of the reason, it is not permissible for a performer who exerts such a strong social influence on mainstream TV to have these ties.” Shimada began his career as a standup comic in Osaka in the late 1970s before going on to present variety shows, as well as political discussion programmes, for commercial networks. He has been a fixture on Japanese television for 25 years; just before his resignation he fronted several weekly shows that gave him almost 50 hours of airtime a month. Fortunately for his detractors, who bristle at his brash TV persona and penchant for bullying guests, Shimada conceded his TV career was at an end: “From tomorrow I will become just another regular person. I want to live a quiet life.” Many have questioned why Shimada was not sacked in 2004, when he was suspended from work and fined 300,000 yen (£2,400) for punching a female colleague. Shimada’s resignation comes amid a police campaign to weaken the yakuza’s influence in mainstream Japanese society. His managers may also have had an eye on forthcoming changes to anti-yakuza laws that will make any activity deemed to benefit organised crime a criminal offence. “It’s no longer acceptable to have yakuza links, especially now that companies risk being prosecuted,” said Jake Adelstein, a yakuza expert and author of Tokyo Vice. “The police have already cracked down on links between organised crime and sumo . Now they’re trying to do the same with the yakuza and the entertainment industry.” Shimada’s profile was sufficiently high for his resignation to elicit comment from the chief government spokesman, Yukio Edano. “[The resignation] was unavoidable given the government’s efforts to eliminate organised crime,” he told reporters. “People loved Shimada for his genius. It’s unfortunate that such talent has been cut down in this way.” Japan Television Justin McCurry guardian.co.uk