Does Japan not care about Kitagawa’s abuse?

The niece of Jonny Kitagawa, founder of the Japanese talent agency Jonny & Associates, stepped down this week from her role as president, acknowledging the decades long sexual abuse of the company’s young clients by its founder (who died in 1999). In a typically Japanese scene of corporate self-abasement, Julie Keiko Fujishima apologised to the victims and pledged to dedicate the rest of her life to addressing the issue. It was a bravura performance but one that has been met with deep cynicism, at least from some in Japan.

Jonny Kitagawa was the godfather of J-Pop, an immensely powerful figure exercising dominion over the lives of his stable of young, often very young, male starlets (known in Japan as ‘talents’ or ‘idols’). Kitagawa would micromanage their lives but in return was alleged to have expected sexual favours from vulnerable young boys often too cowed or innocent to either resist or even comprehend what was happening to them. Where Kitagawa lived became known as the ‘dormitory’, because so many young boys stayed over. Talent, numbering in the tens, has come forward with stories of abuse, and many believe this is just the beginning.