In the year 2023, the Japanese film and entertainment industry was rocked by the revelation that Johnny Kitagawa, president of "Johnny & Associates, Inc." a management company specializing in young male entertainers, was found to have sexually assaulted his entertainers before his death.
A BBC documentary was produced and reported in detail, and the story became known worldwide. In the early 2000s, a weekly magazine called "Shukan Bunshun" ran a campaign to report the story, but no other tabloid, major newspaper, or major television media followed suit and did not report the story. The reason for this was that each of the popular idol groups, consisting of "Johnny & Associates, Inc." entertainers, was extremely popular. Their CDs, for example, sold well, calendars featuring their pictures sold well, and TV dramas starring them received high ratings. Truth be told, they have lost some of their former momentum due to the popularity of K-POP, but still TV stations have no choice but to rely on their popularity.
This is a very serious situation. It became clear that the companies tended to place more emphasis on the casting than on the content of the project. The tendency to give priority to producing dramas and movies starring Johnny & Associates, Inc. entertainers, no matter what the content, has progressed markedly. Film production companies are not as vigorous as they once were in every country. In Japan, film production is happening at the various TV stations, and Dentsu, a very large advertising agency, is behind them. Dentsu is so powerful that it is involved in policy making for the ruling government. Incidentally, Dentsu was in charge of the Tokyo Olympics, and although it was punished for collusion in that event, its power has not tended to wane. Dentsu reigns as the shadow ruler of Japan.
This situation has resulted in an extraordinary deterioration regarding the quality of the work. Japan used to be a movie powerhouse. The influence of Kenji Mizoguchi, Yasujiro Ozu, Mikio Naruse, and Akira Kurosawa was felt by many of the world's filmmakers. There is no sign of them today. Filmmakers such as Kiyoshi Kurosawa for "Wife of a Spy," Ryusuke Hamaguchi for "Drive My Car," and of course Takeshi Kitano are known worldwide for their talent, but there has been a marked deterioration in the overall planning ability and technology of the film industry.
Since neither Dentsu nor TV stations have the basic planning ability, they can only plan live-action adaptations of anime and "light novels," novels steeped in the unbelievable opportunism of boy and girl.
It is independent films that resist this situation. In this regard, the release of the ambitious independent film "Fukuda Village Incident" this fall has probably given courage to many Japanese independent filmmakers. Directed by Tatsuya Mori, "Fukuda Village Incident" deals with an actual incident that occurred in 1923.
The Great Kanto Earthquake occurred on September 1, 1923. At that time, Korea was under Japanese rule, and Koreans had come to Japan to work in various jobs. Rumors circulated that Koreans with grudges against the Japanese had taken advantage of the chaos caused by the earthquake to poison wells, and vigilante groups in various areas indiscriminately massacred Koreans.
The incident in Fukuda Village was slightly different. Vigilantes killed peddlers who had come to Fukuda Village, even though they were Japanese. They were mistaken for Koreans, not Japanese, because of their local dialect. Fifteen medicine peddlers. Nine of the victims, including a pregnant woman and three toddlers aged 2, 4, and 6, were killed. "Fukuda Village Incident" is an ambitious film that deals with this incident, and it is an unusually big hit for an independent film in that it approaches a taboo subject in Japanese society.
However, the amount of money that investors in the crowdfunding arena are willing to invest in Japanese independent films is too low. Many Japanese independent films are of high quality and are often recognized at film festivals overseas. To begin with, however, thin salaries and abnormally long working hours in the video industry are serious in Japan, with many staff members working for free even on films produced by major film production companies. This was especially true for director Koji Fukada, who won the Jury Prize in the "Un Certain Regard" category at the 69th Cannes International Film Festival for his 2016 film "Harmonium," and who called for rectification of this situation from an early stage.
In the spring of 2022, the Japanese version of the #MeToo movement began when it was discovered that filmmakers such as Shion Sono and Hideo Sakaki, both popular for their relatively extreme portrayals, were forcing actresses to have sex with them in return for appearing in their films.
Johnny Kitagawa's sexual assault case came to light as part of this trend. Johnny & Associates, Inc. has announced that it will compensate the victims, but as of the end of November 2023, more than 800 former members of the company have contacted the company seeking compensation. Many of them were sexually assaulted in their early teens during their pre-debut training period.
The major media, in fact, have failed to report that Johnny Kitagawa has been raping young male entertainers, even though this was a well-known story in the entertainment industry. This was pointed out by experts from the UN Human Rights Council's Working Group on "Business and Human Rights" who visited Japan in early summer, but as of now, they have not done a thorough self-criticism.
Therefore, Japanese independent filmmakers are seeking to collaborate with foreign investors and foreign production teams. They want to bring quality films to the world. Some of them may perhaps want to send out spiritual works like mine. Now, I would like to tell foreign film investors that the Japanese yen, whether against the US dollar or the Euro, has fallen so much that it is comparatively inexpensive, even if the actors and crew are paid enough to satisfy their needs.
These are the reports around the Japanese film industry at the end of 2023.
