The end of 1981 saw the debut of a new women’s fashion magazine in Japan called CanCam. The name was curiously derived from the phrase “I can campus” and nominally targeted at female college students. Publisher Shogakukan created CanCam as a response to the popular magazine JJ from rival Kobunsha, which had arrived in 1975 and ushered in the “new traditional” (nyutora) boom in women’s fashion.

2011 thus marks the 30 year anniversary of that fateful January 1982 issue of CanCam, and while the magazine has seen a major decline in sales after the departure of iconic model Ebihara “Ebichan” Yuri, it is remarkable that this particular magazine of conservative Japanese fashion has stayed alive and relevant for so long, especially in lieu of recent days’ intense media churn.

Since CanCam put together a 30th anniversary issue and I got my hands on the debut issue for ¥105 in Nakano Broadway, I thought it would be useful to compare the two and see what has changed in the last three decades for the nation’s ojosama.

January 1982
The front cover, just as today, screams “Come On, Join Us!” — yet at the time, this call to arms was meant for an extremely limited set of women. In 1982 CanCam was not a media guide for a specific “consumer lifestyle” or fashion sub-group, but arguably, to an elite social class.

The issue’s main article “New City Formal ‘82 Manifesto” jubilantly suggests that readers dress in formal suits not just at “ceremonies” but as daily wear. Girls were expected to master the Louis Vuitton bag and a ¥480,000 Chanel suit — or its cheaper clone — as a complement to Western-style hotel lunches, airport visits, club house invites, theater, and something called “trad parties.” These idealized CanCam women do not just eat at hotels with other rich women once in a while but have a deep connection described as a “hotel life.” There is also an entire section on “what to wear to your après-ski disco party.” And these female college students apparently should know how to cook a Christmas chicken and other ultra-American dishes.

Yet despite CanCam‘s culture of the young madame, there was a certain level of cultural sophistication expected that you would never see in today’s likeminded magazines. There is an interview with former Happy End singer and “city pop” icon Ohtaki Eiichi as well as Chinese landscapes from famed photographer Shinoyama Kishin.

The overall effect is a magazine full of 21 year-old girls who look like they’re about 40. At the time, Japan had spent a few years in the aforementioned nyutora boom. This was the country’s answer to American “preppie,” directly reflecting the culture and style of the nation’s most wealthy residents. The idea was to dress like women from good families in Kobe or Yokohama, shopping at their small shinise stores that had clothed the elite for decades. The initial issues of CanCam offered a guide to this unadulterated upper class dress, with absolutely nothing that could be considered “subcultural” influence. The magazine’s men meanwhile look like they were shipped in from a Spring semi-formal at Cornell: navy blazers, gray flannels, and red rep ties. If all fashion is indeed costume, the idea here was to look wealthier and older than your years — although not in a vulgar nouveau riche way. (A reminder: This is a few years before the Bubble economy.) The title of the issue’s hair guide could not make this message any clearer: “I want to look like an adult.”

This all boils down to the age-old “traditional” clothing ethic of TPO (time, place, and occasion) — coined by Ivy League-style instigator Ishizu Kensuke. But in this, CanCam connects its consumer focus to broader society. The editors were saying, you need to buy these things in order for you to properly participate in these activities at these locations with these worthwhile people. Not all the readers could necessarily replicate the lives of Japan’s affluent, but it says a lot that Old Money was the aspiration of the time.

By the middle of the first issue, however, CanCam suddenly admits that the fashion pages were a parochial fantasy, and that real women of the early 1980s dressed in a more casual and gaudy style. Suggestions for winter coats involve a “surfer” (?) variant that is just a varsity jacket. There is an article about vintage shopping in Osaka, where people are, gasp, wearing sweatsuits and bold primary colors. These glimpses of the real Japan show the degree to which the CanCam world was mostly imaginary, or at least, idealized and extrapolated from a tiny set of existing college students at the top private schools.

Ironically, this magazine, openly obsessed with Western culture, sees its biggest style antithesis in the actual American college students the editors encounter during a visit to “American campus life.” Every single student is in jeans and sweatshirts, co-habitating with their long-haired boyfriends in ragged apartments. (Surprise appearance from one time punk rocker, one time Harvard freshman, and now radio host Morley Robertson!)

Some bonus anachronisms:

• A brand called “Gay togs” — Jeans for Gals
• A call-out for Boz Scaggs’ Hits!
• The inside cover ad is Shiseido using a model who looks like a Flash Gordon extra — thus predicting the techno-pop future that Japan would subsume Japan in the mid-1980s

January 2012
The January 2012 issue of CanCam (out in November 2011, natch) celebrates thirty years of publishing from the time of the fateful first issue. Although it spends most of its time celebrating the cult of CanCam rather than the lives of CanCam girls, there is enough material to see stark comparisons of how dramatically things have changed in the last 30 years.

First and foremost, the CanCam look has taken on heavy elements from gyaru culture. The style of CanCam has been known recently as o-nee-kei — “big sister style” — after the original 1990s kogyaru who grew up and became older, classier role models for the younger gyaru. These were the kogyaru who came primarily from upper to upper middle-classes — before the great “yankii-fication” of gyaru that happened in the late 1990s with ganguro. Yankii references, however, have slipped into any style related to gyaru aesthetics, so the pure upper-crusty-ness of the original CanCam has taken on lots of new signifiers that would have made the young madames of 1982 blush red like the beets in their New Otani salad.

This is most obvious in the preferred hairstyle — a pleasant golden brown — which would have gotten you expelled from private school back in the day. The Chanel-inspired tweedy suit still makes appearances, but alongside gaudy leopard print and phones bejeweled within every centimeter of their lives. Bags have teddy bears attached. The good news is that no one would confuse these women for being 40. They look their age, and more importantly, they look like they are having fun.

