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TOKYO — An investigation by a major Japanese talent agency into allegations of sexual abuse by its founder will not address money or crime, but instead aims to prevent such cases in the future, the chief investigator said Monday.
“We saw what happened to the company and it’s a serious governance issue,” former prosecutor Makoto Hayashi told reporters at a Tokyo hotel.
Lim said the process will focus on hearing from victims who have come forward. The group will outline where Johnny & Associates’ response has failed and provide recommendations to prevent a recurrence, he said.
Charges against Japanese showbiz powerhouse Jonny Kitagawa have been questioned for decades, but he has never been charged with any crime. He passed away in 2019.
The allegations came back into the spotlight after BBC News produced a special earlier this year focusing on several young people who said they had been sexually abused while working for the company.
Since then, others have come forward, including Kauan Okamoto, who spoke at Tokyo’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club in April.
The Associated Press does not typically identify victims of alleged sexual assault, but Okamoto chose to identify himself in the media.
The Johnny’s scandal has been known to be a wake-up call for Japan’s lag in cracking down on sexual harassment and abuse.
Dozens, if not hundreds, of children may have been beaten while working at Johnny’s.
Earlier this month, Okamoto and two other men submitted a petition to Japan’s parliament signed by 40,000 people calling for legislation to be changed to better protect children from abuse. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has pledged to act, but his exact plans remain unclear.
According to the allegations, Kitagawa asked budding singers and dancers to live in his mansion. When he told one of them to go to bed early, everyone knew “it’s your turn,” Okamoto said.
“These are facts. Instead of denying these facts, I hope people will respect and support us,” Okamoto told reporters.
Hayashi’s internal investigation has been criticized for lacking independence. But Hayashi stresses his group’s efforts are independent, albeit paid for by Johnny’s office.
Hayashi also dodged questions about CEO Julie Keiko Fujishima’s apparent denial of the allegations. He said it was up to the company to decide what to do with the panel’s findings. He did not give a date when the investigation might end.
Fujishima apologized in an online video last month for the “disappointment and concern” fans must have felt. But she said she was not aware of any wrongdoing. She did not appear at Monday’s news conference.
Executives from many of Japan’s biggest companies implicated in the scandal, including Toyota and Toshiba, bowed deeply and apologized at the news conference.
Finding fault wasn’t the focus of the investigation, Hayashi said, but suggested that some aspects of the company’s culture may not have taken sexual abuse seriously.
“But our mandate is separate from any criminal investigation,” he said.
Much of Japan’s mainstream media has been silent or reticent in reporting the allegations against Kitagawa.
Foreign media outlets, including the Associated Press, reported the allegations. The Japanese weekly Bunshun, which broke Kitagawa’s story, recently reported that another of Johnny’s officers, a manager, also abused children.
All such allegations will be investigated, Lin said.
Veteran Johnny stars such as Noriyuki Higashiyama and Sho Sakurai have spoken out recently, emphasizing the need for the agency to come clean. Singer and actor Hideaki Takizawa, a former Johnny’s executive, resigned in November to start his own production company, TOBE Co., in March.
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Yuri Kageyama on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
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