Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
In mask-off news, SMILE-UP (formerly part of Johnny & Associates) have sued four victims of Johnny Kitagawa’s sexual abuse due to them not taking the proposed settlement from the company.
Smile-Up Inc. has sued victims of sexual abuse by show-business mogul Johnny Kitagawa, arguing that the company should not be held liable for paying damages if they reject its compensation framework.
The lawsuit was filed at the Tokyo District Court by the company that was formerly the Johnny & Associates Inc. talent agency.
The four defendants in the lawsuit have been recognized as victims of Kitagawa, the agency’s founder who died in 2019, but they have not accepted compensation packages under the framework established by Smile-Up’s victims relief committee.
Unsurprisingly, in a recent press conference, the victims said the company’s actions are in opposition to their claim that they’re supporting the victims.
According to the company and lawyers of the victims, three of the defendants have rejected the compensation framework of the relief committee and could not reach an agreement in mediations with the company.
Smile-Up’s lawsuit said the three victims’ refusal to accept the framework should absolve the company of paying compensation to them.
For the other victim, the company is seeking confirmation that it has no obligation to pay more than the amount of compensation offered by the relief committee.
While it seems unbelievably insane to me for a company that has acknowledged wrongdoing to now effectively sue the victims to settle on the company’s terms, it turns out they’re likely doing it as sort of a SLAPP lawsuit. Because the wrinkle here is that two of those victims named in the lawsuit from SMILE-UP are suing both SMILE-UP and STARTO ENTERTAINMENT in America.
Two of the men are Junya Tanaka, 43, and Kyohei Iida, 37, both former members of Johnny’s Jr., a pre-debut idol group in the agency.
They sued Smile-Up in Nevada on Dec. 18, 2024, saying they were sexually assaulted by Kitagawa in Las Vegas when they were teenagers.
They are seeking a total of $300 million (47 billion yen) in damages from the company and related people.
The other two defendants are Yukihiro Oshima, 39, a former member of Johnny’s Jr., and Yasunobu Shiga, 56, a former member of idol group Ninja.
As their lawyer mentions, this is all likely an attempt to be preventative in nature.
Yuko Atsumi, a lawyer representing the victims, said Smile-Up is unilaterally imposing its own framework on the victims.
She also said the lawsuit could be a means of preventing victims from taking legal action in the United States.
Also, it isn’t even the first time they’ve sued a victim.
Smile-Up filed an earlier lawsuit against a victim of Kitagawa at the Saitama District Court.
In November 2024, the company sued Shimon Ishimaru, 57, former deputy chief of the Johnny’s Sexual Assault Victims Association, which was dissolved in September 2024.
The company is seeking confirmation that it does not have to pay more than 18 million yen in damages to Ishimaru, the figure proposed by the victims relief committee.
Again, another case about maintaining their compensation structure.
The company themselves say they just want to pay their own self-imposed compensation equally for the sake of fairness, and there were reports as early as over a year ago that victims were having trouble with the system, so all of this tracks.
For what it’s worth, the company downplayed the rationale of victims suing in America, with SMILE-UP citing a lack of jurisdiction and STARTO claiming they have no monetary connection to SMILE-UP. However, how things progress in America could have significant ramifications for this case.
But Kazuko Ito, a lawyer and expert on sexual violence lawsuits in the United States, said that filling the case in Nevada could have a major impact.
She explained that the U.S. court could provide a more transparent process and establish clear compensation figures, compared to the closed, secretive nature of the decisions made by Smile-Up.
Basically, the last thing SMILE-UP/STARTO want is for the victims to be able to sue individually in court for compensation, because the amount is likely to be significantly more than what they’re distributing now. It would open up a whole new can of worms, basically.
Not sure if anybody was still buying that SMILE-UP was anything but a grand PR gesture and attempt for J&A to just be able to move on as STARTO as quickly as possible — especially after Higashiyama Noriyuki’s mess with the BBC — but all this definitely makes it clear, I think.
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Meanwhile, there are victims who are currently petitioning to abolish the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse in civil lawsuits.
Kazuya Nakamura, a former Johnny & Associates member, and others asked passers-by to sign the petition outside JR Ochanomizu Station in Tokyo on Jan. 19.
Under the Civil Code, victims of sexual abuse lose the right to seek compensation three or five years after they learn the identity of the perpetrator.
Even when the perpetrator is unidentified, there is a 20-year limit for seeking compensation in civil lawsuits from the time of the tortious act.
“It is hard to speak out about being sexually abused, and victims tend to accept it silently,” said Nakamura, 37. “We want to eliminate the statute of limitations to protect future children.”
He said he was sexually abused by Johnny Kitagawa when he was 15 but could not publicly discuss what he suffered until two years ago.
They plan to call on Diet members for new legislation, and signatures are being collected on Change.org, which could perhaps do some good for once.
Here’s hoping.
