Michael Jackson Makes The Japanese Scream

Whisper it, but you're witnessing something that many of you thought you'd never see - a Michael Jackson comeback. Slowly but surely, Michael Jackson is edging back into the public eye.

The latest public sighting of Michael Jackson was at an awards ceremony in Tokyo, where he accepted a hastily invented deeply prestigious Legend award at the MTV Japan Video Music Awards ceremony. And in return, Michael Jackson told the Japanese fans that he loves them very much. Which is sweet, if hardly surprising. If you showed Michael Jackson a bottle of badger diarrhea, he'd tell it that he loved it very much.

Now that it's been announced that Michael Jackson will make a new album in Bahrain, all the sneaking around avoiding trouble is coming to an end, to be replaced by the usual bland public statements of love that he more or less made a career out of for 20 years. That means the brilliant tales of transvestite shopping, angry ex-wives claiming that his kids all came from sperm banks and his zoo being full of all sorts of scary giraffe blood exhibits are coming to an end - so make the most of them.

You see, the kooky Michael Jackson is about to be replaced by the anodyne, commercial Michael Jackson. That's the Michael Jackson who unconvincingly says how much he loves London and now who tells the Japanese how much he loves them all the time.

Believe it or not, Michael Jackson's appearance at the MTV Japan Video Music Awards over the weekend was his first since being cleared of child molestation charges last year. And it was a wise way to break his silence, too, since you could stick a top hat on a dried-up octopus and Japanese audiences would go mental for it. Accepting his Legend award - to an introduction where he was called:

"The king of pop, the king of rock and the king of soul,"

Michael Jackson told the Japanese audience:

"I'd like to say to the Japanese people from the bottom of my heart, 'I love you very, very much'. I promised myself I wouldn't be emotional when I got up here… I think you are very sweet, generous and kind people. I thank all the people who believed in me. I believe in you. I thank my children, Prince, Paris and Blanket, who have been there for me. I love them very much."

While Michael Jackson was in Tokyo, he also managed to visit a number of orphanages and meet Japanese business leaders, according to his spokesman. Whether these business meetings had anything to do with the rumoured plans to buy Warners Records with Mohamed Al Fayed remains to be seen. As does the level of spectacular tanking that the new Michael Jackson will achieve.

Read more:

Cheers For Jackson In Rare Ceremony - CNN

[story by Stuart Heritage]