Was Mizutani Really Furious With Oikawa? Revisiting AIBOU’s 2012 Exit Rumors

Did Yutaka Mizutani really force Mitsuhiro Oikawa out of AIBOU because he was furious with him?

Oikawa, affectionately known as “Mitchy” in Japan, played Takeru Kanbe, the second partner of detective Ukyo Sugishita (Mizutani) in AIBOU: Tokyo Detective Duo. When he left the series in 2012, rumors of a personal feud followed him.

One particularly persistent story suggested that Mizutani had been angered by reports about Oikawa dining with another woman. Oikawa’s later divorce from actress Rei Dan has also become tangled up in recollections of that controversy.

But the dates immediately raise a problem.

Kanbe left the Special Task Unit on March 21, 2012. Oikawa and Dan announced their divorce on November 28, 2018—more than six and a half years later.

So when was Mizutani supposedly furious, and what exactly was he angry about? More importantly, what did Mizutani himself eventually say?

I went back to TV Asahi’s official records, the contemporary tabloid reports, the 2012 departure press conference and an excerpt from Mizutani’s autobiography published online in 2026. The chronology tells a rather different story from the one I half-remembered.

In 2011, Mizutani Publicly Celebrated Oikawa’s Marriage

Let’s start with something considerably less sensational: an official AIBOU staff blog post dated July 28, 2011.

Oikawa and Rei Dan had appeared together in the Season 8 New Year’s special, “Tokumei-gakari, Nishi e!” (“The Special Task Unit Goes West!”), broadcast on January 1, 2010. Dan played a woman who had dated Kanbe during his student years.

Their fictional connection eventually led to a real-life marriage in July 2011.

TV Asahi’s production staff published a congratulatory message, including a personal comment from Mizutani.

Mizutani expressed his delight that his television partner had found a partner in life. He even joked that Dan was someone he would have recommended himself, before congratulating “Mitchan,” his affectionate nickname for Oikawa.

It was a warm, playful message—not the sort of public statement one normally associates with a bitter professional rivalry.

At least as of July 2011, Mizutani had publicly welcomed the marriage.

Of course, a congratulatory message cannot establish what happened between the two actors afterward. And roughly two months later, a very different kind of story appeared.

Where the “Mizutani Was Furious” Rumor Came From

The September 27, 2011 issue release of the Japanese weekly magazine Josei Jishin reported that Oikawa had spent time with a woman other than his wife. The magazine described the outing as an umbrella-sharing date.

Oikawa responded through his official website that same day.

He acknowledged having dinner with a female friend but denied sharing an umbrella with her. He also rejected reports that he and Dan were living separately.

The crucial distinction here is that the dinner was acknowledged, while the more suggestive elements of the reporting were disputed. Neither fact establishes an affair.

On February 7, 2012, about four months later, TV Asahi announced that Kanbe would leave the series at the end of Season 10.

Then, on February 15, Josei Jishin published another report. Citing an unnamed television-industry source, it claimed that Oikawa’s behavior had angered Mizutani and contributed to his departure.

Let’s put the public record in chronological order.

Date	Documented Event
July 28, 2011	Mizutani’s congratulatory message appears on the official AIBOU staff blog
September 27, 2011	Magazine report about a dinner outing; Oikawa publicly disputes parts of the account
February 7, 2012	Kanbe’s departure announced at an official press conference
February 15, 2012	Josei Jishin reports allegations of anger and a personal feud
March 21, 2012	Kanbe leaves the Special Task Unit in the Season 10 finale, “Crime and Punishment”
November 28, 2018	Oikawa and Dan formally announce their divorce
July 13, 2023	First edition of Yutaka Mizutani’s autobiography is published
January 28, 2026	Paperback edition of the autobiography is released
April 21, 2026	Bunshun Online publishes an autobiography excerpt addressing the feud rumors

Two conclusions emerge immediately.

The 2018 divorce could not have caused a departure that happened in 2012. But a contemporary magazine article linking the earlier 2011 report to the departure genuinely existed.

The question is not whether the tabloid published the allegation. It did.

The question is whether the allegation accurately described why Oikawa left the show.

