After multiple drug arrests and numerous peeping incidents, Masashi Tashiro has been banned from Japanese television for years. He's now popping up in a music video for doujin shooting game Touhou Project.
Tashiro was a popular comedian during the 1980s and 1990s. He was a regular on variety programs and comedy shows. Even the country's most famous funny men sang Tashiro's praises as a comic giant.
In 2000, Tashiro was arrested at a Tokyo train station for filming up a woman's skirt with a camcorder. After begging for another chance to return to television, he began appearing again on variety shows in 2001.
Later that year, he was arrested again for peeping. This time, however, he was caught with a camcorder near a male's bath. A search of his home turned up drugs, compounding his problems. (It is also believed that he even filmed celebrities like Norika Fujiwara changing clothes in their changing room.)
Japanese bulletin board 2ch wryly voted for him for Time's 2001 "Person of the Year".
His last appearance on mainstream Japanese television was in 2003. He has been blacklisted from Japanese entertainment. This means he doesn't appear on variety shows. His name is not mentioned on TV either. If he appears in an old clip in, say, the background, his face is blurred out. It is as if he has been erased. He pretty much has been.
The following year didn't prove any better. In 2004, he was picked up for carrying a knife, was involved in a car accident after making an illegal turn and was arrested yet again for drugs.
Touhou Project fan group Frontier Create, not the developer per se, is launching a CD, and Tashiro is collaborating on the tracks. He appears in this video and references his past indiscretions.
In recent years, Tashiro has made a comeback of sorts via his blog and the internet.
This isn't Tashiro's first venture into gaming. In 1989, Tashiro designed his own Famicom game "Tashiro Masashi no Princess ga Ippai". The title was developed by Epic Sony Record, a Sony spin-off that made Famicom games.