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 Johnny's Jimusho
Johnny and Associates, the official English title for Johnny's Jimusho, is the undisputed leader when it comes to the creation and promotion of young male idol stars. Founded by Johnny Kitagawa (the current president is his sister Mary), the company has been the top talent agency in Japan for many years, annually making in excess of 3 billion yen. Johnny's initial inspiration for producing music came during his high school years in LA when he was greatly impressed by Alice Cooper's showmanship.
In 1963 he launched his first quartet, aptly monikered "Johnnies", and from then has gone on to create the most successful male idols of each decade. His bidanshi fakutorii (pretty boy factory) has been responsible for such popular groups as The Four Leaves, Tanokin Trio, Ninja, Shibugakitai (which launched Motoki Masahiro) and Hikaru Genji. Johnny's biggest success of the last ten years has been SMAP, whose careers are now positively ballistic. Should they, God forbid, start to sink, Johnny has a whole raft of idol flotsam floating in their wake - V6, Kinki Kids, Coming Century, Tokio and Johnny's Juniors are all his creations, too. His idea is to tap into whatever the current music fad is by manufacturing a group which reflects it, hence Ninja supposedly reflected the heavy metal boom and SMAP were originally intended to be a pseudo-rap group!
Despite their phenomenal success, many of Johnny's idols don't end up making big bucks themselves. Johnny's standard contract gives the idol a salary and few other benefits; Johnny retains the publishing and catalogue rights, owns the group's name and often the name of the idol himself. When age excludes them from the idol business, few are as fortunate as Tahara Toshihiko and Motoki Masahiro, who both left Johnny and went on to have successful acting careers. Many former idols, deprived of a normal adolescence by their success and suddenly out of work, find adult life difficult.
Johnny claims that his preference for boy bands is based purely on them being easier to handle than girl groups. Certainly there has been a lot of speculation over the years as to exactly how much Johnny personally handles. In 1988 Kita Koji, a member of The Four Leaves, published a 12 volume diary detailing Johnny's gay activities and his own sexual molestation by Johnny and other idols. In 1996 former idol Hiramoto Junya also accused Johnny of abusing his prodigies, claiming he had witnessed boys being raped in the dormitory. In the '70s Johnny settled out of court with a boy's family who filed a deposition alleging that their son had been forced into "indecent activities". These days Johnny is powerful enough to quash any prospective bad press so don't expect to read much about his paedophilia in the vernacular press.
Despite the rumours about his sexuality and the formulaic nature and dubious quality of much of his music, Johnny certainly seems to have the male idol market all tied up. Johnny Kitagawa is an extremely shrewd businessman and is probably already considering how to stamp his mark on the coming century's pop market.
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