Why are Japanese artists fleeing the firm?
Recently, one of the most critical things that has hit everyone is that the "national wife" Yui Niigaki (hereinafter referred to as "Gakki") is getting married!
On May 19, Gakki officially announced his marriage to Hoshino Andyo, and also decided to quit LesPros, a firm he had been at for 20 years.
For the news that Gakki wants to get married and quit the society, many netizens are sad and worried that she will quit the circle and go home to be a full-time wife, making the story of "Escape Shameful but Useful" a reality.
However, for now, you can rest assured that Gakki's professionalism is still there.
She mentioned in the statement that "I will continue to work in my personal capacity in the future", that is, I will not quit the circle.
"It was a decision I made after much deliberation. Reporting this to everyone on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of my work is like ushering in the second coming-of-age ceremony of my life. At that time, the mixed feelings of uneasiness and anticipation for the unknown re-emerged. ”
Similar to Gakki's "marriage and withdrawal" situation, there is also Rimi Ishihara. Last year, Ishihara also announced the news of the marriage and the withdrawal from the company at the same time.
It seems that as far as the current Japanese showbiz is concerned, the trend of "withdrawing from the society and becoming independent" has become unstoppable.
Since last year, a wave of "independence from the Japanese showbiz" has arisen, just like dominoes, from Masahiro Nakai, Atsuko Maeda, Ryoko Yonekura, Tomohisa Yamashita, Hikaru Manjima, Eita Nagayama, Rimi Ishihara, Makoto Nitta, Ken Sato, Takanosuke Kamiki, Yu Shiroda, Tomoya Nagase, Genki Iwahashi today, many of whom have fled the firm, many of whom have stayed at the firm for 20 years or more.
Artists who quit the club are more like Gakki, choosing to be independent and start another portal.
In the minds of most people, as in the case of the "lifetime employment system", most Japanese artists in the past would only choose the same firm in their acting careers. Even if there is an occasional phenomenon of withdrawal from the society, it is mostly due to reasons such as relocation and retirement. "Withdrawing from the society and becoming independent" is very rare, and to some extent, "independence from the society" is also a taboo in the show business circle, involving many interests.
But now, many well-known artists are fleeing the office and relying on themselves, which makes the Japanese showbiz industry face a huge pressure to change.
So, what are the reasons for this unstoppable "wave of independence from social society"?
Conflict with the firm
The internal management problems of the firm are one of the most important reasons why artists choose to withdraw from the club and become independent. The so-called "internal management" is divided into two parts, one is the management of artists by the firm, and the other is the management of the internal staff of the firm.
Recently, Kenshi Okada decided to quit the firm due to chaotic management problems within Sweet Power and a loss of trust in the firm.
In order to withdraw from the society, he decided to confront Gan Li in court and is currently awaiting the court's judgment. This is less common among artists who have previously left the club.
According to Japanese media reports, Kenshi Okada pointed out that Ganli had obvious dereliction of duty in his own management, and at the same time had serious differences with himself in terms of career planning.
Gan Li was always arbitrary in his work arrangement, always taking over the role for him without consulting himself, and did not allow him to refuse.
For example, the scene of "Creepy Collision with ghosts" came very suddenly, okada felt that it would take time to shape the role and did not want to act, but Ganli still forced him to act.
This made Okada very dissatisfied, and at the same time, Ganli's management of internal employees and his own problems made it impossible for him to trust president Okada Naobow and Ganli.
In recent years, the Ganli scandal, which is known as the "Tianhou Temple", has been frequent, and scandals such as sexual harassment and power bullying of the president's artists have been reported, resulting in frequent occurrences of artists leaving the company and employees leaving the company.
For example, Zhiying, who recently retired from the company, was reported to be unable to withstand the sexual harassment of the president and ran back to South Korea from Japan overnight.
Before Okada, another famous male actor of Ganli, Masaru Takasugi, also retired from the company because he hated the style of the president, was tired of the excessive care of agent Ako, and was dissatisfied with Ganli's career plan for him.
According to Japanese media reports, the so-called "excessive care" is that A-son has a high desire to control Takasugi, not only to manage food, clothing, shelter and transportation, but also to suppress female artists and female staff close to Takasugi indiscriminately at work.
Takasugi could not bear the heavy burdens from Ganli, so he chose to quit the company and set up a personal office, which was managed by a bamboo horse he trusted.
Similar to Ganli, the head artists have fled, and there is also an Oscar firm with the reputation of "a comprehensive trading company of beauty".
The Oscar Office, founded by Koga Seiichi and sponsored by the company, has unearthed a number of Japanese goddesses such as Kumiko Goto, Ryoko Yonekura, Ueto Sai, Takei Sakura, Anderson, etc., which play an important role in the Japanese entertainment industry.
