Japanese Idols are Prostitutes?
Ex-Gravure Idol Uncovers the ‘Dating Club’ in Japanese show biz world
There are two classic taboo rumors about the Japanese entertainment industry. The first is that organized crime runs the artist management business. There is a lot of evidence to back this up — convicted tax-evading jimusho bosses claiming the need for “underground financing” in the courtroom, bullets fired into management company windows, a well-known historical precedent for entertainment being a yakuza racket, Misora Hibari’s manager being a member of the Yamaguchi-gumi, etc., etc. But if you are a television network or publishing company dependent upon the very same entertainment companies to provide celebrities to attract viewers and readers, you are not exactly going to start blabbing about anything sinister. The entertainment companies are not dumb either, working at all costs to preserve the “wholesome” image. Who would think that the mob runs an industry where smoking a cigarette at age 19 can end your career as an idol?
The other persistent rumor is that model agencies — especially for gravia idols — prostitute their employees off on the side. A lot of the lower-ranking and newer idols must pay for their own dancing and singing lessons and are allegedly introduced to possible “buyers” by management company employees to secure an extra source of income. There are also apparently hostess clubs directly managed by the modeling agencies where up-and-coming talent can meet television executives and other powerful figures. In the past, there has been a lot of “Marxy, you are paranoid and crazy” in regards to my belief in this gossip. (And not just on this blog. My friend was pounding me on this just yesterday evening.)
Kohinata Minako Komukai Minako’s recent confession to these practices, however, is a huge leap forward for anyone wanting to pull back the curtain. I seriously doubt the story will get any legs — any talk of prostituting idols is still a massive taboo in the media, and almost no one has any stake in making the cheery idol business look seedy. Idols are the public face of many respectable businesses and government bureaus, so exposing the dark side of the industry is not just a hit for the management companies, but a hit for the entire Japanese national tatemae.
Many people often think, who cares where the money comes from? These revelations, however, show exactly why organized crime probably should not be free to hold the reigns to the pop cultural industries. They have too much temptation to milk as much money from their employees in any way possible, with basically no chance at legal recourse from their labor. And when the guys who run artist management companies and the guys who run brothels are in the same “fraternal organization,” crossover seems like an obvious occurrence.
November 18, 2008 at 11:00 am
Actually the NariNari article here talks about idols suing their management companies for forcing them to sell their bodies. There is legal recourse, I guess, but I still think there is more threat of physical violence when you are in essentially an illegally-intentioned company rather than a “regular” one.
November 18, 2008 at 11:21 am
Agreed that this will be ignored by the mainstream media, despite being the gravure equivalent of the Wakanoho sumo match fixing allegations.
Also, the idol’s name is actually Komukai Minako, which deepens the suspicion that the guy who writes Road to the Deep East isn’t really Japanese.
November 18, 2008 at 11:25 am
It should also deepen your suspicion that I did not double check the Japanese name before posting.
November 18, 2008 at 1:38 pm
If we’re going to be trafficking in unsubstantiated hearsay, I might mention that a Japanese friend of mine used to insist their was a prostitution service staffed by uranai jimusho talent extant in Tokyo.
November 18, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Is this How the World Learns About Japan?
November 18, 2008 at 3:57 pm
No. There was no restaurant where you can have sex with pigs. There have been at least three or four artist management agencies accused of pimping out their talent in the last few years alone. And everyone seems to think this is a fundamental part of the idol business.
Are you saying that you don’t believe that (a) management companies involve a lot of yakuza and (b) artist management companies for idols often guide their talent to accept money for sex?
November 18, 2008 at 5:43 pm
“Agreed that this will be ignored by the mainstream media.”
Depending what your term of “mainstream media”is,but Shukan Post is one of the largest circulating shukanshi in the country with ads on every major news paper and trains.It’s difficult to miss the headline.
As for a),no one denies it.Another gravure idol(who has been off the rader for quite sometime)Kamon Yoko has been exposed as the mistress of Goto-gumi boss,Goto Tadamasa who has recently being expelled from Yamaguchi-Gumi.Goto is known for the man who was behind the assault of Itami Juzo back in ’92.
