Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
About a week ago, NGT48 shared the results of a third-party investigation in regards to the assault of Yamaguchi Maho, and they basically said they’ll change some stuff but clarified that no members were involved.
Well shortly after, during the AKS news conference about the report, Maho tweeted out her response. She was watching the broadcast herself, which was obviously something they weren’t prepared for.
Essentially, she claims Matsumura Takumi of AKS told her that the members connected with the assault would be cut and that he forced her to apologize.
Yamaguchi Maho is sharing her response to the NGT48 so-called “independent third-party report” to call out inconsistencies between the claims made by both the report and the group’s management to her experiences since she was assaulted in early Dec 2018. https://t.co/IBJFtLTQT8
— Kat Bee (@katbeee) March 22, 2019
Yamaguchi claims NGT48 manager Matsumura “promised to ‘discharge all members connected to the incident’ before the release of the independent investigation.” #山口真帆
— Kat Bee (@katbeee) March 22, 2019
She continues: “For the sake of the investigation, I have completely resisted [speaking out] until now. I have not heard, nor received any communication regarding this matter.” #山口真帆
— Kat Bee (@katbeee) March 22, 2019
Yamaguchi claims she was forced by management to issue an apology on Jan. 10 for speaking out about her assault. If she didn’t issue the apology, she was told her bandmates would read a prepared statement on her behalf. #山口真帆 https://t.co/gX3ZtqoBVB
— Kat Bee (@katbeee) March 22, 2019
“I couldn’t let the other members do that — so, I apologized,” she explains. #山口真帆
— Kat Bee (@katbeee) March 22, 2019
Specifically, Yamaguchi makes a pretty strong and damning claim that, while the report clearly states no inappropriate links between her attackers and NGT48 members were found, these relationships are somewhat of an open secret among those connected to the group. #山口真帆
— Kat Bee (@katbeee) March 22, 2019
Sorry for the lateness of the post, but things have been hectic this month.
Anyway, I don’t think anybody with a brain ever thought her apology for this was not forced. Therefore, I’m not sure there’s any reason to believe Maho ever lied about any of this. Her claims have been the only constant in this as management have scrambled to cover this mess up, including constantly changing stories, shuffling staff, and desperately trying to keep this from blowing up into something bigger.
Can’t help but feel then that they told her they would take action to prevent her from speaking out until the investigation was over, probably knowing that most outlets would only report on their “official” findings anyway and they could sorta move forward after that.
