Japan sex predator Johnny Kitagawa’s talent agency faces spiralling crisis amid growing anger, advertiser boycott

Name: Johnny Kitagawa: J-pop talent agency’s president resigns amid sex abuse scandal
Uploaded: 2023-09-12T01:30:20.000Z
Duration: 2 min 36 s
Description: Johnny Kitagawa: J-pop talent agency’s president resigns amid sex abuse scandal

Scandal-ridden Johnny & Associates keeps losing major advertising contracts, as public calls for it to face legal punishments grow louder

Observers say they find it ‘hard to believe’ that the talent agency is retaining its ‘toxic’ name and fails to grasp the extent of public anger

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Julie Keiko Fujishima announces her resignation as president of Johnny & Associates Inc. at a Tokyo press conference last week following multiple allegations of sexual abuse against her late uncle, agency founder Johnny Kitagawa. Photo: Bloomberg

Julian Ryall

Published: 9:30am, 12 Sep 2023Updated: 10:30am, 12 Sep 2023

A second attempt to rehabilitate the tarnished name of Japanese talent agency Johnny & Associates after its founder was accused of sexually abusing hundreds of young boys appears to have backfired, with companies cancelling advertising contracts and the public demanding legal sanctions.

The scandal emerged earlier this year as dozens of male performers came forward to accuse agency founder Johnny Kitagawa – who died aged 97 in 2019 – of repeated sexual abuse. His agency, which has dominated Japan’s music scene since he set it up in 1962, is now “toxic”, according to one academic.

Julie Fujishima, Kitagawa’s niece, said at a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday that she would be stepping down as the agency’s president to take responsibility for the situation.

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Johnny Kitagawa: J-pop talent agency’s president resigns amid sex abuse scandal

But this latest effort to put the abuse scandal behind it with cosmetic changes strongly suggests that the agency’s management has still not fully grasped the scale of the anger among business partners and fans of its boy band acts, observers say.

Fujishima had released a video statement in May in which she attempted to draw a line under the scandal, but failed to clearly state that Kitagawa had abused anyone and dismissed calls for a third-party investigation – which only led to more accusations.

A tearful Fujishima conceded at Thursday’s press conference that her uncle had used his music mogul status to sexually assault children. The admission was accompanied by the announcement that Noriyuki Higashiyama would be taking over as the new president of Johnny & Associates.

Himself a product of the company’s conveyor belt of performers, 56-year-old Higashiyama said his priority was to oversee efforts to compensate the victims.