AI-generated illustration imagining an entertainment-magazine newsroom in 2012. The people, photographs and documents are fictional; this is not an actual reporting scene or a reproduction of evidence.

Did the Tabloid Confuse Sugishita’s Anger With Mizutani’s?

There is another revealing detail in that February 15, 2012 Josei Jishin article.

It described a storyline in the upcoming Season 10 finale in which Ukyo Sugishita and Takeru Kanbe would clash over a morally troubling decision. Kanbe would eventually be transferred out of the Special Task Unit.

The magazine then cited an anonymous source suggesting that Mizutani’s personal wishes must have been reflected in the script.

Now, hold on a minute.

Sugishita is a fictional detective played by Mizutani. Kanbe is a fictional detective played by Oikawa.

Those distinctions may sound ridiculously obvious. Yet the article’s reasoning depended on bringing the fictional dispute remarkably close to the actors’ real relationship.

The actual Season 10 finale, “Crime and Punishment,” dealt with a case involving human cloning and a conflict between Sugishita’s and Kanbe’s views of justice. Kanbe ultimately returned to the National Police Agency.

Within the drama, Sugishita and Kanbe could disagree fiercely while serving the story exactly as intended.

Sugishita being angry with Kanbe on screen is not evidence that Mizutani was angry with Oikawa behind the cameras—much less that he arranged to have Oikawa removed.

There is a second missing link: the anonymous comments do not establish who made the final creative decisions, or why.

This is where a dramatic interpretation of a television script risks becoming an unsupported claim about real people.

What the Official 2012 Departure Conference Actually Said

Fortunately, the other side of the contemporary record is unusually well preserved.

TV Asahi’s official staff blog contains a detailed account of the February 7, 2012 press conference attended by Mizutani, Oikawa and general producer Motohiro Matsumoto.

Matsumoto described Kanbe’s departure as a creative development intended to keep the series fresh for viewers. The decision was presented as one accepted by both actors.

Oikawa said he had learned of the decision through discussions with Matsumoto. He spoke of his three years on the series as an intense and satisfying period, likening the departure to graduating from school.

There was even room for a joke. Mizutani compared his own much longer tenure on the show to that of a student who kept repeating a year.

Does joking at a press conference prove that the actors were genuinely close? Of course not. Public appearances are not private diaries.

But the official account did not describe a disciplinary removal. It presented the departure as a planned change in the show’s continuing story.

And there is a particularly important contemporary report.

ORICON NEWS reported on February 7, 2012, that Kanbe’s departure at the end of Season 10 had been planned from the outset.

That statement was publicly reported in 2012, not invented in a later attempt to explain away the controversy.

The existence of a report does not give us access to private contracts or production meetings. But it matters greatly when we compare it with Mizutani’s later explanation.

Mizutani’s Autobiography Adds the Missing Context

On April 21, 2026, Bunshun Online published an excerpt from Yutaka Mizutani: Autobiography, issued by Shinchosha, that addressed his relationship with Oikawa.

The book was not originally published in 2026. Its first edition appeared on July 13, 2023, followed by a paperback edition on January 28, 2026. The online excerpt brought the relevant account back into public discussion.

In the passage, Mizutani rejected the idea that he and Oikawa had been at odds. He recalled how Oikawa himself had wondered why the media kept portraying them as enemies when they were so close.

More importantly, Mizutani explained why a three-year run had made sense.

Oikawa was not solely an actor. He was also an established singer with concert tours to plan. Appearing regularly in AIBOU required him to reduce or rearrange parts of his music schedule.

According to Mizutani, he had felt that asking Oikawa to commit to approximately three seasons was already a substantial demand. He appreciated the effort Oikawa had made to accommodate the series.

Now compare this with the 2012 press conference and reporting.

Oikawa had described his three seasons as a natural graduation point. Contemporary reporting said the Season 10 departure had been anticipated from the beginning. Mizutani’s later account supplied a practical reason: the demands of Oikawa’s music career.

The idea of a three-season departure was already in the public record in 2012. The autobiography excerpt published online in 2026 offers an explanation for that arrangement rather than introducing a completely new timeline.