As for b),it has been an urban legend occasionary pops up on shukanshi.I remember reading a zadankai(sort of roundtable random talks) on now dead Uwasa No Shinso mag(whose editor is now operating Kikko’s blog) about a decade ago that Tanaka Reina had offered “extra” service to the client,which was shocking because that was still the time when she was a mascot girl for Nacchan orange drink.
We also have to keep in mind that Komukai was fired from the management company.That means we need to have back up info on the management side to prove that she speaks the truth and this is not an act of disgruntled former employee trying to get even with the former employer.
November 18, 2008 at 5:48 pm
The story though fits with the other three accounts mentioned in the Narinari piece. Two of the cases seemed to be confirmed in a legal sense.
November 18, 2008 at 6:05 pm
It’s “Naigai”,Marxy.
November 18, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Ooops.My bad.You were right.The net version is Narinari….
November 18, 2008 at 6:08 pm
The last comment deepens the suspicion that Aceface isn’t really Japanese.
November 18, 2008 at 6:19 pm
It’s undeniable that criminal organizations have close ties with the entertainment world. Whether the head of some management company is himself actually a gang member or instead heavily in league with a gang is less clear but probably not a distinction which has any practical value anyway.
It would also come as a surprise if sexual favours weren’t a common currency in the Japanese entertainment world since it’s a feature of the business virtually everywhere else. Especially India, Hong Kong and China where the structure of the industry more closely resembles Japan than does, say, the US.
It’s evident that quite a few models and idols work in mizu shobai. Here’s a blog entry last month by egg model Sachika Takemura explaining how she has been working in a Roppongi kyabakura since summer and has made it to No.2 girl:
http://blog.mrmiss.jp/sachi/archive/115
Here’s another article, which appeared a few days ago, concerning former AV model Risa Koda, who was arrested for marijuana possession along with her tennis pro boyfriend.
http://www.zakzak.co.jp/gei/200811/g2008111503_all.html
She said to police that she bought dope because her boyfriend liked it but the article notes that metamphetamines are rife in the AV world, supplied by 暴力団関係のＡＶ業者, and Koda was no stranger to them. It goes on to suggest that she couldn’t break the habit when she retired and moved on to work in a “high class Roppongi club staffed by former AV models”.
What needs more substantiation, perhaps, is whether that kind of activity translates into institutionalized prostitution. This begs the question of whether an aspiring actress who agrees to go along to a coke-fuelled party of Hollywood movers and shakers, with an unspoken understanding of the role she is expected to play, is any different from one of the girls who used to work for Heidi Fleiss. Or maybe the issue is coercion, which would more plainly call for a police investigation, and Komukai is not much help there.
The only reason I nudged you with the WaiWai reference is, it occurred to me that this is exactly the kind of story which would have made it into the column. There were a number of objections to WaiWai, not necessarily consistent with each other, but one view was that the stories in the weeklies were unsubstantiated and often just false. This was known to a Japanese audience but not to a foreign audience so it wasn’t appropriate to translate them since it would misrepresent Japan. I think I recall you arguing against that line of thought but a number of WaiWai’s detractors would probably hold that you ought not to be giving credence to the NariNari piece.
November 18, 2008 at 6:39 pm
Especially India, Hong Kong and China where the structure of the industry more closely resembles Japan than does, say, the US.
Hong Kong’s entertainment world is pretty unambiguously run by the Triads. The mafia was extremely involved in American pop music in the 1950s. The difference is that the government actually acted against them, and the decline of management companies made this kind of crime more difficult. Actors in Hollywood are generally free agents, not “employees” of another company. They may hire William Morris to represent them, but this does not compare at all to what a jimusho does in Japan.
The links between AV and the mob and hostess clubs would not surprise many people. I think that idols, however, are supposed to be wholesome. Even gravia idols to a certain degree. Anyone on TV has to have an image that does not offend the core audience, unless it’s late-night TV. Iijima Ai was snuck in early, but I don’t think Hoshino Aki would still be on TV if people knew more about her past.
What needs more substantiation, perhaps, is whether that kind of activity translates into institutionalized prostitution.
I think the difference comes from the labor structure. In Hollywood, it is ultimately your choice. You are a free agent and that means free agency. If you refuse, you are not blacklisted from the industry. There is also a media that will print your grievances. In Japan, if you are asked to sleep with a client or big industry guy, you are being asked AS an employee. You can then be fired, and in Japan, getting fired from a jimusho means TOTAL blacklisting. So I don’t think the Hollywood party scenario is an apt comparison. Refusing to play the casting couch game may mean losing one role, but not all roles.