However, since last year, well-known artists such as Ryoko Yonekura and Gangli Caiya have successively withdrawn from the company and become independent, among which the biggest impact is Ryoko Yonekura, who ranks at the top of the circle in terms of remuneration.
Ryoko Yonekura has been at the Oscars for 27 years, but she abruptly announced her retirement last year and on April 3 of the same year, she founded a personal office, desafio (デサフィオ), which means "I challenge", reflecting her personal exuberance.
As for the reasons for the withdrawal from the society, Ryoko Yonekura did not publicly discuss it, but the Japanese media often analyzed, and most of the reasons mentioned were related to the current president of the Oscars, Horori Kazuaki.
According to Japanese media reports, since the retirement of Koga Seiichi and his son-in-law Hori and his successor, the Oscars have undergone various negative changes.
The new president is a layman in the showbiz industry, who knows nothing about the rules and management models of the showbiz, but has a high desire for control, often strictly manages various funds, and harasses the authority, resulting in dissatisfaction with management and artists, and employee departures, including the former president's secretary who has worked for 10 years and worked hard.
Under the management of such a president, Ryoko Yonekura's resignation from the company seems reasonable.
In the face of the continuous wave of oscars retiring from the company and becoming independent, many netizens believe that the Oscars have also changed from a "comprehensive trading company of the United States" to a "personal store of the United States".
In addition to internal management issues, the issue of salary sharing is also the reason for the wave of independence.
The deformed phenomenon of "daily salary of 2.08 million" in internal entertainment cannot appear in the Japanese showbiz circle.
At present, the salary composition of Japanese artists is mostly divided into a monthly salary system of "feeding system" that receives a fixed salary every month, a "step system" or a "commission system" that is measured according to workload and relies on personal achievements.
Different firms have different salaries for artists, but for well-known artists like Eita Nagayama, he is suspected of quitting the club because he has been paid for twenty years.
In March of this year, Eita Nagayama decided to leave the firm where she had been here for 20 years, and will continue to act independently in her personal capacity.
In his statement, he confessed that the decision to withdraw from the society was made "in order to survive in this difficult world in the future."
This sentence seems quite meaningful.
According to his younger brother Yongshan Xuandou in the same firm, his salary is a monthly salary system, and he looks forward to the day when he pays his salary every month, and he has no money to do some fancy things. This is exactly the voice of our social animals.
The media also suspected that Eitai Nagayama had also had such a monthly salary system for twenty years, so she would choose to retire from the company and become independent.
Caused by changes in the environment
In addition to the internal factors that led to the contradictions with the firm, there were also factors that changed in the external environment: the relevant system was improved, the epidemic hit the show business circle hard, and the new media channels were expanded, all of which made the "independence of the artists" a rising tide.
In 2019, Japan promulgated a new "Fair Trade Law", which stipulates a new contract specification for artists and firms. The various unfair restrictions and constraints imposed on artists by the firm have been abolished, so that the termination of artists can be carried out smoothly without paying high liquidated damages.
In the past, artists who retired from the society and were restricted to performing on TV and stage by the former firm were in a "semi-banned" state, which is what was mentioned at the beginning, "independence from the society" is a taboo in the Japanese showbiz circle, involving many interests.
In 2019, Shingo Katori, Kusanagi and Goro Inagaki, the three former J family members who retired from the society, formed a new group, the new しい地図, which was initially dynamic and frequent, but then the exposure opportunities dropped sharply for a long time, according to Japanese media reports, all because the J family put pressure on the TV station.
After the report was launched, coupled with the promulgation of new regulations at the time, the activities of the three people returned to normal.
The Fair Trade Commission found that the restrictions imposed by the firm on artists who had withdrawn from the company and moved from the company violated the relevant regulations, so it strengthened the surveillance of the show business circle.
The new crown epidemic in 2020 has dealt a heavy blow to the Japanese entertainment industry, with the production of various film and television works and stage plays suspended, the revenue of TELEVISION stations and advertisers falling sharply, and the production costs of the original programs being cut, so the performance fees of artists are relatively reduced.
However, the sharing mechanism of the firm is still there, so the cost of distribution to the artists is even more reduced. Coupled with the need for open source and throttling to cope with the epidemic, the contract will be changed and the income of artists will be restricted again.
Under the influence of the epidemic, the advantages of new media such as the Internet have once again emerged. The rise of new media such as Youtube and INS has expanded the working channels of artists and increased their degree of freedom.
As long as the personal brand is developed, various work invitations and resources will naturally come to the door, and there is no need to rely on large companies and be commissioned by companies.
These three factors from the outside world provide guarantees, motivation and channels for the "tide of independence from the society".
New battlefields, new risks
However, not all artists' "withdrawal and independence" is due to dissatisfaction with the firm, or caused by the above three external factors.
There are also personal reasons. For example, manjima light.
