Lessons from Johnny Kitagawa

LEE YOUNG-HEE
The author is a Tokyo correspondent of the JoongAng Ilbo.

As someone who once fell in love with “Johnny’s World” and became interested in Japanese culture, I have mixed feelings watching the recent situation in Japan. In March, BBC exposed sexual violence by the late Johnny Kitagawa (1931-2019), the founder of the entertainment agency Johnny & Associates.

The situation is settling now, but even after the former trainees victimized by Johnny revealed their faces and held a press conference, the agency initially claimed that Johnny was dead and facts were unknown. But on September 7, the agency acknowledged sexual violence for the first time and apologized. The results of an external expert group’s investigation showed that Johnny sexually exploited at least several hundreds of male trainees for about 50 years.

The Johnny controversy revealed chronic problems of Japanese society. In 1999, weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun reported Johnny’s sexual violence, and in the consequent legal battle, the Supreme Court ruled that the report was true.

However, Japan looked away, fearing the power of Johnny’s with popular groups like SMAP and Arashi. The local media that had kept silent at the time now offer excuses that the awareness that men could be victims of sexual violence did not exist at the time.

The submissive social atmosphere which does not allow challenging authorities, a low awareness of human rights and the passive nature that only addresses problems when criticized by the outer world — mostly the Western media or the United Nations — dragged the issue to this point.

Now, criticism has arisen that such a closed culture in an industry that should be most open has led to the decline of Japanese pop music. The exclusivity of Johnny & Associates, which was extremely picky about even a photo of its entertainers, is notorious.

Though the music industry shifted online long ago, the music of Johnnys’ musicians has become available for streaming only just recently. While Korean artists like BTS used the new media environment to expand worldwide, the Japanese music industry, led by Johnny’s, has been trapped in its own castle and has rotted inside.

After the case broke out, Japanese online communities shared ridiculous stories that the case was a conspiracy by Korean agencies to dominate the Japanese music market. Ironically, such an absurd accusation is proof that even Japan senses a crisis today.

Can Johnny & Associates — which was “everything about Japanese showbiz” — shake off the faults of the founder and rise again? Where Johnny’s affair is headed will be a key rudder deciding the very future of the Japanese music industry — and even Japanese society.