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Julian Ryall

A Japanese court has ordered a 17-year-old member of an all-girl “idol group” to compensate her management agency for breaking its rule against having a boyfriend, underlining the power that managers exert over fame-hungry young performers.
The Tokyo District Court ordered the girl, who cannot be identified because she is a minor, to pay the agency and five other members of the unidentified group 650,000 yen (HK$42,010) in compensation because she had violated the agency’s ban on “associating with a member of the opposite sex” and on “dating a boyfriend and taking photos as a couple”.
In his ruling on September 18, Judge Akitomo Kojima said that the public discovering that the girl was in a relationship “worsens the image of the idol”.
“As long as she was a female idol, a ban on dating was necessary to win the support of male fans,” he added.
READ MORE: Japanese pop group AKB48 cancels fan events after saw-wielding man injures two idols and employee

“Japan’s idol industry is simply massive, it earns a lot of money and the management agencies are famous for being very strict with the girls they hire,” said Brett Bull, editor of the online Tokyo Reporter, which covers crime and culture in Japan.
And they can afford to make what would appear to outsiders to be outrageous and abusive demands of their staff.
“These managers pick these girls up on the streets of the big cities and lure them in with promises of modelling work, of being in a band, of being on television, but all too often then girls end up paying the agencies to stay with them,” he said.
“But they you look at a group like AKB48 and they’re absolutely huge,” he said. “There are a lot of young women out there who are impressionable and dream of making it into a super-group like that and they’ll do anything to get there.

“But all too often, they end up as the victims,” Bull added, pointing to the case of Sako Makita.
In May, the agency that represented Makita, a 21-year-old star with the Passpo idol group, issued a statement claiming that her Twitter account had been hacked and a series of comments she had made about the inner workings of Japan’s entertainment industry were not true.
Messages posted under Makita’s name said: “I should never have started in the entertainment business at all.
“From the start, I’ve dealt with ugly people and I’ve had sex with everyone.”

The same month, Jin Tashiro, the head of a Tokyo-based talent agency, was arrested for allegedly stripping and sexually assaulting a girl of 15 who had been promised a career in the modelling industry.
The industry is a magnet for even younger girls. “Very often you look at what these young girls are doing and it would meet the definition elsewhere of soft-core porn, but there is a huge demand for it here and Japanese society does not seem to have a problem with it,” said Bull.
A 12-year-old member of the 3b Junior group rushed to a hospital in February after inhaling helium during the filming of stunt for a television programme for TV Asahi. The girl lapsed into a coma and had to be treated for an embolism in the arteries to her brain.

And for many of the young women who are on the fringes of the mega-groups, the porn industry is where they end up.
Risa Naruse is the latest to follow this well-worn path, with media reports indicating the 20-year-old former member of AKB48 will be the star of a pornographic film “National Idol”, due to be released on October 1. Naruse would be the third ex-member of AKB48 to end up in the pornography business.


Slave to the rhythm: court orders teen pop singer to pay managers for breaking no-boyfriend rule

AKB48 is known for its perky routines and high "kawaii," or cuteness, quotient. Photo: Reuters

The Passpo idol group. Photo: SCMP Picture

AKB48, one of Japan's most popular groups, perform during the annual AKB48 popularity poll. Photo: AP 

Victim of the industry? Sako Makita.

A 12-year-old member of 3B Junior fell into a coma after inhaling helium in a TV stunt earlier this year.


‘The root of all evil’: Japanese girl band wants the government toppled

Kana Kinashi, Rina Nishino, Yuria Saito and Noa Saito - members of the Japanese pop band Seifuku Kojo Iinkai (SKi), which translates as School Uniform Improvement Committee, perform at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Tokyo. Photo: Reuters

Public support for Japan's Prime Minister's security bills remains low.  Photo: AP


Japan pop idol Minami Minegishi shaves head after sex scandal

A tearful Minami Minegishi apologises on video. Photo: AFP

Meet Babymetal: Japan’s bizarre mix of teen-idol pop and death metal

The teenage girls of Babymetal, the year's most unlikely musical craze. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Groovy grannies! Heaven can wait for Japan's geriatric pop queens 

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