I agree with this. A fine and a PSA would have been fitting enough.

I honestly don't think this is due to the drinking. I think the apology would've been enough in that regard. The situation with the affair with Gozuwolf's suit actor is likely what stirred the pot with her agency; that tabloid has a vendetta against her. I remember seeing somewhere that they went and had written another article, but I'd have to go back and confirm.

In any case, I think her agency was just looking for an excuse after that, and the alcohol incident provided them with a hasty reason. If Toei had known she'd be gone well in advance, they wouldn't have handled everything so suddenly and haphazardly, the other actors wouldn't have had to suddenly readjust their own schedules, ect. Not to absolve Toei of any blame, but from what I understand, keeping her under their employment while her contract was terminated with her agency would've resulted in some legal issues.

All around, an unfortunate series of events. Hope she can recover from this in some way, but I dunno. Sucks that she was targeted like that in the first place.

Apparantly Seju, the agency in question, is paying for the reshoots after all this mess out of their own pocket to make it up to Toei

https://x.com/Gozyu_toei/status/1989604285403791440

Kohaku Shida (OniSister in Donbrothers) will be replacing Maya Imamori as Sumino Ichikawa starting from episode 40.

I enjoyed her work in DonBros so that's good.

Also, it might be entirely out of necessity, so that they don’t have to rewrite the show, but I'm glad it sounds like a recast and not a replacement of the character.

Episode 40 means like what though, 3 more episodes getting cut to oblivion and beyond to remove Sumino? Ouch.

Impossible to avoid since filming must’ve wrapped up for this particular set, but still.

Oh well, I will live long enough for grass to grow over this stupid nonsense matter and the cut episodes being released in full for an anniversary or something.

I wonder if what was supposed to be the Sumino-centric 38th episode will be episode 40 but including reshot scenes featuring Shida.

Well, they decided to go this route... Not my favorite, but obviously introducing a new character would have required a lot more reshoots, and ideally, a completely new version of episodes, so the desire to save money is understandable. Plus, Shida is already familiar to franchise fans, which means she'll avoid the hate that's typical in cases of replacement. And now I'm really interested to see her as a top-class luxury detective. So, overall, it wasn't the worst decision.

She's also experienced and has a good rapport with the crew, which means she's used to Toei's tight scheduling as opposed to if they decided to bring in an entirely new actress 3/4ths through the series.

This is the best possible solution to an impossible situation.

No disrespect to Shida, but recasting Sumino is going to be a problem for viewers' suspension of disbelief, myself included. I was hoping they'd go the Bioman route instead so we could just move on from this.

They probably had to go with the recast because Sumino may be integral to the final arc, and they would have had to reshoot everything from scratch to explain her away. The Yellow Four situation was at least early enough in the show for it to not be THAT disruptive (and it's not like Bioman is a very plot or character driven season).

The fact is there was no solution that was going to please everyone, so Toei went with the one that made the most logistical sense.

Oh yeah, I totally get the logistical problems and I'm not saying Toei are being cheap or anything like that, they're clearly struggling to make everything work in this mess the damn agency caused them. I'm basically just saying that, as a fan up till now, this sucks.

(Bioman is still the most plot and character driven season for its time though and we can see in Episode 15 how the change of Yellow Four has an impact on Hikaru's development arc)

A concise report regarding this whole situation. Most of it is just recitation and streamlining, but it gets the point across for anyone who isn't immediately familiar.

https://tokusatsunetwork.com/2025/11...-maya-imamori/