The Most Stupid Incident in Human History

The biggest surprise was that the big boss in the most influential pop talent agency in Japan appeared to the public and apologized. The president of Johnny and Associates, Keiko “Julie” Fujishima, on Thursday announced her resignation and her willingness to compensate to the sufferers of sexual abuse by its late founder, Johnny Kitagawa. While the agency hopes to rebuild itself with new president, Noriyuki Higashiyama, one of the popular talents affiliated with Johnny’s, no actual roadmap is presented so far.

The special team for preventing the same kind of abuse reported last month that Johnny Kitagawa had been abusing his young male talents, mostly teenagers, from 1950s to the middle of 2010’s. The team found the number of the sufferers as hundreds. If a talent rejected the abuse, he would have been ill-treated in the show business, and silent sufferers would have been promoted. Higashiyama called it as “the most stupid incident in human history” in the press conference on Thursday.

 

In the same press conference, Fujishima admitted that the abuse really existed in past activities, changing her attitude of ignorance since former young talents began to speak out this spring. She revealed that she stepped down as the president and handed it over to Higashiyama. Fujishima will remain in the executive board of the company to deal with its effort for salvage and compensation for the former suffered talents. She still holds a hundred percent of the company’s stock.

 

To devote his entire life for the issue, Higashiyama announced that he would finish his activities as a talent by the end of this year. He is, however, a novice as a manager of an enterprise. To the questions on his own scandals about power harassment and violence against his younger colleagues, Higashiyama told he could not remember all of his deeds. He was ambiguous about whether the name of the company, Johnny’s, would be changed or not, to which one former sufferer of the abuse objected.

 

The incident already damaged the business of Johnny’s. According to a report of Asahi Shimbun, Japan Air Line decided not to use the talents with Johnny’s for its advertisement for the time being. For the fans of Johnny’s talents, supporting their favorite talents means supporting Johnny’s type of business established with inappropriate abuse against human rights for decades. There was no message but apology from Johnny’s board members to their fans.

 

The scandal was refocused by a report of BBC this spring. Media outlets are responsible for not positively reporting about hidden abuses. There must be a structure of consideration to Johnny’s power in the entertainment business. Johnny’s talents are actually the cash cows for many corporations or TV stations. The fact that the scandal was spotlighted by a foreign news agency revealed the vulnerability of Japan economy to foreign pressure, or gaiatsu.

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