Saika Kawakita exposed to having a romantic affair with volleyball player Ran Takahashi

Photos of Saika Kawakita and Ran Takahashi out on a date from Shunkan Bunshun

On October 22, 2025, Japanese tabloid Shunkan Bunshun published an article spotting volleyball player Ran Takahashi on a date with Saika Kawakita. The tabloid got pictures of Ran and Saika entering a private restaurant with karaoke until 3:30 in the morning and afterwards hailing a taxi and checking into a hotel for the night. The reporters waited until morning and ambushed Ran for an interview where he stated that he is only friends with Saika and the influencer named uka. Uka being Ran’s “serious girlfriend” was also exposed by Shunkan Bunshun a day before her rendezvous with Saika was published. This comes as a surprise to everyone as Ran Takahashi has been one of the most desirable bachelors in Japan right now.

Ran Takahashi gained popularity after his stellar volleyball play earning him the MVP award in high school. This led to him becoming the youngest player ever to be picked up by the Japanese National Volleyball team at the age of 19 and representing the country in the 2020 Olympics. After the Olympics he was living in Europe as he was picked up by a professional team in the Italian Volleyball league until last year where he decided to continue his career back in Japan

Internationally the main focus of this scandal has been Ran being branded as a cheater. International fans of his have been quite disappointed with him two-timing uka and Saika Kawakita. Adding to the irony of the situation is a now viral clip of Ran answering a question from a fan asking “what is the worst type of man?” with him replying “a cheater”. This scandal has also destroyed Ran’s wholesome facade in the eyes of overseas fans. The backlash from international fans comes from his time playing abroad and in the Olympics and how anime fans had a romanticised view of professional volleyball players from Haikyu.

Ran has also been dubbed the prince of Japanese volleyball, with his looks and charming personality has gained him almost 3 million instagram followers, the most for any Japanese volleyball player. He has also maintained his popularity with multiple fan events, endorsements and media appearances. Ran having a huge following have inevitably led people to pry into his personal life to which Ran has been very private about, until now. A celebrity being exposed as a womaniser shouldn’t really be a big deal right? looking into the reactions from this has led me to two aspects of this report that blew this article out of proportion.

In Japan the growing sentiment has been trashing Ran Takahashi for involving himself with “less than ideal” women. Being the prince of Japanese volleyball, the Japanese public are expecting his personal relationships to have a higher standard and not interacting with lowly influencers and JAV actresses. While the Japanese volleyball fans are question if Ran’s affairs negatively impacted the national teams disappointing showing in the Volleyball Nations League (VNL) where they failed to make it out of groups. Aside from uka and Saika, Shunkan Bunshuns article also stated how Ran and another teammate were spotted going out partying and having group dates in Roppongi through the late night. This has worried the fans of the sport as they begin to question the attitude and competitiveness of the players especially with their recent poor performances

A day after the article was released Ran Takahashi issued a statement issuing an apology to the trouble he caused due to his private relationships and seems to be shying away from the controversy by focusing on the sport. Unfortunately both uka and Saika Kawakita have been silent on the matter up to today. I for one am quite worried with how Saika’s career will manage from this. She was already expanding her activities outside of JAV with her releasing a song under her singing stage name “Moena” and appearing in a television drama in September. Hopefully she is able to pull through from this affair like how Jun Suehiro resumed her activites this June after her baseball player scandal, and I pray that she won’t end up like Ai Hongo who has been missing from the public eye ever since her incident with a streamer. However I believe that there is more to this story as deep into the transcript of Shunkan Bunshun's ambush interview with Ran Takahashi, where he denied having relationship with the women and stating they are just friends, was a question about his involvement with a "Ms. XX" which the tabloid only annotated with "a different JAV actress". I believe the publication is just waiting for an opportune time to release another one of the volleyball prince's affairs.

A day after the article was released Ran Takahashi issued a statement issuing an apology to the trouble he caused due to his private relationships and seems to be shying away from the controversy by focusing on the sport. Unfortunately both uka and Saika Kawakita have been silent on the matter up to today. I for one am quite worried with how Saika’s career will manage from this. She was already expanding her activities outside of JAV with her releasing a song under her singing stage name “Moena” and appearing in a television drama in September. Hopefully she is able to pull through from this affair like how Jun Suehiro resumed her activites this June after her baseball player scandal, and I pray that she won’t end up like Ai Hongo who has been missing from the public eye ever since her incident with a streamer. However I believe that there is more to this story as deep into the transcript of Shunkan Bunshun's ambush interview with Ran Takahashi, where he denied having relationship with the women and stating they are just friends, was a question about his involvement with a "Ms. XX" which the tabloid only annotated with "a different JAV actress". I believe the publication is just waiting for an opportune time to release another one of the volleyball prince's affairs.