The new agency established to handle Johnny & Associates Inc. performers unveiled its firm identify Friday as Starto Entertainment Inc, in a bid to begin afresh following a intercourse abuse scandal involving the late founding father of the previous male expertise company.
The firm identify, chosen from amongst greater than 140,000 strategies from followers, is derived from “star(s),” referring to present and potential performers, and “to” in Japanese, which implies “with,” the agency mentioned, vowing to decide to supporting every performer’s abilities and private objectives.
Atsushi Fukuda, chief govt of consulting agency Speedy Inc. and former vice chairman at Sony Pictures Entertainment (Japan) Inc, has assumed the function of chief govt, the brand new agency mentioned, including it can begin full-fledged operations from subsequent April.
The plan to determine a brand new agency to handle former Johnny’s performers, who selected to signal new contracts, was introduced in October in a bid to create distance from the late Johnny Kitagawa, who was discovered to have sexually abused male teenagers for many years.
Johnny & Associates has renamed itself Smile-Up Inc and is now devoted to offering redress to the sexual abuse victims. Smile-Up will likely be disbanded as soon as the victims have been compensated.
The allegations in opposition to Kitagawa, who died in 2019, got here below renewed scrutiny after a BBC documentary was aired in March that includes interviews with a number of individuals claiming to have been abused by the pop mogul.
After the documentary was aired, a number of former company members got here ahead with accusations of abuse suffered throughout their teenage years, finally main Johnny’s to confess the sexual abuse had taken place and supply redress to the victims.
Johnny’s was fashioned in 1962 and went on to propel SMAP, Arashi and quite a few different teams to stardom.
© KYODO