For the previous month Japan has been gripped by allegations of sexual misconduct involving one of many nation’s best-known stars at a significant TV community, in what’s changing into a litmus check of the leisure trade’s response to abuse claims in opposition to distinguished celebrities.
Masahiro Nakai, a former member of the massively fashionable boyband Smap, is alleged to have sexually assaulted a lady at a non-public dinner in June 2023 that was reportedly organized by a senior member of employees at Fuji TV, considered one of Japan’s largest broadcasters.
Nakai, who loved a profitable post-Smap profession because the host of a TV present aired by Fuji, on Thursday introduced his retirement, telling his fanclub website that he had “accomplished all discussions with TV stations, radio broadcasters and sponsors relating to my termination, cancellation, elimination and contract annulment”.
“I’ll proceed to resist all issues sincerely and reply in a wholehearted method. I alone am answerable for all the things,” Nakai stated, in keeping with the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
Nakai’s retirement at 52 comes quickly after he acknowledged he had been concerned in “hassle” in reference to the unnamed lady with whom, in keeping with the Shukan Bunshun weekly journal, he later reached an out-of-court settlement price ¥90m (£466,000).
Nakai, who will not be the topic of a police investigation, denied he had used violence or {that a} third celebration had been concerned, including that he had responded “sincerely” to the girl within the settlement. “This hassle is completely all the way down to my shortcomings,” he stated in a press release on his official web site.
Business in turmoil
Japan’s leisure trade has been pressured to rethink its dealing with of sexual assault and misconduct allegations since highly effective music mogul Johnny Kitagawa was focused by allegations that he had sexually abused tons of of boys and younger males who had joined his company hoping to turn into pop idols.
Broadcasters and their companions within the print media ignored the allegations for greater than 20 years as they continued to make use of boybands – together with Smap – from Kitagawa’s Johnny & Associates secure to faucet into the profitable youth market.
The media have been pressured to confront the allegations in 2023 – 4 years after Kitagawa’s loss of life in 2019 aged 87 – after the BBC documentary Predator: the Secret Scandal of J-pop generated international headlines and inspired extra survivors to return ahead. A whole bunch of individuals at the moment are looking for compensation from the company.
TV stations, together with the general public broadcaster NHK, issued belated apologies for his or her “code of silence” relating to the allegations in opposition to Kitagawa, whose company has since tried to re-invent itself below new administration and a distinct identify.
The case has additionally shone a light-weight on different TV networks, amid experiences that dinners and ingesting events involving celebrities and younger girls are commonplace. Nippon TV and different channels have introduced their very own investigations into whether or not its employees had organised social gatherings involving celebrities and ladies.
The incident will “hopefully function a possibility for TV stations to rethink how they make reveals”, stated Takahiko Kageyama, a media research professor at Doshisha Girls’s School of Liberal Arts. “If girls are being handled not as equal human beings however as some form of lubricant to facilitate the making of TV programmes, it’s time they stopped this apply.”
In distinction to the aftermath of the allegations in opposition to Kitagawa, corporations have acted shortly to distance themselves from Fuji TV and Nakai.
Greater than 70 corporations, together with Toyota, Nissan and McDonald’s, suspended ads on Fuji TV, with greater than 350 commercials changed by advertisements selling consciousness of social points from the Promoting Council of Japan.
Shares in Fuji Media group plummeted as Rising Solar Administration, an affiliate of the US fund Dalton Investments – a majority shareholder within the community’s mum or dad firm Fuji Media – accused the community of a scarcity of transparency.
“The uproar created by Mr Masahiro Nakai … displays not solely an issue within the leisure trade usually, however, particularly, it exposes severe flaws in your company governance,” Rising Solar stated in an open letter to the Fuji board.
“The dearth of consistency and, importantly, transparency in each reporting the details and the next unforgivable shortcomings in your response benefit severe condemnation that serves not solely to undermine viewer belief, but additionally leads on to erode shareholder worth. As considered one of your largest shareholders, controlling over 7% of the corporate’s inventory, we’re outraged!”
In response, final week the broadcaster introduced a U-turn, saying it might launch an unbiased investigation led by a panel of attorneys into the sexual misconduct allegations, in addition to the doable position of Fuji TV workers. Fuji TV suspended a weekly present hosted by Nakai whereas different main networks additionally dropped the presenter.
Fuji TV’s president, Koichi Minato, apologised for “inflicting large hassle and concern as a result of [media] experiences”, however his feedback did not stem an exodus by industrial companions and his press convention was criticised as a result of it was open solely to sure media, who have been advised it couldn’t be broadcast. Pressured on the again foot once more, Fuji TV will maintain a extra open “rerun” of the press convention subsequent week.
Yusuke Nakamura, editor-in-chief of Shukan Bunshun’s digital version, famous that whereas TV networks had been fast to take away Nakai from their programmes, they didn’t launch their very own investigations into the allegations till Minato’s press convention.
Nakamura likened the case to that of Kitagawa. Bunshun first reported on the allegations in opposition to the music mogul in 1999, and in 2004 a courtroom recognised that Kitagawa had dedicated sexual assault. “However Japanese media continued to make use of acts from Johnny & Associates and didn’t report on the sexual assault allegations in any respect,” Nakamura advised the Guardian.
“Within the newest case, Fuji TV solely held a press convention after Rising Solar demanded an evidence. In each cases, the scenario solely moved ahead in any significant approach as a consequence of exterior strain.
“Broadcasters at the moment are reporting on Nakai’s issues, however that is partly as a consequence of the truth that Nakai primarily went freelance in 2020. If he had belonged to an influential manufacturing firm like Johnny & Associates, I ponder if TV networks would have been as crucial of him as they’re being now.”
Kaori Hayashi, a professor on the Graduate College of Interdisciplinary Info Research at Tokyo College, stated Fuji TV had “miscalculated public sentiment”.
“Whereas the general public’s mindset has shifted, the administration at Fuji TV appears to stay in a bubble and has utterly underestimated the importance of latest occasions, such because the Kitagawa and Matsumoto scandals,” she stated.
Fuji TV workers are stated to be offended on the administration’s response. Its labour union stated the variety of members had soared from 80 at first of final week to greater than 500, as employees fret in regards to the doable fallout for his or her employer. “I hope the corporate can be reborn with a way of disaster,” one worker advised the Asahi Shimbun.
Some critics stay unconvinced by the broadcaster’s conduct within the wake of the allegations, first made in December by the weekly journal Josei Seven.
In a scathing editorial, the Mainichi Shimbun stated, “it might not be shocking if the community is seen as fretting over defending itself relatively than looking for the reality”.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
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