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The story
Businessman Hiroyuki (Hiroyuki Nishimura) was reported by November 2 to have shared his personal views on his YouTube channel about the struggles of second-generation (“nepo-baby”) celebrities, saying that “no matter what they do, people say it’s all thanks to their parents.” The 5ch thread that followed was divided over whether nepo-baby talents are truly judged on their own merits. Posters cited real-world examples — the son of comedian Tsurube Shofukutei, the son of actor Goro Kishitani and singer Kaori Okui, Kazushige Nagashima, and Yoshizumi Ishihara — pointing out both the built-in advantage of having connections and the view that whether you ultimately survive comes down to the individual. Plenty of commenters agreed with the remark that “you’ve really made it once people stop calling you ‘so-and-so’s son.’”
Hiroyuki shares his view on nepo-baby talents: “No matter what they do, people say it’s ‘thanks to their parents’…”
Businessman Hiroyuki Nishimura (49) updated his YouTube channel by the 2nd, touching on the subject of second-generation celebrities.
When a viewer sent in the question, “I’d like to hear your thoughts on what kind of struggles tend to come with riding on your parents’ fame,” he replied…
Source: news.yahoo.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
but is not being able to use connections really "hard mode"?
If it's a job where nobody even knows who your parents are, you'd be starting from the same line as everyone else.
Gonna use your connections to turn your own kid into an internet "pundit" (lol) too?
Babil the Fake (riffing on manga icon "Babil II")
Lupin's Regret (riffing on "Lupin III") — generation-number wordplay all around
Yoshizumi Ishihara
these guys are riding their fathers' coattails too, right?
Take the son of Goro Kishitani and Kaori Okui —
where exactly did he come from, and what talent does he actually have?
Strip away "son of Goro Kishitani and Kaori Okui" and there's nothing left.
Graduated from Keio, lived in America, speaks fluent English,
strong in politics, economics, and sociology, can speak confidently in public —
isn't that enough?
He hasn't surpassed him though —
he hasn't built a mansion in Denenchofu or Kamikitazawa,
and he hasn't got a second home in Chiyoda Ward either.
What's lame is acting like "just evaluate me for who I am, not my parents' name" —
like claiming "I didn't mention my parents' name at the audition."
He only ever says stuff that sounds like a badly-trained AI.
He can't write a hit song, so acting's the easiest path when you've got connections.
Apparently he's close friends with [soccer player] Kubo,
but can he really see eye to eye with someone who lives in a world of pure competition?
For people trying to climb the ladder, getting close to a connections-kid is a golden opportunity.
Think Tsuyoshi Muro cozying up to Kotaro Koizumi (son of former PM Junichiro Koizumi),
or Takashi Sasano cozying up to Kanzaburo Nakamura (famous kabuki actor).
Both sides see it as win-win, so it keeps happening.
Masaaki Sakai, maybe?
Actor Masakazu Tamura had already stopped being called "Bantsuma's son" by the time of [the drama] Kin'yo no Tsuma-tachi e.
And nobody really thinks of Masaaki Sakai as the child of some massive first-gen star anyway.
Probably generational turnover too —
kids these days know Kazushige Nagashima but probably have no idea who his father Shigeo is.
That one actually surpassed her mother on pure talent.
I don't know about that — at least in terms of vocal ability, I think Keiko Fuji is way ahead.
Songwriting talent, I mean — that's where she surpasses her.
Also, that show he does with Chisako Takashima and the other guy is incredibly boring.
Yeah, I honestly don't get what's supposed to be funny about that show.
And it's still running, somehow.
On TV these days, women bashing men is what gets laughs.
In that climate, he's valued as the "uncle" character you can rip into without anyone feeling bad for him.
Well, even Hiromi himself is kind of a mystery as to why he's on TV in the first place…
Right, even if you flop, you can still live comfortably off your parents' money.
>Lived in America, speaks fluent English,
strong in politics, economics, and sociology, can speak confidently in public
Lol, that's a pretty "whatever" resume to be bragging about.
Still, comparatively speaking, I rate Ranmaru over Furuichi.
So the idea that nepo-babies make it on pure talent alone is basically impossible.
There's deference going on behind the scenes that lets them succeed early.
The kid benefits because the parent worked hard — I mean, that's just natural when you think about it.
There's probably some senior staffer out there who was taken care of by the parent back in the day.
Still, not many of them actually make it big.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
The debate around second-generation celebrities needs to separate two things: the advantage they have at the start of their careers, and whether they can actually survive afterward. In the thread, many posters acknowledged that a parent’s fame functions as a connection in the early stages of auditions and job offers, while examples like Kazushige Nagashima — said to have out-earned his father — and Masaaki Sakai or Yutaka Take, cited as having “stopped being called their father’s child” across generations, came up as benchmarks for evaluation. One easy misunderstanding is to simply equate “having connections” with “having no talent”; the thread also saw pushback praising people with strong academic backgrounds, language skills, or specialized knowledge, with some pointing out that being a nepo-baby doesn’t necessarily correlate with a lack of personal ability. Hiroyuki’s comment itself focused on the psychological burden carried by nepo-babies, and the question of how to separate a parent’s achievements from an evaluation of the person themselves looks set to keep coming up.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Entertainment & Sports News+) thread “[Entertainment] Hiroyuki shares his view on nepo-baby talents: “No matter what they do, people say it’s ‘thanks to their parents’…”“
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