BODY: The three former SMAP members who never stopped working together are back—this time over a plate of bananas. Tokyo's Harajuku restaurant BISTRO J_O, where Goro Inagaki serves as director, will roll out a limited-time collaboration menu for the film BANA_ANA, starting June 25.
The movie stars Inagaki, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, and Shingo Katori—the trio who formed the entertainment company CULEN and the online channel "Katori Shingo's Like a Telescope... no, Katori Shingo desu" after SMAP's 2016 split. The cryptic title BANA_ANA (rendered in Japanese as「バナ穴」, roughly "banana hole") leans into the offbeat humor the three have cultivated since going independent.
True to the film's theme, BISTRO J_O will offer two banana-centric creations. The restaurant frames itself as a space "directed" by Inagaki, blending his personal taste in food, wine, and design—so a tie-in menu that turns a piece of fruit into a centerpiece is squarely on brand. The dishes are available for a limited period, and given the loyalty of the trio's fanbase, reservations are likely to vanish fast.
For the three actors, these cross-promotions are more than marketing. Since leaving their former agency, they have deliberately built ventures—restaurants, charity work, original content—that let them control their own narrative, and a film promoted through Inagaki's own bistro is a textbook example of that vertical integration.
The insider take
In Tokyo, BISTRO J_O has quietly become a pilgrimage site for fans who came of age with SMAP. What outsiders might read as a quirky food gimmick is, locally, a carefully managed ecosystem: the trio's projects feed one another, and a banana plate at Goro's restaurant doubles as a ticket into the BANA_ANA world. It's also a reminder of how completely these three rebuilt their public lives outside Japan's traditional talent-agency system—turning every venture, even a dessert, into proof of their independence.
Originally reported by 映画ナタリー - 最新ニュース (Japanese).