Forum - View topicINTEREST: BBC Plans Documentary Episode About Idol Industry Mogul Johnny Kitagawa's Alleged Abuse
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seoulman1985
 Posts: 111 |
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Thanks to this scoundrel, a lot of music was deprived from overseas releases like Kodocha, The Skull Man, and Ultraman Tiga among many others.
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retroshojo
Posts: 28 |
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Now this I have to see.
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mdo7
 Posts: 6404 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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For those of you that are not familiar with what seoulman is talking about, this video from Mike Dent of Vintage Henshin dived into the topic why Johnny's Entertainment is a bit awkward. That include the aforementioned Ultraman Tiga. But back on topic, I hope that documentary will be made available to US/North American viewers like me. Because I want to watch it since I heard past reports about the alleged abuse, and probably slave contract that exist. |
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Greboruri
Posts: 387 Location: QBN, NSW, Australia |
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I mean that's not really true. Both Kodocha and Ultraman Tiga both contain the original songs in at least one of the original English language version; the Discotek version contains the Tokio song plus retains the cameo from the member of the band in the first episode and both the Funimation and Mill Creek sets of Ultraman Tiga contain the V6 song, though the latter only has it on some episodes. To me the allegations of what Johnny Kitagawa did is far worse than the way he wielded his power over the acts on his company's roster including the sexual assault allegations of 10 underage members of their talent pool. This has been known since 1999 when a tabloid, Shukan Bunshun, made the allegations public and also suggested they had supplied alcohol and cigarettes to their underage talents. Johnny & Associates sued, but Shukan Bunshun won on appeal, but only on the charges of sexual abuse. What gets me is that TV stations, radio stations, and the print media didn't make much of this and continued to book and promote Johnny & Associates acts as if nothing happened at all. But this just shows just how much power talent agencies, just not Johnny & Associates, have over the Japanese media as a whole. I think there is way too much focus on female idols getting raw deals in the entertainment industry when in reality the practice is industry wide. Talento, musicians, TV presenters etc all get a raw deal and earn far, far less than their counterparts in other countries and have far more restrictive clauses in their contracts. I can't find the article now (originally I saw it on Mulboyne's twitter account a couple of years back), a well known male presenter on one of the NHK's children's shows was caught in a scandal where, in contravention to his strict contract, he had secretly got married, had a child and took his family overseas. It was absolutely bonkers to me that your employer could forbid you to do any of those things under contract. |
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mrsatan
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 914 |
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I'm glad somebody is covering this. Dude was a scumbag.
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mdo7
Posts: 6404 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Well that's the power of Kisha Club, and the power of high-power relationship. I believe there's an article from Arama Japan that talked about J-music/artists that were banned from Music Station because of it's relationship with Johnny's. This is also what happened to TVXQ, the biggest K-pop act back in the 2000's decade, in 2008 TVXQ was banned from performing on Music Station despite the group reached #1 on Japan's Oricon chart at that time. They did ended up on Music Station a year later. |
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whiskeyii
 Posts: 2271 |
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Weirdly, I know of Johnny's via the Lost Judgement thing where they (allegedly) can't get the main character back.
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chrisb
 Subscriber Posts: 642 Location: USA |
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Thank god this story is being told. It looks like the Japanese media rarely touch the topic. Hopefully it will help newbies in the entertainment field learn how to protect themselves from other monsters.
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Zalis116
Moderator
 Posts: 6902 Location: Kazune City |
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Discotek was only able to get the 1st Kodocha OP and related music rights because Johnny had died in the intervening years between their release and Funimation's, which was kind of seoulman1985's point. |
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Greboruri
Posts: 387 Location: QBN, NSW, Australia |
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And yet the Funimation version of Ultraman Tiga, released in 2004, still had V6's "Take Me Higher" included as the opening theme in each episode. Not saying Kitagawa didn't micromange his talent, music rights and artist imagery to an absurd degree, but material did slip through, as happened with Ultraman Tiga's original US home video release. |
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SHD
Posts: 1759 |
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Just one episode? They'd need a whole miniseries...
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2034 |
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And a big reason why Yu-Gi-Oh! couldn’t be released here in Japanese for a long time. Yugi’s voice actor, Shunsuke Kizama was signed by Johnny’s, and they somehow blocked the release of his voice recordings here. We got bilingual DVDs around 2004, but this was some time after that. When 5D’s was streamed subtitled, Yugi’s voice was muted for a cameo. |
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Aresef
Posts: 915 Location: MD |
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Johnny Kitagawa was a scumbag who ruled his company and talent with an iron fist. And it wasn't until he was gone that Johnny & Associates was actually able to make inroads into the international market.
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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A lot of the dark clouds were lifted from the industry once Kitagawa died, also for those who want to delve into conspiracy theories, he kinda was in cahoots with the CIA early on as well. |
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Lord Geo
Posts: 2680 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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And that could simply be because 4Kids, who had the rights to Tiga (not FUNimation) probably actually paid the exorbitant amount that Kitagawa wanted for the song, because 4Kids would have had the money to do so back then. Also, bringing up one example as a counterargument, instead of being an exception to the rule, isn't really as strong as you think it is, because people will just continually bring up the examples that reinforce their argument. The simple fact is that while Kitagawa was alive more songs featured in anime that came from his various acts did NOT see inclusion outside of Japan (& even sometimes within Japan itself) than actually did see inclusion outside of Japan. Just because a scant few did manage to make it across doesn't mean that what everyone else is saying isn't true. |
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