I keep seeing things like this where smoking being cool and sexy and so forth is like a fundamental assumption, and it really just throws me - where I'm from (Australia) smoking is pretty widely seen as nasty and dirty as well as unhealthy. It seems like in most Asian countries it's still got the cool vibe associated with it, even though they clearly get the health risks . . .
It's been interesting to watch it go out of fashion in real-world Japan over the past 20-25 years or so. When I first went to Tokyo, everyone smoked everywhere. Indoors, outdoors, restaurants, whatever. Men and women alike. It was like watching Mad Men. Nowadays it's almost as hard to light up as in a big American city. Earlier this year they even shut down the smoking rooms on the bullet train.
Anyway, Japanese popular media is a little behind the real-life trend, but I figure it's gonna catch up soon enough.