Johnnys Jimusho

[suki*]

One of the grand senpais of JE, Kondo 'Matchy' Masahiko's latest round of concert tours just ended 30 June 2006 but his next gig's already lined up and on Valentine's Day no less!

Kondo Masahiko Valentine's Day Concert 2007



14 February 2007 : Tokyo Nippon Budokan ( 1830hrs )



Who's going??

[BigDnm01]

there are some questions i would like to ask about the relationship of idols.  Are johnny's allowed to have girlfriends (or boyfriends if they so desire)?  and what are the fan's reaction to this? how does the Jimusho handle this? 

i'm asking cuz with the girls, mainly H!P, it seems that UFA, their management company, doesn't wish for them to engage in relationship. and when they do, something happen, kinda like the yaguchi scandal back in early 2005, resignation as MM leader and the current Tsuji thing, which is putting her career in jeopardy.
i wonder if UFA and Johnny act the same in such situations.  i dunno much, but it seems that the media in general are more tolerant towards male idols, correct? or it mostly due to fans reactions and stuff. 
i compare H!P/UFA with Johnny's Jimusho because, they are talent/idol management company that manage people of specific gender.
i dunno much about japanese entertainment industry cuz i've only grown to love it for less than a year, and the fact that i live in USA, therefore i'm ignorant of their customs and traditions, the way they handle their business. therefore i ask.

[suki*]

Hmm... Good and very interesting question. I don't think that I'm gonna give a really good/informed response coz I'm kinda out of the loop (and I mostly follow the more mature groups in JE) but from my understanding, this is how it goes...

JE's stand with their idols having relationships is the same as any other agency coz most of the time when there's a rumour coming around of one of their idols dating someone, more often than not a denial is issued. I am not 100% sure of this but I think towards famous couples like Nagase Tomoya/ Hamasaki Ayumi, Inohara Yoshihiko/ Seto Asaka and previously Kokubun Taichi/ Aiko, the agency's stand is neutral, i.e. they don't comment or get involved in it. If my memory serves me well, even in the latest big dating news in the JE scene (which is between Shonentai's Higashiyama and the actress Uchiyama Rina), it was the girl's agency that acknowledged the relationship, not JE...

In any case, my personal feeling is that the Japanese media and public in general are more forgiving towards the males. (Unless you're Kondo Masahiko, but then again, he's still around and with a career... )

If you want to talk about dekichatta kekkon, JE's most famous example is Kimura Takuya who married Kudo Shizuka coz she was pregnant with his child. Given that he's still in JE and still very much popular in Japan even though he's now a father of two, I would say that yes, their public is still very receptive towards males idols moving on with the normal course of life of mating and starting families. But that said, the parties involved were already full-fledged adults by the time they got pushed into marriage coz of the kid...

I don't know as to why there's such a difference between the treatment of male and female idols really... My guess is that the shelf life of a female idol is very much limited hence, if they do anything to jeopardise their careers while they are still young and marketable, the agency will react quite adversely to it coz the females don't have the luxury of time to recover from scandal? Either that or their ideal female is one who is virtuous, pure and clean and therefore any open involvement with males would give them an "unclean" image hence making them less marketable than they would have been?

Saa.... =P

[kounyia]

Omgosh -

January 30, 2000
In Japan, Tarnishing a Star Maker
By CALVIN SIMS

In the cutthroat world of Japanese show business, which is dominated by teenage idols, few people exercise the power and creative genius of Johnny Kitagawa.

As president of Johnny's Jimusho, the country's top talent agency, Mr. Kitagawa has a knack for creating young male stars who sing, dance, act and make him millions of dollars along the way.

So influential is the 68-year-old Mr. Kitagawa that media analysts and reporters say he has tightly controlled what newspapers, magazines and television programs report about his clients and himself.

Indeed, no credible media organization in Japan had crossed him until last fall when Shukan Bunshun, one of Japan's largest magazines, began publishing a series of articles accusing him of having sexual liaisons with teenage boys he had groomed for stardom.

''If you're a television station and you don't comply with Johnny's Jimusho's wishes then all the popular stars will be withdrawn from your programs, your variety shows will not get any interviews with celebrities, and your ratings will plummet,'' said Masaru Nashimoto, an entertainment reporter. ''The same thing goes for publications,'' he added.

Since the articles began appearing in late October, Mr. Kitigawa's agency has declared war on the magazine. It has accused Shukan Bunshun of publishing lies, filed a libel suit and denied its requests for promotional photos and interviews with acts managed by Mr. Kitagawa. The magazine's sister publications have also been denied access to Mr. Kitagawa's groups.

None of Japan's other major news media have reported the magazine's accusations or Mr. Kitagawa's lawsuit. Neither have they taken note of several tell-all books written in recent years by men who claimed that as young boys Mr. Kitagawa forced sex on them and others.

