For the past month Japan has been gripped by allegations of sexual misconduct involving one of the country’s best-known stars at a major TV network, in what is becoming a litmus test of the entertainment industry’s response to abuse claims against prominent celebrities.
Masahiro Nakai, a former member of the hugely popular boyband Smap, is alleged to have sexually assaulted a woman at a private dinner in June 2023 that was reportedly arranged by a senior member of staff at Fuji TV, one of Japan’s biggest broadcasters.
Nakai, who enjoyed a successful post-Smap career as the host of a TV show aired by Fuji, on Thursday announced his retirement, telling his fanclub site that he had “completed all discussions with TV stations, radio broadcasters and sponsors regarding my termination, cancellation, removal and contract annulment”.
“I will continue to face up to all problems sincerely and respond in a wholehearted manner. I alone am responsible for everything,” Nakai said, according to the Mainichi Shimbun newspaper.
Nakai’s retirement at 52 comes soon after he acknowledged he had been involved in “trouble” in connection with the unnamed woman with whom, according to the Shukan Bunshun weekly magazine, he later reached an out-of-court settlement worth ¥90m (£466,000).
Nakai, who is not the subject of a police investigation, denied he had used violence or that a third party had been involved, adding that he had responded “sincerely” to the woman in the settlement. “This trouble is entirely down to my shortcomings,” he said in a statement on his official website.
Industry in turmoil
Japan’s entertainment industry has been forced to rethink its handling of sexual assault and misconduct allegations since powerful music mogul Johnny Kitagawa was targeted by allegations that he had sexually abused hundreds of boys and young men who had joined his agency hoping to become pop idols.
Broadcasters and their partners in the print media ignored the allegations for more than two decades as they continued to employ boybands – including Smap – from Kitagawa’s Johnny & Associates stable to tap into the lucrative youth market.
The media were forced to confront the allegations in 2023 – four years after Kitagawa’s death in 2019 aged 87 – after the BBC documentary Predator: the Secret Scandal of J-pop generated global headlines and encouraged more survivors to come forward. Hundreds of people are now seeking compensation from the agency.
TV stations, including the public broadcaster NHK, issued belated apologies for their “code of silence” regarding the allegations against Kitagawa, whose agency has since attempted to re-invent itself under new management and a different name.
The case has also shone a light on other TV networks, amid reports that dinners and drinking parties involving celebrities and young women are commonplace. Nippon TV and other channels have announced their own investigations into whether its staff had organised social gatherings involving celebrities and women.
The incident will “hopefully serve as an opportunity for TV stations to rethink how they make shows”, said Takahiko Kageyama, a media studies professor at Doshisha Women’s College of Liberal Arts. “If women are being treated not as equal human beings but as some kind of lubricant to facilitate the making of TV programmes, it’s time they stopped this practice.”
In contrast to the aftermath of the allegations against Kitagawa, companies have acted quickly to distance themselves from Fuji TV and Nakai.
More than 70 companies, including Toyota, Nissan and McDonald’s, suspended advertisements on Fuji TV, with more than 350 commercials replaced by ads promoting awareness of social issues from the Advertising Council of Japan.
Shares in Fuji Media group plummeted as Rising Sun Management, an affiliate of the US fund Dalton Investments – a majority shareholder in the network’s parent company Fuji Media – accused the network of a lack of transparency.
“The uproar created by Mr Masahiro Nakai … reflects not only a problem in the entertainment industry generally, but, specifically, it exposes serious flaws in your corporate governance,” Rising Sun said in an open letter to the Fuji board.
“The lack of consistency and, importantly, transparency in both reporting the facts and the subsequent unforgivable shortcomings in your response merit serious condemnation that serves not only to undermine viewer trust, but also leads directly to erode shareholder value. As one of your largest shareholders, controlling over 7% of the company’s stock, we are outraged!”
In response, last week the broadcaster announced a U-turn, saying it would launch an independent investigation led by a panel of lawyers into the sexual misconduct allegations, as well as the possible role of Fuji TV employees. Fuji TV suspended a weekly show hosted by Nakai while other major networks also dropped the presenter.
Fuji TV’s president, Koichi Minato, apologised for “causing tremendous trouble and concern due to the [media] reports”, but his comments failed to stem an exodus by commercial partners and his press conference was criticised because it was open only to certain media, who were told it could not be broadcast. Forced on the back foot again, Fuji TV will hold a more open “rerun” of the press conference next week.
Yusuke Nakamura, editor-in-chief of Shukan Bunshun’s digital edition, noted that while TV networks had been quick to remove Nakai from their programmes, they did not launch their own investigations into the allegations until Minato’s press conference.
Nakamura likened the case to that of Kitagawa. Bunshun first reported on the allegations against the music mogul in 1999, and in 2004 a court recognised that Kitagawa had committed sexual assault. “But Japanese media continued to use acts from Johnny & Associates and didn’t report on the sexual assault allegations at all,” Nakamura told the Guardian.
“In the latest case, Fuji TV only held a press conference after Rising Sun demanded an explanation. In both instances, the situation only moved forward in any meaningful way due to external pressure.
“Broadcasters are now reporting on Nakai’s problems, but this is partly due to the fact that Nakai essentially went freelance in 2020. If he had belonged to an influential production company like Johnny & Associates, I wonder if TV networks would have been as critical of him as they are being now.”
Kaori Hayashi, a professor at the Graduate School of Interdisciplinary Information Studies at Tokyo University, said Fuji TV had “miscalculated public sentiment”.
“While the public’s mindset has shifted, the management at Fuji TV seems to live in a bubble and has completely underestimated the significance of recent events, such as the Kitagawa and Matsumoto scandals,” she said.
Fuji TV employees are said to be angry at the management’s response. Its labour union said the number of members had soared from 80 at the beginning of last week to more than 500, as staff fret about the possible fallout for their employer. “I hope the company will be reborn with a sense of crisis,” one employee told the Asahi Shimbun.
Some critics remain unconvinced by the broadcaster’s conduct in the wake of the allegations, first made in December by the weekly magazine Josei Seven.
In a scathing editorial, the Mainichi Shimbun said, “it would not be surprising if the network is seen as fretting over defending itself rather than seeking the truth”.
Agence France-Presse contributed to this report