Also, needless to say, American TV and film actually casts by talent — something foreign to Japan. Japanese TV casts by jimusho affiliation. So losing your spot because you didn’t put out means losing your career, unless you want to do some indie film.
The only reason I nudged you with the WaiWai reference is, it occurred to me that this is exactly the kind of story which would have made it into the column.
This is the kind of story WaiWai SHOULD have run and would not have gotten in trouble if they had. They got in trouble for all the third-rate tabloid “urban legend” trash they reprinted exactly in the same way as this kind of story. This is an actual idol giving dirt on her industry. This is not anonymous sources. Shukan Post is not Jitsuwa Knuckles.
Narinari seems to just be reporting on other media and events. This doesn’t compare to “someguy said someguy said” of Jitsuwa Knuckles. These are stories, by the way, that in some ways need the internet and shukanshi to exist for reasons I outlined earlier.
November 18, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Are the mafia involved in the entertainment world ?
duhhhh
are they involved in drugs too, I wonder, and
perhaps stolen goods too ?!
they ought to be stopped ! it’s not fair
November 18, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Your duhhh would be fine as long it wasn’t one of the biggest taboo topics in Japan. Cynicism is actually a pretty rude response to all the millions of people who have no idea of what happens behind the scenes. Why would they know?
November 18, 2008 at 9:57 pm
>The last comment deepens the suspicion that Aceface isn’t really Japanese.
That’s twice you did that. I have feelings too, you know.
>Depending what your term of “mainstream media”is,but Shukan Post is one of the largest circulating shukanshi in the country with ads on every major news paper and trains.It’s difficult to miss the headline.
I should have been more specific – what I meant to say was that I can’t see this being covered as widely as the sumo match fixing allegations, which came from a source who was just as dubious but only threatened the status quo of the sport itself, rather than media and talent industry entanglements.
November 19, 2008 at 7:19 am
dude if you start riding to the defense of japanese womanhood any more often you’re going to need a white steed and a mask of some kind …
November 19, 2008 at 7:47 am
I guess my only other option is to passively accept and obliquely celebrate institutionalized misogyny.
November 19, 2008 at 9:32 am
“The last comment deepens the suspicion that Aceface isn’t really Japanese.”
Are there really such suspicions? No white guy has read as many Japanese books as Aceface.
Next you will be suggesting that Mulboyne and I are the same person….
In any case, I’m not sure if this “taboo” idea is that relevant in 2008. As Aceface mentioned, there seems to be a lot of shukanshi stuff about it. Both of these themes (prostituting idols and gang connections) have been all over manga since at least the late 1970s. They pop up so often that I assumed them to be true.I’m confident that manga reading Japanese guys (from Aso on down) also assume them to be true.
There have been a few huge coups lately as well. The gang connections of Hosoki Kazuko – the highest paid (per episode) “talent” on Japanese TV by some reports – were outed in Shukan Gendai (not really a “tabloid”) by famed gang reporter Mizoguchi.
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E7%B4%B0%E6%9C%A8%E6%95%B0%E5%AD%90%E2%80%95%E9%AD%94%E5%A5%B3%E3%81%AE%E5%B1%A5%E6%AD%B4%E6%9B%B8-%E6%BA%9D%E5%8F%A3-%E6%95%A6/dp/4062137275
The book also outlines how she pimped hostesses (not media related) at one point. Huge scandal and she’s pretty much been driven off TV by this. With a ship the size of Hosoki sunk in the last year or so through investigative crime reportage, I think that we can say that the taboo is on shaky legs if it hasn’t toppled over completely.
Another important thing came out of this – Hosoki had some of her gang friends give Mizoguchi a call and “suggest” that he stop writing articles about her. What did he do? He wrote an article about the threat. What happened in the end – he made a crapload of money off the story. Lesson – now more journalists are going to feel safe doing the same.
November 19, 2008 at 9:49 am
Didn’t the mob slash up a reporter’s son recently?
I think certain individuals can be outed as “mob-backed” but not organizations. A certain powerful management company showed up on a leaked police file of Goto-gumi front companies and “business partners” and no one would name names, not even Cyzo. So yes, the IDEA of mob interaction with entertainment companies is around, but no one dares start actually pointing figures. Everyone in the industry is fully aware of the reality, but there is too much risk for both individuals and organizations to start really investigating it.
