Japan’s scandal-tainted entertainment industry still has its ‘dark sides’, veteran actor-director Takeshi Kitano says

Name: Johnny Kitagawa: J-pop talent agency’s president resigns amid sex abuse scandal
Uploaded: 2023-12-03T03:30:13.000Z
Duration: 2 min 36 s
Description: Johnny Kitagawa: J-pop talent agency’s president resigns amid sex abuse scandal

Kitano has joined calls for the industry to clean up its act after a spate of sex abuse scandals and suicides linked to overwork and bullying

But the pressure doesn’t come solely from entertainment industry power brokers, as viewers have also had an increasingly intrusive impact

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Japanese actor Takeshi Kitano arrives at the 60th Golden Horse Film Awards in Taipei on November 25. Photo: AFP

Julian Ryall

Published: 11:30am, 3 Dec 2023

As scandals continue to ripple through Japan’s entertainment industry, veteran actor and director Takeshi “Beat” Kitano has waded into the issue by saying that more needs to be done to deal with the sector’s “dark sides”.

Kitano, who first came to the attention of global audiences for his role in the 1983 film Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, alongside David Bowie, and who won the Golden Lion at the 1997 Venice Film Festival for Hana-Bi, was speaking at a press conference on November 15 ahead of the release of his latest movie, Kubi.

Known as something of an outspoken critic of the industry in the past, it was perhaps inevitable that Kitano, 76, would be asked his opinion on a series of recent reputation-damaging revelations for the sector.

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

In September, the management of the Johnny & Associates talent agency finally admitted that founder Johnny Kitagawa had sexually abused hundreds of young boys with ambitions of breaking into Japan’s pop world. It was also revealed that there had been countless warnings that Kitagawa, who died in 2019 aged 97, was a serial sexual predator, but these had been ignored by the company and the Japanese media.

At least 300 young men have since joined forces and are understood to be preparing compensation claims against the company, although some are finding the situation too traumatic. One of the men was discovered dead in mid-October. He has not been named.

The entertainment world was rocked again in late September when an up-and-coming member of the all-female musical theatre troupe Takarazuka Revue was found dead at the foot of her apartment complex.

Lawyers representing the family of the deceased woman, who has not been named but was 25 years old, have claimed she took her own life because of the gruelling working conditions within the troupe and bullying by senior members.