Masashi Tashiro

Masashi Tashiro (田代 まさし) (born August 31, 1956) is a Japanese former television performer and a founding member of the band Rats & Star.

Tashiro was a tenor singer with the band and, later, a TV entertainer in Japan.

He directed a film after the breakup of Rats & Star.

Tashiro was born on August 31, 1956, in Saga Prefecture.

His father, the manager of a cabaret chain, had an affair with another woman; this led to his parents' divorce and his mother raising him alone.

In 1961, when Tashiro was six years old, he and his mother moved to Tokyo and he enrolled in a missionary kindergarten.

In 1963, he enrolled at Toyama Elementary School in Shinjuku.

At age thirteen, when he was a student at Okubo Junior High School, Tashiro's mother remarried.

He enrolled in a higher grade at a private high school and lived with his father so he was not financially dependent on his mother's new husband.

In 1972, after graduating from Nakase Junior High School in March of that year, he entered Shibaura Institute of Technology Senior High School to study mechanical engineering.

Tashiro met Masayuki Suzuki at Shibaura, and they later formed the doo-wop band the Chanels with Nobuyoshi Kuwano.

Tashiro sang baritone, Suzuki was the lead singer, and Kuwano was the trumpet player.

Tashiro was reportedly involved in fights, motorcycle-gang activity, partying at discotheques, and going girl-hunting daily in high school, and was arrested for assault.

He met his wife at the end of his junior year in high school, but they are now separated due to his scandals and arrests.

In March 1975, Tashiro graduated from Shibaura.

Around this time, he began driving and developed an interest in cars; his first car was a Nissan Sunny.

Later cars were a Nissan Gloria, a Camaro, a Ford, a Honda Prelude, and a Mercedes-Benz.

In June 1975, Tashiro ran away from home after an argument with his father.

He was taken in by Chanels member Hiroyuki Kuboki and worked as a clerk at the same gas station, living in the company dormitory for two years.

The Chanels were formed in 1975, and began performing as an amateur band in 1976.

They finished first place on the Japanese television program Ginza Now (ギンザNOW) and won a prize in a music contest sponsored by Yamaha.

Tashiro became a truck driver in 1978 when he was hired by the president of a trucking company which patronized his gas station.

Although he had already formed the band, he reportedly kept his job as a truck driver.

Tashiro made his debut as a group member in 1980, and they became known for their rhythm and blues style.

The four main singers, including Tashiro, wore blackface (using shoe polish).

Their first single, "Runaway", sold over one million copies.

The group's May 1981 single, "Hurricane", was covered by Puffy AmiYumi in 2001.

In 1983, the group changed their name to Rats & Star because of the similarly-named French fashion brand Chanel.

They broke up in 1986 after leader Suzuki released a solo single, "The Summer Disappeared Over the Glass" (ガラス越しに消えた夏).

Tashiro appeared on the TV music show The Best Ten (ザ・ベストテン), and was a lyricist for singer and actress Kyōko Koizumi.

He released the record, The Legend of Niijima (新島の伝説), as a solo artist.

On July 10, 1988, Tashiro opened a tarento shop called "Marcy's" (マーシーズ) (after his nickname) on Takeshita Street in Shibuya, Tokyo.

He appeared in television commercials, hosted television programs, wrote an autobiography and a book about puns, directed a film and was the main character in the Famicom/MSX2 action game Tashiro Masashi no Princess ga Ippai, which was released in Japan on October 27, 1989.

In March 1996, Rats & Star reunited for six months and covered Eiichi Ohtaki's song "If I Could Meet You in a Dream" (夢で逢えたら) the following month.

The song was a hit, and they appeared on NHK's Kōhaku Uta Gassen on New Year's Eve of that year.

After Rats & Star broke up, Tashiro's comedic ability was discovered by Drifters member Ken Shimura and he became a television comedian.

As a comedian, he was nicknamed the "King of puns" (ダジャレの帝王) and "Genius of props" (小道具の天才).

In September 2000, Tashiro was referred to prosecutors for filming up a woman's skirt.

From 2020 to 2022, he was incarcerated in Fukushima Prison for violating the Methamphetamine Control Law.

After his release in October 2022, Tashiro began his YouTube Marcy's Channel on August 4, 2023.