At this point, the entire media complex is just too dependent upon the “bad guys.” They can pick off a talent who has gone too far, or committed an individual crime, but they can’t start doing news specials on how the biggest backroom figure in showbiz gets all his funding from a gang or how his allies in other agencies are very cleary ex-mob.
So yes, you can talk somewhat about these things, but I think you are overselling the media’s activities. They are parceling out crumbs when they know fully well about the entire iceberg.
November 19, 2008 at 9:50 am
That’s twice you did that. I have feelings too, you know.
We like running jokes. Our usage was not meant to poke fun at you.
Are there really such suspicions? No white guy has read as many Japanese books as Aceface.
I can affirm that Aceface is 100% Japanese.
November 19, 2008 at 9:54 am
There wasn’t any mention of the Hosoki expose on TV, quite the opposite as far as I’m aware, which would suggest that the taboo does exist. Shukanshi have far more editorial freedom than television news and current affairs but not the same reach, so wouldn’t it be safe to assume that most people think Hosoki just ‘retired’?
November 19, 2008 at 10:00 am
These kind of stories show up in the shukanshi and are read by people who are already skeptical. The media organizations with a reach that would actually inform people who like the entertainment sector do not dare write anything. I am always surprised that when I start discussing these issues with people who are not media nerds or older men, how little they know.
November 19, 2008 at 10:02 am
Don – So is that a taboo for TV, or the society-wide tatemae that Marxy mentioned? If it is just for TV, it is just for TV.
“So yes, the IDEA of mob interaction with entertainment companies is around, but no one dares start actually pointing figures.”
But in 2000 we would not have had a case like Hosoki’s to point to. With one of the biggest media figures in Japan blown out of the water, can the jimusho connections be far behind? Maybe or maybe not, just that “TABOO” is a big word.
Remember, we had people talking about the “Showa Emperor taboo” when there were 30 books about his war responsibility lining bookstore shelves. That Aussie guy managed to argue that Masako’s situation was “taboo” while ripping off most of his stuff from Shukanshi. Really have to watch that word.
November 19, 2008 at 10:05 am
>We like running jokes. Our usage was not meant to poke fun at you.
I know. I’m just feeling a bit emotional after my favorite spiritual advisor went off the air. I’ll bet that new “Ginza no Haha” lady isn’t even 100% Japanese.
November 19, 2008 at 10:10 am
Whoa, whoa, I would say that TV is one of the main engines of building tatemae. Tatemae does not mean that everything in society conforms to it. Tatemae is the “reality” that the hegemony wants to present. Tatemae will spring some leaks, but shukanshi are tatemae-busting, not part of it.
Remember, we had people talking about the “Showa Emperor taboo” when there were 30 books about his war responsibility lining bookstore shelves.
Find me 30 that discuss this in detail. There was a single chapter in a Takarajima “taboo” book that I read that just rehashed a bunch of old stories. I’d love to read a new book on the topic that really named names. At the very end of Ugaya’s book on J-Pop, he talks about the “dark forces” behind the scenes and does list some incidents, but he still can’t really go into depth.
We have two Japanese media taboo conventions, and let’s not get them confused:
1) Topic is too controversial to mention, but lots of information.
2) Topic is too controversial to mention, with information limited to those around the subject.
With the emperor, it’s clearly #1. Taboo just means “controversial.” The news doesn’t want to get into it because of the possible backlash, but they are not structurally unable.
With the entertainment world, it’s #2. Very few people will go on record to even provide the necessary information to write such a book. And more importantly, the media would be committing suicide by bringing up the topic because they are complicit.
November 19, 2008 at 10:15 am
>So is that a taboo for TV, or the society-wide tatemae that Marxy mentioned? If it is just for TV, it is just for TV.
Perhaps it is just for TV, but that just makes it a bigger taboo (or whatever you want to call it) because it is a primary source of information for the majority. Marxy’s point about the Shukanshi preaching to the converted seems valid to me. Hosoki was still appearing on TV as all these stories and books about her were out there, so it was hardly as if the networks suddenly ripped her off the air and locked her in her house. It was a pretty leisurely, dignified (as much as is possible with Hosoki), end of season intai from what I remember.
