"He is God!"
Walking the streets of Tokyo, Japan, ask a random Japanese person, what do you think of Kitagawa Their answer, as usual, is this.
Johnny Kitagawa is the creator of Japanese pop music and idol culture, and in a way, a J-pop "god-like" figure.
In 1975, he founded Johnny & Associates, a male-dominated agency, and with his precise vision and packaging methods, he launched many popular boy bands and Japanese stars, such as Takuya Kimura, and his band, SMAP.
Janis' other well-known idol groups include Hikari GENJI, KinKi Kids, Arashi, etc., which have set off a wave of Kazakhstan in Asia.
SMAP, a boy band that was once popular all over Asia, was created by Kitagawa alone
In Japan, the word "Janis" is synonymous with dreams, and as long as you join it and debut, you may become a super idol. But the phrase "how much are you willing to pay in order to achieve your dreams" also invisibly makes people who hold the power of life and death become "god"-like characters.
Kitagawa himself holds several records: releasing the most number one singers, the most number one singles, and participating in the most produced concerts in Japan.
But the "sexual exploitation" allegations accompany Kitagawa throughout his career, and many of the victims were underage boys, even after his death on July 9, 2019. These aren't just whispers behind closed doors — the scandal has been discussed in the global media, and some allegations have been confirmed in civil courts.
However, this did not prevent Kitagawa from maintaining his status as a national treasure in his final days. Even after death, he was still revered.
In July 2019, Kitagawa funeral was a national event in Japan.
Then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a message of condolence. Tear-eyed Japanese celebrities and prominent boy band members bid their final farewells at a memorial service at Tokyo Dome, a large gymnasium.
News reports that appeared on the streets of Japan when Kitagawa died in 2019.
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For such a famous person, there are only a handful of Kitagawa photos in existence. He rarely makes public appearances, gives interviews or allows journalists to photograph him.
Kitagawa also strictly controls the photos of its stars. Four years after his death, the boyish faces of teenage idols still look out over Japan's cityscape from billboards and giant TV screens. These J-pop idols have fair, smooth chins and floppy bangs, and they don't just sell albums, they advertise anything from real estate to contact lenses.
It's as if the allegations of sexual abuse never really had an impact, even though the stories have been circulating for more than 30 years.
On March 7, the British BBC aired a documentary, "Predator: The Secret Scandal of J-Pop," revealing Kitagawa for alleged long-term sexual exploitation of its male artists, mostly underage boys, and how the Japanese media industry has remained silent about the scandal for a long time.
Poster for the documentary "Predator: The Secret Scandal of Japanese Pop Music"
For more than 30 years, Japanese society has kept Kitagawa a secret that boys affiliated with the Janis Office have long filed sexual assault complaints. Even after Kitagawa died in 2019, the Japanese media continued to report on the incident.
During Kitagawa 's lifetime, thousands of young people were active in the vast system of Janis Office. Most of them had direct contact with Kitagawa himself, who spent a long career discovering and nurturing young idols.
Kitagawa created a system that allowed him to access and control young boys without supervision. The new members, known as "Junior," worked as backing dancers in other bands until Kitagawa decided they were ready to make their debut – and enter the raucous world of entertainment. In between, it may take years to wait.
Hayashi (not his real name) was 15 years old when he submitted his resume to Janis Associates. I met Kitagawa during the audition and gave the teenager's first impression of being "kind and considerate". However, things soon turned.
Just a week after the first meeting, Hayashi was invited to stay at Kitagawa home, known as the "dormitory", because there were many boys who would spend the night here.
"After a while, Johnny told me, 'Go take a shower.' He washed my whole body like I was a doll," Hayashi said.
When Hayashi recalled Kitagawa asking him to give him an X, he was visibly excited.
Hayashi told interviewers that sexual abuse occurred on many separate occasions. He said the other boys knew what was going on.
"They all told me, 'You have to live with it or you won't make it.'" No one around me quit. Kitagawa is the only adult. So we can't communicate with anyone. Hayashi believes that this silent acceptance has something to do with the boys' dreams of success.
"The successful boys, thanks to Johnny, their lives changed the moment they entered the agency. I think they are very grateful. This is different from those sex crimes. I have only lived in Japan at the moment and think it is a great country. But maybe I'm wrong. Hayashi said.
Stories like Hayashi's, too, have been there before.
As early as 1988, Kitakoji, a member of the former boy group Four Leaves, published the book "To Hikari GENJI", which wrote about Kitagawa sexually assaulting himself.
