A years-old family anecdote involving musician and actor Pierre Taki (ピエール瀧) is making the rounds on X all over again, after a fan’s post recounting it went viral this week. According to the story, Taki’s own daughter once filmed herself perfectly recreating his now-infamous deep, contrite bow from the day he was released on bail following his 2019 arrest for cocaine possession, then showed the footage to his Denki Groove bandmate Ishino Takkyu (石野卓球), who reportedly burst out laughing.
The anecdote traces back to a conversation Taki and Takkyu had on the Nippon Broadcasting radio program Knights the Radio Show, which X user @fujigelge resurfaced in a post that quickly picked up steam. Commenters were struck less by the arrest itself, which is old news in Japan, than by how unbothered Taki’s daughter apparently was about turning her father’s lowest public moment into a dead-on impression. A related Smart FLASH report quoted Taki responding to his daughter’s bow with evident pride, saying he was “glad she grew up to be a tough kid.”
Taki was arrested in March 2019 on cocaine possession charges and later received a suspended sentence, a case that put his acting and music career on hold for a period. Takkyu, his longtime partner in the electronic duo Denki Groove, has never shied away from referencing the incident on stage or on air in the years since, including an often-quoted moment when he first heard about the arrest and asked, half-joking, “Wait, isn’t that the death penalty?” The two have continued performing together, with the arrest becoming something of a recurring bit between them rather than a topic they avoid.
Who is Pierre Taki?
Pierre Taki is a Japanese actor and musician best known as one half of the pioneering techno duo Denki Groove, which he formed in 1989, alongside a long career appearing in Japanese films, television dramas, and commercials. His 2019 cocaine arrest briefly halted both his music and acting work, but he has since gradually returned to both fields, including resuming live performances with Denki Groove and taking on new acting roles.
Author’s Comment
Only in Japan could a father’s drug arrest curdle into a beloved running bit on national radio, years later, with his own kid delivering the encore. I love that this family didn’t try to bury the headline, they just played it back, bow and all, like it was a group inside joke. That takes a specific kind of household confidence most PR teams would never allow. And the fact that Ishino Takkyu is still the one cracking up on the other end of that video tells you everything about why Denki Groove fans stuck around through the whole mess, the friendship clearly survived the scandal intact. Japan loves a redemption arc, but I did not expect the funniest chapter of this one to come from a teenager with a camera phone.
