Pressure is building on one of Japan’s most powerful talent agencies to address allegations of sexual abuse by its founder, Johnny Kitagawa, as survivors and celebrities call for a public reckoning.
Kitagawa, who died in 2019 aged 87, has been accused of sexually assaulting multiple boys, but it is claimed he evaded justice because his victims knew that speaking out would ruin their careers.
The number of survivors who have gone public with their allegations has risen since a BBC documentary about the pop mogul was aired in March.
Two men, an actor and dancer, who were teenagers when they were recruited to Kitagawa’s agency, Johnny & Associates, urged Japanese MPs to introduce legislation to better protect minors against sexual assault, including those in the entertainment industry.
Kauan Okamoto, a Japanese-Brazilian musician, told a recent parliamentary hearing organised by the main opposition party, the Constitutional Democratic party of Japan, that he had been abused at a penthouse apartment in Tokyo where Kitagawa would invite proteges to stay overnight.
Okamoto said: “This is not restricted to the entertainment industry … but when someone in a higher position asks you for something, it’s difficult to refuse.” Okamoto alleged he had been assaulted 15 to 20 times over a four-year period from 2012, starting when he was 15.
He urged other survivors to come forward, saying: “Society is now at a stage where people will listen to our demands.”
Yasushi Hashida, a former pop star, claimed Kitagawa had performed oral sex on him when he was 12, about a year after he joined Johnny’s Jr – a group of trainees who also worked as a talent pool for Johnny & Associates.
Kitagawa was at the centre of sexual abuse allegations for years, but the claims were ignored by Japan’s biggest newspapers and TV networks, which feared losing access to the agency’s stars, who they depended on to attract a younger audience.
Kitagawa launched the careers of a string of boybands, including perennial favourites Smap and Arashi, over a career spanning more than half a century. At its peak, Johnny & Associates managed clients who appeared in dozens of TV programmes and commercials.
In 1999, the weekly magazine Shūkan Bunshun ran a series of articles based on interviews with teenage boys who claimed Kitagawa had sexually abused them. A legal battle ended in 2004 with the Tokyo high court ruling key parts of the magazine’s reporting were accurate. Kitagawa was never charged with a crime.
In March, the BBC documentary, Predator: The Secret Scandal of J-Pop, triggered a wave of international coverage of Kitagawa’s alleged behaviour, which Japan’s domestic media found impossible to ignore.
Julie Fujishima, the president of Johnny & Associates, initially refused to address the claims made in the documentary and by Okamoto. But she later apologised to men who had come forward with abuse claims. She was criticised for saying she had been unaware of the allegations at the time and for refusing to accept the survivors’ testimony as fact.
Fujishima, who is Kitagawa’s niece, said in a video posted on the agency’s website: “Obviously, we do not believe there was no problem. As a business and as an individual, I absolutely do not tolerate these acts.
“On the other hand, it is not easy for us to simply declare by ourselves whether individual allegations can be recognised as facts or not, when we cannot confirm with the individual directly concerned, Johnny Kitagawa.”
The apology has failed to quell criticism of the agency’s response.
Hashida said he struggled to believe that Fujishima – who was on the agency’s board of directors during the legal action against the magazine Shūkan Bunshun – had been unaware of the rumours about Kitagawa’s conduct. Hashida said: “I want the company to admit what took place and to apologise to the victims. I want the company to be reborn into a clean one.”
The veteran singer Masahiko Kondō, who was formerly represented by Johnny & Associates, urged the agency to confront its past. According to media reports, Kondō, who was a popular star in the 1980s, said: “I hope it won’t lie and [will] talk about it openly and honestly.”
A fan group called Penlight has submitted a petition carrying 16,125 signatures calling on the agency to “fully investigate and recognise the facts of the matter, to take responsibility as a corporation and apologise to the victims of sexual violence”.
Jonny & Associates has said it will set up an outside body to offer psychological help to former agency idols, and find ways to prevent a recurrence of sexual abuse.
Some sections of the Japanese media, meanwhile, have addressed their failure to report the allegations earlier. The Mainichi Shimbun newspaper conceded that “Japan’s major media outlets maintained a long and uneasy silence” about Kitagawa’s alleged sexual abuse. Emi Tadama, an editorial writer for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper, said the criticism directed at the country’s media “should come as no surprise”.
