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The story
STARTO ENTERTAINMENT (formerly Johnny’s & Associates) finds itself at the center of several overlapping controversies. timelesz member Shuto Inomata was arrested on suspicion of assault and has been suspended from activities, while separately, Bunshun Online and other outlets report that STARTO representative Julie Keiko Fujishima is fuming over Stardust-affiliated group M!LK’s win at “Music Awards Japan,” a music award that prides itself on judging without favoritism — reportedly declaring, “We won’t be entering our kids again.” On 5ch, reactions were split for and against Fujishima, alongside talk of the overexposure of Johnny’s-affiliated talent on TV and reflections on the history of male idol groups nurtured by other agencies like Stardust.
STARTO ENTERTAINMENT is in turmoil.
On September 19, Shuto Inomata (25), a member of the eight-member group timelesz, was arrested by the Metropolitan Police Department on suspicion of assault after allegedly injuring a woman he knew. STARTO announced the same day that Inomata would be suspended from activities for the time being, with formal disciplinary action to be decided once the authorities’ ruling is finalized. Inomata reportedly denies the allegations.
The other seven members of timelesz issued a statement saying, “We are all at a loss for words over the shock of this.” As STARTO scrambles to respond to the arrest of a member of one of its most popular groups, another story concerning the male idol world is also drawing attention.
Source: pinzuba.news / Read the original article here
What people said
Johnny's talent who can't even pull off a novelty song bit should just stay quiet.
Stardust.
It's just Johnny's under a new name
They should be forced to disband
Criminal agency!!!!!
w-inds. used to bill themselves as a "hip-hop dance unit" (to dodge being called idols).
K-pop agencies are already muscling into Japan, and the cutesy "shotacon"-style boy idols aren't going to cut it anymore
Is Monaki's (idol unit referenced upthread) target audience middle-aged women?
It's not that easy to just whip one up
Even Ebidan took more than ten years before they had a hit
Same here
Guess not
It wasn't until around FANTASTICS that they finally started going the same route
to
"There's no seat at the table for your agency, period"
But pretty much every TV network is saturated with Johnny's talent right now
Yesterday afternoon alone was nauseating
Johnny's on Nippon TV's Hirunandesu
Johnny's on Fuji's Poka Poka
There's a Johnny's guy dispatched to some show literally every single day
The only place you ever catch M!LK is on Gocchi
Since Nippon TV is Johnny's-saturated too, M!LK will probably get cut by the end of the year
Sounds like Johnny's talent have a string of jobs lined up starting this fall
Though after this arrest, the networks are probably regretting it
Weekday mornings are just as bad
They're on every channel you flip to
So maybe Johnny's groups just genuinely weren't popular enough?
Yeah, they did say that
Though doesn't Julie not actually hold real power anymore?
Does she even have the authority to say "we won't enter our kids"?
Ebidan: fans buy CDs in bulk for the meet-and-greet perks, since they're "idols you can go meet"
Johnny's: fans buy CDs in bulk out of an almost religious fear of embarrassing their oshi (favorite member)
Wait, aren't the vocalists and dancers separate roles there?
Huh? They've worked alongside Korean idols too — doesn't mean there's any real sense of camaraderie
Heard TBS is giving M!LK their own daytime show
TBS was also the first to report on the Inomata incident
Masahiko Matsuoka
Jun Matsumoto
Sho Sakurai
Masaki Aiba
Tadayoshi Okura
Shigeaki Kato
Fuma Kikuchi
Ryosuke Yamada
Shunsuke Michieda
Ryusei Onishi
Joichiro Fujiwara
Kazuya Ohashi
Raul
Shota Watanabe
Genta Matsuda
Ukyo
and others
Feels like a lineup of guys who just want to stay under the umbrella of whoever's in power
Someone like Ninomiya, who started his own agency and built real clout with hits like VIVANT, doesn't bother showing his face at these things
Though he's probably sent an obligatory congratulatory message at least
When M!LK actually won an award, she'd stepped out of her seat
Guess she genuinely didn't expect them to take it
Background and Key Points of This Topic
“Music Awards Japan (MAJ)” is a relatively new music award founded on the principle of judging without favoritism, aiming — as referenced in the thread via a comment attributed to someone connected to Sakanaction — for evaluation criteria detached from the power dynamics of traditional talent agencies. M!LK’s agency, Stardust, is a longstanding company that has spent years trying to break into the male idol market effectively monopolized by Johnny’s (now STARTO), and the rise of acts like EXILE and the Ebichu (Ebisu Muscats) lineage is part of that same broader trend. On the STARTO side, meanwhile, the extent of Julie Keiko Fujishima’s continued involvement has repeatedly come into question even after the company’s name change following the former Johnny’s sexual abuse scandal — and the thread’s own observation that “she may not actually hold real authority anymore” is worth bearing in mind before taking the reporting’s premise at face value. It’s also worth noting that the timelesz member’s arrest, reported around the same time, is an entirely separate matter, and posters in the thread are careful not to conflate the two.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Entertainment/Sports News+) thread “[STARTO ENTERTAINMENT] Julie Keiko Fujishima Reportedly Furious Over M!LK’s Meteoric Rise… Said to Be Fuming and Unhappy Over Their ‘MAJ’ Win, Declaring “We Won’t Enter Our Kids Again” [Ailuropoda melanoleuca★]“.
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