In 2018, Hikari Manjima announced his resignation from the company for reasons that have been unknown. It wasn't until March of this year that she opened up to her reasons for independence – "Busy work has a bad impact on her body and mental state, so she chose to retire from the company to recuperate." ”
There is also support from the original firm. For example, Ken Sato and Ryunosuke Kamiki.
Ken Sato and Ryunosuke Kamiki have been called "the most profitable artists under AMUSE". As a matter of common sense, AMUSE would never let these two people who would most benefit the company leave the company.
However, they officially retired from the company in April this year and signed a contract with the new company Co-LaVo. Ken Sato once said about this matter: "If you use the analogy of a chef, as your skills improve, you will have the idea of opening your own shop." President Ōsato said, 'I support you.' My life began here. ”
In fact, this company is actually a capital injection of AMUSE. That is to some extent, unlike most of the previous withdrawals, their independence is strongly supported by the firm, and the director of the new company is Chiba Nobuchi, the managing director of AMUSE, which is more like a "transfer" who does not change the soup.
Also supported by the original firm, Gakki is now retired from the company independently because she personally wants to seek new challenges and platforms, which are also based on a "peaceful breakup".
Even after she terminated her contract with LesPros, the firm retained part of her management contract so that she could continue to receive support at the beginning of her independence, allowing her to smoothly navigate the transition period and slowly explore new paths for personal development.
Gakki was lucky, but Reina Noh, who had been in the same firm as her, ended up in a tragic end. It was not so easy for her to "retire from social independence", and even paid a heavy price.
In 2013, "Haenyeo" made Noh Nian Lingnai popular. She was supposed to rise to the top, but was soon hidden by LesPros, reportedly because she wanted to retire from the society and become independent, so she paid a heavy price and was banned for several years, even without a stage name.
According to Wen Chun, LesPros, which seems to have been quiet for many years, has actually been practicing authoritarian militarized management.
At that time, Noh Nian Ling Nai was not the first choice sent by the firm to audition for "Sea Girl", but she was finally selected, which made the president very dissatisfied. So he began to suppress her in all aspects.
For example, after her popularity exploded, she chose a job for her in an almost conservative and cautious way, which resulted in her not working for a long time, so that she could only get paid 50,000 yen a month, and even her daily life became a problem.
Forced to do so, she had no choice but to seek independence. However, this has been more severely suppressed by the company. For several years, she was in a state of being banned.
In order to make a comeback, she had to change her name to "Non" and finally retired from the company, but in two years, she only received two jobs, both dubbing anime.
Therefore, in fact, retiring from the society is a double-edged sword for many artists, and having freedom also means that they have to bear certain risks and costs.
Compared with the previous state of relying on the big hand office, not worrying about resources, work and stage, independent artists have gained more autonomy, but also have to take more risks and pay more energy.
Especially within a year of just retiring from the society and becoming independent, it is necessary to be mentally prepared for a "sudden decrease in workload". For example, since Ryoko Yonekura announced her independence from the company, the original cost of various activities had to be borne by herself, and the risk was even greater.
Therefore, Masahiro Nakai, who is also an independent retiree, does not recommend that the younger generation blindly follow this upsurge.
On the one hand, he understands the artist's desire to "retire from the society and become independent":
"For a long time in the same firm, there will always be things you want to do but can't achieve, so you want to go out and break in."
But on the other hand, he also advises artists, especially young artists, not to easily follow suit:
"It's actually very hard. At the same time that I quit the company, I encountered the epidemic, and looking back on the past year, I actually did not gain anything. ”
At present, most of the artists who choose to "retire from the society and become independent" are important and well-established figures in the show business circle, but artists like Gakki will also be a little nervous about their own independence:
"I think there may be some things that are not well done at that time, and I would like to ask everyone to pay more attention."
Not all artists can be like Makoto Nitta, who retired from TOP-COAT and joined the personal office of his father, Shinichi Chiba. Relying on his father's resources, he developed overseas activities and became an actor with a salary of 100 million films.
To a certain extent, the "independence of the society" also explains the changes in the diversification of japanese artists' activities today, and also reflects the trend of "artists' activities eventually return to the will and freedom of the artists themselves".
For artists, the "lifelong system" is no longer the mainstream, and forbearance is no longer a virtue, whether it is out of long-term contradictions with the firm, choosing to get rid of the shackles of the firm; or seeking a new field and carrying out a new challenge, "quitting the society" is an opportunity and a risk.
Because, in a way, freedom means risks and limitations.
For the firm, although most of the artists are carefully crafted from scratch, the rules of the show business are numerous and always change rapidly. For the firm, how to retain artists, especially those who are first-line celebrities, always needs to be updated with the times.
※ This content is the independent opinion of the author and does not represent the position of Nippon Pass.
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