So up front: this is probably the agency, we’ll never know exactly what corporate ghoul pulled this lever, but given what we know about how this shit functions it’s probably the agency.

Because this makes Toei’s job a nightmare.

But besides that...

Worth noting she’s been harassed by tabloids and bad faith actors online for months

She’s also half-Filipino so there’s a pretty high chance part of that target was racism.

The cast & crew are going to have an absolute nightmare on their hands

This is the legacy of the final Super Sentai

Akiko Inoue probably up in the middle of the night right now going

“What the fuck do I even do with this.”

Oh jeez...

This late into the show too

I’ve seen people going “don’t worry surely they’re done filming by now”

lol

Lmao

They don’t know

They don’t know how down to the wire Sentai is filmed

yikes

They might just find a way to pass on the Unicorn ring to someone else while figuring out how to give Sumino's character and arc a proper curtain call

But this is gonna be messy

Yeah but how do you do that without the actress when her entire arc is “winning to save her sister”

last few years they have been able to film at least 2-3 eps ahead so I can see it being a big cut after whatever the current 2 parter will be

Obviously she was never gonna be the winner and they’d have to do something else ANYWAY but

Oh this weeks epsiode aired

Show is officially fucked

-_- Wow. Japan's idol culture is FUCKED....

It sure is. Seems like her agency revoked all use of her and they had to make the best effort to show they did as much as they could in a span of like

10 hours before air.

Jesus Christ that's insane