It would be instructive to separate the talents who were formed to be money-making machines, from the real musicians, many of whom are popular enough to play the summer festival circuit and make decent sales of itunes downloads and goods without clowning around as “talents”. The two groups are often very different. I wonder what your survey would yield from the last few years if you had continued it. You might be surprised.

A propos of the jimusho system, Momoko Ando, the director, said of Eriko Nakamura (in the same interview):

The good thing was that before we shot the film she was doing everything that her agency told her to do, like how she should act and dress in public. She was a typical idol, appearing in swimsuit photo shoots, for example, and as the token pretty girl appearing in small parts in films. But then she realised while we were making Kakera that she actually wanted to act seriously, and she doesn’t care about how she appears in the films, which I think is quite positive. She wasn’t in so many films before – one called Shikyu no Kioku, directed by Setsuro Wakamatsu in 2007. I think she changed so much during the shooting of Kakera. Before this, everyone was telling her exactly what to do in her career, which is typical in this sort of idol system.

Hikari Mitsushima is very good at playing depressed and apathetic, which is impressive because she used to be a cute pop idol of the kind churned out by the agencies this thread is supposed to be about. :)

I read an interview with the director saying that she deliberately cast Hikari to play the opposite of her real personality, which is chatty and energetic. (Ando did the same thing with Eriko Nakamura, who she says is quiet and “dreamy”.) Hikari also has obsessive fanboys who were shocked by the film because it spoiled their image of her as a pure, wholesome idol.

Glad you liked Ima, boku wa. Chikuma is trying to get his next feature off the ground. Sophomore efforts are always hard.

My good friend Jasper Sharp (it’s not you, is it? Jasper worked with Douglas Adams at one point) is involved with the J-programming at ICA. He brought Kakera to Raindance last autumn and it picked up steam from there. Hikari Mitsushima, who also starred in Love Exposure, is another excellent young actress.

Didn’t know about the Kitano-sponsored seats there. That’s cool.

I saw Ima, boku wa and I thought Chikuma was completely believable as a hikkikomori. Do you know if he’s working on any new film projects at the moment? (The IMDB doesn’t list anything else.)

Incidentally, I saw Ima, boku wa at the ICA in London, where the seats have name plates for the donors who paid for them. There’s a block of about thtee seats in the front row of cinema 1 (I think) all donated by Takeshi Kitano. The ICA shows quite a lot of Japanese films – for instance, Momoko Ando’s Kakera is on at the moment – and it hosts an annual Japanese film festival.