This move can be said to have triggered the metoo trend at that time, and since then, books including Ryo Nakatani's "Janis's Counterattack", Junya Hiramoto's "All the Teenage Love of Jenis", Toyokawa's "A Journey Alone", and Masago Kiyama's "To Smap - and All Janis Artists" have been published, all of which more or less mention the fact of Kitagawa sexual assault.
"Actually, Mr. Johnny (Kitagawa doesn't like gay men) himself. There are two kinds of homosexual tendencies, one is to seek boys who also like boys; The other is gay men who don't love gays. Yes, Kitagawa is the latter, and his favorite is heterosexual boys who are in their teens. Kitakoji wrote in "Zhiguang GENJI" that he intended to warn young idols.
Kitagawa 's "hobby" will obviously confuse the violated boy even more.
After the publication of "To the Light GENJI", the stock price of Janis Studios plummeted, which also affected the album sales of its artists.
However, because there is no relevant evidence in Kitakoji's book, and the mainstream media is completely silenced for fear of being banned by Janis, Kitagawa sexual assault suspicion has become an "urban legend" and is regarded as a simple gossip incident by the Japanese.
In the BBC documentary, a creepy detail is also mentioned.
Jun Hiramoto, who had stayed in Janis, also declared:
Kitagawa injects female hormones into underage boys who join the office, slowing down the boys' development, leaving their secondary sex characteristics, hair, and voice in their infantile state so that they can continue to be sexually assaulted by him.
Artist Junya Hiramoto, who once stayed in Jenis.
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It is also wrong to say that the Japanese media did not pay any attention to Kitagawa scandal, which was reported locally 24 years ago.
In 1999, two reporters from the Japanese weekly magazine Weekly Bunchun (a publication of Bungei Chunqiu) interviewed a teenage boy who claimed to have been sexually abused by Kitagawa . The boy joined Janis Associates when he was in middle school, and sexual abuse soon began.
He introduced other boys and young people with similar experiences. Their descriptions matched so well that reporters were able to map the "dormitory" in Kitagawa home, where most of the sexual assaults took place.
This residence in Kitagawa is called "Training Camp".
A hand-drawn floor plan of the Kitagawa house by a reporter
The investigation produced a series of articles documenting allegations from more than a dozen aspiring young J-pop idols who said they had been sexually abused as teenagers.
Some were as young as 12 at the time of abuse.
There are numerous vivid testimonies in the Weekly Bunchun series, including references to penetrative sex and coercion. One victim said he thought rejecting Kitagawa overtures would damage his career. "If you disobey Mr. Johnny, your stage position will be damaged."
At the boy's home, Kitagawa sexually assaulted him.
The boy's parents invited Kitagawa to the house and arranged for him to live in a room with his children, "My parents put his futon in the same room as me." That night he put his genitals in my mouth. You won't believe it, my parents slept in the next room. ”
Despite these lethal testimonies, the series attracted little attention from the public.
The interdependence between the Japanese media and Kitagawa entertainment empire may go a long way towards explaining why the story went unnoticed.
Janis Associates stars help media attract viewers, readers, listeners and advertising revenue.
Media outlets that listen to the firm's word can win over Japan's most popular boy bands, including gaining wider fame. Saying negative things about Janis or its pop icons can have the opposite effect of being forced to cut ties with the entertainment empire and losing immeasurable revenue.
Even after Kitagawa died, Janis remained Japan's most powerful and influential entertainment company. Unlike the news that well-known director Sonoko Wen was often revealed to be an actress in 2022, Kitagawa holds the right to speak in the Japanese media, both during his life and after his death.
Japanese journalist Shu Sawashima explained: "Journalists usually rely on top-down information, and few people are willing to change the status quo, whether it is the political line or the entertainment line, everyone is the same. No one will report news that is detrimental to their own interests, and no one wants to get into trouble. ”
This is why most Japanese news outlets do not report or even acknowledge Kitagawa misconduct.
After the publication of the Weekly Bunchun series, Janis prevented the magazine and its sister publication from interviewing any of their stars, let alone other in-depth collaborations.
In 2000, a year after the magazine's investigative story was published, Kitagawa and his company sued the outlet for defamation.
The proceedings lasted four years, and many of the boys' testimonies said Kitagawa had abused them.
The Tokyo High Court ultimately ruled that 9 of the 10 allegations made in the Weekly Bunchun article were true, including allegations that Kitagawa sexually abused minors at his institution. Only the allegation that Kitagawa provided them with cigarettes and alcohol was found to be untrue.
But after the verdict came out, there was more silence, and the defamation case did not lead to a criminal trial.
Kitagawa was never charged and continued to serve as president of his company until his death in 2019.
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Years after Kitagawa 's egregious behavior and stories were "covered up," Ryutaro Nakamura, one of the reporters Weekly Bunchun involved in, was furious.