That is a much stronger comparison than simply declaring that Mizutani denied the feud fourteen years later.

Still, the autobiography is Mizutani’s retrospective account. Without access to the original contracts or the full production discussions, it cannot independently settle every question about what happened backstage.

AI-generated illustration of an imagined television-drama set. Conflict between fictional characters and relationships between real actors are separate matters. This does not recreate an actual AIBOU production meeting or conversation.

And What About the 2018 Divorce?

Oikawa and Rei Dan announced their divorce in a jointly signed statement on November 28, 2018.

They explained that their respective careers had demanded so much attention that they had struggled to maintain enough time and emotional space for their marriage.

Nothing in that announcement established a connection to Oikawa’s departure from AIBOU more than six years earlier.

Here is the precise calculation.

From March 21, 2012, the broadcast date of Kanbe’s farewell episode, to November 28, 2018, the date of the divorce announcement, there were 2,443 elapsed calendar days—six years, eight months and seven days.

The calculation excludes the starting date, as an ordinary difference between two dates does.

The 2011 report about dinner with a female friend predates Oikawa’s departure. That makes it chronologically possible for people to have discussed it during the show’s final months, but it does not establish that the report caused the departure.

The 2018 divorce is different. It occurred well afterward.

Conflating those two events into a story in which Mizutani became angry about the divorce and removed Oikawa in 2012 requires a remarkable trick: making the supposed cause happen more than six years after the effect.

It’s a tidy scandal story. It just doesn’t survive contact with a calendar.

Fourteen Years Later, Kanbe Is Coming Back

Then came an announcement that made the old feud narrative look even more peculiar.

On October 13, 2026, TV Asahi confirmed that Season 25 would feature another partner handover. Kaoru Kameyama, Sugishita’s original partner, would make way for Takeru Kanbe—the same detective who had replaced him in 2009.

Oikawa was returning as Sugishita’s sixth partner tenure after leaving the regular role in 2012.

Does bringing him back prove that there was never any disagreement on set fourteen years earlier? No. A later professional reunion cannot establish everything that happened in the past.

But consider the evidence together: the 2012 departure conference, contemporary reporting about the planned three-season tenure, Mizutani’s retrospective account and the decision to bring Oikawa back.

A simple narrative of permanent banishment following an angry personal dispute no longer explains the record very well.

What we can establish is that the feud allegation was reported, its proposed cause was not substantiated, and Mizutani later explicitly disputed the supposed breakdown in their relationship.

What we cannot establish is that every private conversation during the production was entirely harmonious.

That distinction is precisely why revisiting an old entertainment rumor is worth doing.

Editor’s Note

I went into this with a half-remembered piece of entertainment gossip rattling around in my head: Mitchy’s marriage had fallen apart, Mizutani had been furious, and that was why Oikawa disappeared from AIBOU.

Then I checked the dates.

Oikawa left in 2012. The divorce came more than six years later. Apparently Mizutani would have needed a time machine to be angry about it in advance.

But the original tabloid reporting was more specific—and more interesting—than my unreliable memory. It connected the departure to a 2011 report about dinner with a woman, then brought in a television script in which Sugishita was angry with Kanbe.

There it was: the fictional detective’s anger and the actor’s supposed anger, edging suspiciously close to becoming the same story.

That is the kind of thing an old-fashioned entertainment magazine could turn into a cracking headline. Whether it proved anything was another matter entirely.

By contrast, the 2012 press conference included jokes, contemporary reporting described a planned three-season run, and Mizutani’s autobiography later rejected the feud narrative. Now Kanbe is returning to the series.

I’m not inclined to scrub fourteen years of production history clean simply because a later account sounds reassuring. But I’m equally reluctant to keep treating an old anonymous allegation as settled fact.

What really caught my attention wasn’t who was angry with whom. It was how a quarrel written for two fictional detectives could become part of a supposed quarrel between the men playing them.

Maybe that made for a more entertaining article. Maybe a television drama that popular simply encourages people to imagine that the drama continues after the cameras stop rolling.

Either way, the dates and the original sources make a better story than the rumor alone.

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