Hiroshi Fujita, a journalism professor at Sophia University in Tokyo, said he was not surprised. The Kitagawa story, he said, reflects the well-known weaknesses of the Japanese press. ''The Japanese media tend to be quite cautious and timid when it comes to sensitive subjects like sex, the royal family and right-wing groups,'' Mr. Fujita said. ''Only if the authorities launch an investigation of Mr. Kitagawa, we can expect widespread media coverage.''

Most reporters rely on official news sources and rarely dig up information beyond that provided by government agencies, corporations and public relations firms. Many reporters belong to official press clubs established by government ministries, and the reporters dutifully report what the ministries want to say.

Kiyondo Matsui, Shukan Bunshun's editor in chief, is proud of the Kitagawa stories because after the first article appeared, his magazine received a flood of information from boys and men who had been part of Johnny's Jimusho. The information was so compelling that the magazine, despite pressure from Mr. Kitagawa's lawyers, decided to proceed with what became a 10-part series.

For two months, reporters at Shukan Bunshun interviewed about a dozen teenage boys. While initially reluctant to talk, the boys eventually recounted their experiences after assurances that their identities would not be disclosed.

The articles have sent shock waves across the entertainment business, not only because of their graphic descriptions but also because of their potential to dethrone Mr. Kitagawa, the industry's most powerful broker.

''This is the first time that a publication with a good reputation and a large circulation has written about this,'' said Jinichiro Sudo, a former entertainment reporter who is now a local assemblyman in Tokyo.

For the moment, however, Mr. Kitagawa's reign appears as strong as ever. He declined to be interviewed for this article, but his lawyer, Tsugio Yada, said in an interview that the sexual abuse allegations against his client were a ''complete fabrication.''

''Johnny Kitagawa is a good person with a great reputation, and no one believes the lies that were published,'' Mr. Yada said. ''Writing a story based on the confession of people who are now separated from the talent agency is not a reliable way of reporting.''

According to the articles, the boys took part in Mr. Kitagawa's talent training corps, in which they received singing and dancing lessons and did promotional activities in the hope of making it into one of Mr. Kitagawa's major groups.

Some of the boys told the magazine that they regularly had sexual relations with Mr. Kitagawa because they feared that if they refused he would not advance their careers, and that boys who did refuse were ejected from the training program.

Through Shukan Bunshun, The New York Times tried to get in touch with the boys quoted in the magazine series, but all of them refused to be interviewed.

But one former member of a 1970's era teenage group managed by Johnny's Jimusho told The New York Times in an interview that Mr. Kitagawa raped him when he was a 12-year-old recruit.

The man reluctantly agreed to the interview on the condition that his name not be used, for fear that he might lose his job as a musician. At his request, the interview took place in a Tokyo hotel room with a reporter from Shukan Bunshun, which arranged the meeting.

Now in his 40's and married, he nervously recounted how he and other boys had suffered. After reading the initial articles in the magazine, the man said, he decided to tell his story because he was outraged that Mr. Kitagawa was continuing to sexually abuse boys.

''I didn't like what was going on,'' he said. ''But if I said no I would have been kicked out and there was nowhere else for me to go.''

According to articles in Japanese publications, Mr. Kitagawa and his older sister Mary, 71, with whom he runs the agency, were raised in Los Angeles.

Mr. Kitagawa and sister returned to Japan in the early 1950's, and in 1962, he started his career as a manager of young male talent. Mr. Kitagawa had his first major success with the Four Leaves, one of the the decade's most popular groups.

From there, Mr. Kitagawa displayed a golden touch for forming groups aimed at teenage girls. The most profitable has been a diverse group of five young men called SMAP, whose members are the hottest draw on Japanese television.

In 1997, the most recent year in which statistics were available, AERA magazine said that Johnny's Jimusho's clients appeared in about 40 television programs and 40 commercials for products from food to life insurance.

Mr. Nashimoto, the entertainment reporter, said he regretted that his and other media organizations had been reluctant to explore the sexual abuse allegations, even after the books making similar accusations against Mr. Kitagawa were published.

''If the mass media, including myself, had fully investigated these claims a long time ago, especially when the books first came out, then maybe we could have prevented other boys from suffering abuse,'' he said.

<a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A02E7DE1F3CF933A05752C0A9669C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print">Link to article</a>

Question - is this true?
if it is - shouldn't someone stop it?
if it isn't - then why are there past members writing such things?

[JFC]

^ Whoa.

[doinkies]

I remember those scandals. However, from what I understand, Johnny is more like a figurehead of the company nowadays than actively managing the artists. Nowadays his sister Mary handles the managing though Johnny usually makes appearances at big official events. Likewise, new Johnny's members don't live in dorms anymore. I wonder if that change was due to the scandals.

I've also heard that Lou Pearlman (who managed a bunch of boy bands including the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync in the 90s) molested his artists. *shudders*.

As far as the policy regarding dating...I think Johnny's is more lenient with its established older artists (SMAP, TOKIO etc.) than with the younger members. But JE will often try to cover up dating rumors (like what UFA tried to do with Miki).