"I despaired for 23 years!" He told the BBC, "Since 1999, I have been desperate for the Japanese media. And I'm 200% sure that they [the Japanese media] will never report on it. ”
And "Weekly Wenchun" is also uneasy.
With the broadcast of the BBC documentary, starting in mid-March this year, "Weekly Bunchun" published relevant reports for four weeks, continuing to deeply expose Kitagawa sex scandals. In a series of articles, more insiders are revealed.
Kitagawa created a "dormitory", which is also known as a "training camp". In addition to himself, there are many undebuted Janis teenagers living here, making it easy for him to access and control.
Among them, the testimony of a young man in his 30s living in Tokyo to Weekly Bunchun is particularly interesting: among the younger generations at that time, the predecessors passed down a "secret not to sexual assault."
Interviewees said that although some seniors will say "if you don't accept it, you won't work", they still pass on the secret of "not being violated" -
Wear 3 belts when sleeping so that the pants are not easily taken off; If there is a child who has not been named by Kitagawa for 3 consecutive days, everyone will consider him "safe" and sleep with him; And, avoid leaving a single when acting, "Everyone takes a bath and washes with two or three people together." ”
And in the latest issue of "Weekly Bunchun" on April 6, another former Janis artist Okamoto appeared in a real-name interview.
Okamoto signed with Janis from 2012 to 2016. In his junior year, he appeared on the cover of Myojo. He is the most active of nearly 200 juniors and has also appeared in the TV series Spicy Teacher GTO (2014, Fuji) and the talk show NHK E-tele.
At the age of 15, Okamoto sent a demo of his song to one of Janis's managers and wrote a letter outlining his desire to make music. One morning in February 2012, Okamoto received a phone call from Kitagawa himself.
Kitagawa invited Okamoto to a concert in Tokyo. Five hours after Kitagawa called, Okamoto sang his song a cappella in front of an audience of 5,000. That night, Okamoto was invited to live in Shibuya Kitagawa apartment. Nothing happened that night, though.
A month later, Okamoto went to stay at Kitagawa again. That night, Kitagawa acted, and Okamoto was forced to have sex. In the morning, Kitagawa said good morning as if nothing had happened. When they went out together to take the elevator, Kitagawa gave him a 10,000-yuan bill folded into a small sheet.
Okamoto said that there was more than one time with Kitagawa "a total of 15 to 20 times." ”
He also claimed that he had filmed the video for self-preservation.
As always, Weekly Bunchun sought confirmation from Janis & Co. about Okamoto's allegations, but still did not receive a response.
Okamoto is the latest former Janis entertainer to appear in an interview.
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When discussing why few people publicly accuse Kitagawa of Kitagawa , it is important to understand Japanese culture or customs.
BB's documentary argues that Japan is a people who pride themselves on being polite. Impoliteness is not only seen as annoying or rude, but also socially unacceptable. Many Japanese believe that inconvenience to others should be avoided at all costs.
This can breed an atmosphere in which raising concerns about sexual abuse is seen as a burden on others.
Ryūichiro Nakamura, a reporter for Weekly Bunchun, believes that "prejudice" played a role in denying Kitagawa bad deeds: "In Japan, love or sexual relations between men - people don't seem to believe it. ”
Whether in the past or now, the Japanese generally do not believe that men can be sexually assaulted, so when they are sexually exploited, many victims dare not speak up, and become invisible victims in society.
All these factors contribute to a phenomenon - in Japanese society, the sexual exploitation of men is not only taboo, but often invisible.
"In Japan, most people don't take love between men, or even when it comes to harassment or sexual assault, seriously, and this idea is a prejudice." Nakamura Ryuichiro said.
This prejudice is also reflected in Japanese regulations.
Japan's legal age of sexual consent has long been 13, and from a legal perspective, men (whether underage or not) have never been recognized as victims of rape.
Even before 2017, raping a man was not possible in Japanese statutes — because the protection for "rape" in the criminal law was limited to women.
It was not until 2017 that the Japanese government amended the Penal Code to change the sexual offense regulations of the Penal Code to "rape" to "forced intercourse" and expanded the scope of victim application from "female" to "regardless of gender."
Starting with Shiori Ito (who accused TV Tokyo Washington bureau chief Keiyuki Yamaguchi of sexual assault), more and more Japanese women are willing to come forward and accuse themselves of being assaulted by the "opposite sex", but when the victims are replaced by "men", they face more ridicule, prejudice, and even unspeakable shame.
In response to the 2017 amendment to change the crime of "rape" to "forced intercourse", the Cabinet Office began to publish a "study report on sexual violence between men and women" every three years, and in the 2020 national survey, "men" were included among victims of sexual violence for the first time.
