Troubled singer Kahara Tomomi (36, photo left) has had another...health episode. Currently on an extended break from her career, she was taken to a Tokyo hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning after a suspected drug overdose. Kahara got in the back of a taxi near the Kabukicho entertainment district of Tokyo around 1am on Sunday but was unable to tell the taxi driver where she wanted to go. As he was unable to wake her up, the driver called the police for help. They found she had a temperature and called for an ambulance to take her to a nearby hospital. She didn't appear to have been drinking.

The TV highlight of the weekend was the 33rd annual edition of NTV's 24-hour telethon, "24-jikan Terebi - Ai wa Chikyu wo Suku." And as usual, the main event was a long-distance run by a celebrity. This year, "new half" talento Haruna Ai (38) became the first transsexual to take on the challenge. She was reduced to tears when her father was surprise guest on Saturday night, and again when she was welcomed by her mother at the Nippon Budokan on Sunday having completed the 85km run in 25 hours 40 minutes. The gruelling run its toll not only on the knees but also on Haruna's makeup, and she arrived looking a lot more like the Onishi Kenji she was originally named.

We hear a lot on TV about how young comedians struggle financially before establishing their careers. But duo Total Tenbosch have a very lucrative winning streak going. The pair were announced yesterday as the winners for the fifth time in a row of the "S1 Grand Battle, Round 2", a funny video contest sponsored by Softbank Mobile and voted on by the network's mobile phone subscribers. The win landed the duo prize money of ¥10 million, bringing their total from the contest to ¥30 million, and entry to the "S1 Grand Champion" round next March.

For the first time in the long history of X Japan, the country's premier rock band performed a solo show outdoors and they did it with "seven members." Of course, one of those members was the late guitarist Hide, who died in 1998 but is still given honorary band membership. But during their shows at the weekend the five current members were joined for the encore by bassist Taiji, who last played with the band 18 years ago.

The two shows at the Nissan Yokohama Stadium drew 130,000 fans, who were treated to a 12-minute drum solo by band leader Yoshiki. It was the first time for him to perform the hyper-speed solo (he is said to play at 800 beats per minute) since he underwent surgery for a hernia last year. So it was made all the more dramatic by the 10m-high revolving drum stage and the neck brace he wears since the surgery. With the song "Tears" playing in the background, Yoshiki tearfully thanked his fans, saying, "Each and every one of you is the wind beneath our wings."