November 19, 2008 at 10:22 am
Okay, you and I just have different defs of “taboo”. I associate it with “incest taboo” – that kind of usage.
As you qualify the TV thing, etc. I see your point.
November 19, 2008 at 10:25 am
I was using the modern Japanese usage, which just really means “self-censorship.”
November 19, 2008 at 10:31 am
Perhaps we should just describe it as jishuku/self-censorship from now on. The media themselves probably would.
November 19, 2008 at 10:35 am
The topic is “taboo.” The result is self-censorship. But the topic is not taboo in the anthropological sense of the word. In almost all cases, bringing up the truth would embarrass someone in power or dirty the tatemae.
November 19, 2008 at 11:26 am
I guess my only other option is to passively accept and obliquely celebrate institutionalized misogyny.
Or, rather than making chivalrous objections to the most lurid appropriations of women as commodity-objects, you might instead frame yourself as an ally to women as subjects. As it stands you’re approaching a smartened-up version of Wai Wai with a bit of moralizing thrown in; like Fox news coverage of abduction cases, you’re protesting too much.
I would love to see treatment here (or on NJ) of Japanese feminism.
November 19, 2008 at 11:28 am
I would love to see treatment here (or on NJ) of Japanese feminism.
We have actually been planning this, because I do concede your point a bit.
November 19, 2008 at 11:42 am
“We have actually been planning this”
Something multi-authored like the “foreigner Japanese” thing would be very appropriate for this, I think.
November 19, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Yes to some Japanese feminism over here too. Because my Japan knowledge has no feminist perspective and my feminism knowledge is totally West-centric. And they come into major conflict and I can’t reconcile it. (Probably because I’m white and American and can’t know first hand what is the best for Japanese women. Surprise!)
November 22, 2008 at 3:48 pm
“I can’t see this being covered as widely as the sumo match fixing allegations, which came from a source who was just as dubious but only threatened the status quo of the sport itself, rather than media and talent industry entanglements.”
Don:
But Sumo is supposed to be a Nation’s all time favourite sports.Plus now there is the tape recording of the secret committee..
I am now reading late Takenaka Rou’s竹中労 芸能人別帳（ちくま文庫）.Takenaka was sort of Japanese gonzo journalist and had been active as entertainment gossip writer in the 60′s and 70′s.And it seems jimusho-talento-prostitution ring is pretty old stuff.
Reading a chapter on Mori Mitsuko森光子,who is now 87 this year,and possessing sorta-national grandma icon type of status,I learned she was busted by the Kyoto police in July of 194 busted by the Kyoto police in april of 1940 for suspicion of being a member of prostitution ring.At the time Mori was an actress under contract with Shinko Kinema新興キネマ which later become Daiei under former mob Nagata Masakazu.The cops had already busted a few young actresses from this studio and Mori was under suspcion from the cops for her being a father-less daughter of a geisha.(Mori was released from proson after four days later.)Although Mori had denied her involvement in prostitution,you can imagine this was pretty usual practice among not-so-well-to-do young women in entertainment world.
I have an idea on Hosoki.Lots of us know that Hosoki was the last wife of late confucian and mentor to many post war prime minister,Yasuoka Masahiro安岡正篤,who was immortalized by being the speech writer of that famous August 15th Imperial speech accepting Japan’s surrender in 1945.
We also know another variety show regular,Devi Sukarno was actually a hostess in Ginza,before shw was hand picked by the rightwinger and CIA agent Kodama Yoshio(who was working as an agent of influence of former PM Kishi Nobusuke,who was the grand fater of Abe Shinzo)and sent to Jakarta as “a present”to then Indonesian president,Sukarno.
Both Hosoki and Madame Devi are on the air of prime time TV show,because the taboo around them has become thing of the past,thus broken.Not vice-versa.
November 22, 2008 at 3:50 pm
“I learned she was busted by the Kyoto police in July of 194 busted by the Kyoto police in april of 1940 for suspicion of being a member of prostitution ring.”
It’s “I learned she was busted by the Kyoto police in april of 1940.”
December 25, 2008 at 9:47 pm
The showbiz industry in every country is corrupt. Young ignorant girls wanna be famous and are ruthlessly exploited by men in the industry. No wonder criminal gangs are involved
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