The survey report data shows that one in every 24 men and women over the age of 20 in Japan has been forced to have sex, although the proportion of women is more than that of boys, and only 6.4% of women will report to the relevant unit, but the number of men reporting sexual assault is - zero.
It's not hard to understand why many men who experienced sexual assault in Kitagawa as teenagers still don't think what happened to them is wrong.
Ryu joined Janis in 2002 and served as a backing dancer for 10 years. Like Hayashi, he had never spoken publicly about his experiences before.
"When I was in the bedroom, Jonny walked in and said, 'You've been busy. I'll give you a massage. His hand started on my shoulder and gradually went down. At a certain point, it went too far, and I said, don't do it again. He said, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' and went to another room. Ryu was 16 years old at the time, and Kitagawa was in his seventies.
Despite being sexually harassed, Ryu refused to condemn Kitagawa for itagawa
Today, as an adult, Ryu does not condemn Kitagawa for itagawa. "I don't hate Jonny. I love him. Jonny is really a wonderful guy and I owe him a lot. I still think we got great love. It's not a big deal for me, and that's probably why I can talk about it with a smile now. ”
Several other trainees interviewed by the BBC also defended their old mentors.
Ren worked at Janis Firm until Kitagawa passed away in 2019. He fondly remembers Kitagawa introducing the company.
"When Janis Associates first contacted us, my mom burst into tears with joy. My family thought, 'Wow, he can make that much money.' We are not rich. It felt like a dream," Ren said.
Ren, who now works at a bar in Osaka, said he understands the nature of the deal between Kitagawa and some aspiring stars. "There are rumors that if that kind of 'sexual harassment' happens, you will succeed."
When asked if Ren would meet Kitagawa for the sake of his career, he replied, "My dream is to be famous, so I think I will accept it." ”
Many Japanese parents are aware of Kitagawa 'bad deeds, but despite this, some parents are willing to send their children to Janis and advise: "In order to become famous, you have to raise your ass to Mr. Kitagawa ." ”
There are not many photos left by Kitagawa during his lifetime.
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To this day, Janis remains a very powerful institution in the J-pop world, and Kitagawa is always revered as its honorary leader. A huge work of his face hangs at the reception desk of the Tokyo headquarters — taken from one of his few photographs.
Janis' current president is Julie Fujishima and is Kitagawa 's niece.
After several attempts for interviews, Fujishima issued a statement saying, "Since the death of our former president in 2019, we have worked hard to establish a highly transparent organizational structure that keeps pace with the times, comply with laws and regulations, and strengthen cooperative governance with impartial experts. We are planning to announce and implement new corporate structures and systems in 2023. ”
She did not respond directly to allegations of sexual abuse, much less publicly acknowledged the sexual abuse of underage boys and young men.
Many Janis male stars simply don't want to talk about their experiences. As a result, we may never know how many of these accomplished J-pop stars, including Takuya Kimura, have been sexually abused.
On March 17, the creator of "Predator: The Secret Scandal of Japanese Pop Music" explained the original intention of the creation in an interview with the media in the form of a video link. Producer Megumi Inman said: "I didn't expect people to be so afraid to speak. Moreover, the case is almost a myth or urban legend. We have seen child abuse treated as celebrity gossip and not taken seriously. ”
When such a social system encounters an entertainment chain based on interests, the collective silence of the Japanese media becomes an accomplice to the "elephant in the room" (a description of people deliberately ignoring obvious problems out of fear or embarrassment).
A few years ago, David McNeill, an Irish journalist who wrote an article on Kitagawa , predicted that there would be plenty of revelations after Kitagawa died in 2019 because he could no longer control the media. However, the Japanese media still did not follow up on the report, in the name of "the dead are big".
"He's not someone's grandfather, but a very powerful public figure, and I think the Japanese media hiding behind those excuses and cultural taboos is even more uncomfortable." McNeill thought.
However, after the BBC documentary was broadcast, it caused a huge repercussion in Japan, and even broke the "wall of silence" of the media, including the Asahi Shimbun and other well-known media began to report on the Kitagawa scandal.
This is likely to open the door for more Kitagawa victims to be able to speak out about what happened to them.
Nobuki Yamaguchi, one of Japan's few therapists who specializes in helping male victims of sex crimes, said: "Japan has a culture of shame where if you have a personal problem, you don't talk about it. ”
This stigma and silence can be exploited by abusers, he said, and "the first step to trauma recovery is to truly acknowledge that the abuse has occurred." ”
For the other victims of the Kitagawa violation and for Japanese society as a whole, this first step remains to be taken.