The original CanCam oddly spoke of a “campus life” while showing all the things women should be doing off-campus at hotels, airports, and private establishments. The new CanCam, however, has completely dropped the pretense that the readers are college students. The audience does include college students, but is mostly young Tokyo clerical workers of various class backgrounds. Most importantly they are not women living in the pockets of their parents, and so prices are more down-to-earth than the Chanel obsessions of 1982. In fact some of the clothing choices are actually cheaper than those presented in the original issue, despite 30 years of nominal inflation. The main section has entire outfits for around ¥20,000, which would have only bought you the left shoe of an Italian pair thirty years earlier. Tiffany & Co. makes an appearance but it’s jewelry for daily wear — not a single suit you’re likely to only put on once every few weeks.

CanCam also ceased its over-reliance on Western associations to create value and meaning. Although the typical CanCam-like magazine tends to use Tokyo’s more Western looking backgrounds for photoshoots, this particular 30th anniversary issue puts the models in intentionally Japanese places — a sento bath house, the downtown Asakusa neighborhood. They do visit Northern Europe as part of a Tintin advertorial, but the girls have been relieved of the impossible mission that everyone in Japan needs to suddenly become American.

Ultimately CanCam has given up being a newsletter for a specific social class in Japan, but instead, a highly welcoming consumer lifestyle that anyone can join. The issue’s front pages do the neat trick of dressing up idols from different genres, such as Momoiro Clover Z and Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, into the CanCam style. The girls, despite their usual personas, look utterly plausible as mini-Ebichans, thus emphasizing the degree to which anyone can arbitrarily choose to buy into the style. There are no barriers to entry.

As a trade off, however, the magazine had to completely drop all reference to wider society. The clothing is suddenly an end to itself, rather than specific tools to fit with certain times, places, and occasions in a social calendar. Perhaps there is greater economic incentive to turning a magazine into a shopping catalog rather than a manners manual, but this also reflects the degree to which all girls in Japan now can find their styles on a magazine rack and their clothing in a major shopping complex. When everyone is invited to the consumer market and aspirations towards old wealth are over, explicit elite codewords and narratives get in the way and must be removed.

This is fine, of course. But one worrying thing is that the de-emphasis of “occasion” seems to also have removed the men from the magazine. CanCam in 1982 is full of guys in Ivy style, loitering around at some parent-funded disco party. In the modern CanCam, however, men almost never appear. The January 2012 issue does have a “Xmas date” section but you barely see the men. Christmas feels like complete obligation: Oh that day every year where I have to go out with my boyfriend. (Interesting the men look like members of EXILE rather than A students.) Meanwhile there are triumphant images of a flamboyant “kirakira” party scene and a year-end bonenkai that feature no men at all. The CanCam world has become almost exclusively homosocial — perhaps another influence from the yankii-fication of gyaru culture.

During the 2005 Ebi-chan — the peak of Japan’s second wave nouveau riche culture — CanCam did promise its readers that they could meet a doctor if they only wore the right shade of peach. But when no one ended up meeting doctors or tie-less entrepreneurs who would carry them over the threshold of Roppongi Hills Residence, that particular dream imploded. Hence came the rise of magazines ViVi and Sweet — style for girls who want to impress other girls. CanCam now reflects this slightly depressing sexless present, and maybe it has to. Japan’s lack of children stems from a lack of marriage which stems from falling salaries and job prospects for young men. The idea of over-promising an easy path to marriage with affluent men has become a cruel hoax. So the editors dropped the whole “men” thing and now celebrate those years when young women can be young women. “Come on, join us!” — just don’t expect to meet any guys.

Previously on Néomarxisme / Néojaponisme:
• 2008: Ebi-chan Graduates (12/2/08) – essay about the departure of Ebihara Yuri from CanCam
• Super Attractive Japan (9/19/07) – translation of essay on the meaning of Ebihara’s popularity
• CanCam: Moteko vs. Busuko (11/13/07) – CanCam‘s guide to perfect behavior
• Néomarxisme Archive: I Know What Boys Like (08/29/06) – explanation to the Ebi-chan phenomenon
• Néomarxisme Archive: I Can CanCam (05/29/05) – an introduction to the magazine

Over the previous three installments (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) I have attempted to show that artist management companies — known colloquially as “jimusho” — are the dominant power in the Japanese entertainment industry due to their power to exercise labor control over performers, their organization into larger and secretive keiretsu groups, their ownership of master and publishing rights, as well as probable associations with organized crime. The remaining issue is this, what is the effect of the jimushos’ power on the actual content produced in Japan? And how do the particular business needs of the jimusho change the kind of talent they groom and debut?

The Jimusho Control Who is on TV, Therefore Who is Popular

Terrestrial television (地上波) has been, hands down, the most powerful and influential medium in Japan for introducing new entertainers and performers to the wider public. Stars who appear on variety shows on a constant basis are the ones understood as “popular.” In the case of music, TV has been mostly responsible for directly driving sales. In the Recording Industry Association of Japan’s 2004 music media user survey, the top four “information sources leading to purchase” were network TV programs, TV dramas, TV commercial songs, and TV commercials for music, respectively. In the market’s peak of the 1990s, especially, songs repeatedly heard on TV became hits. While the decline of the music market has changed this to a certain degree, jimusho still greatly depend upon TV stations in order to turn unknown talent into profitable stars.

This seems like it would create a symbiotic relationship between television and management companies, but jimusho retain the decision-making power about which performers appear on which TV programs. This mainly goes back to their ability to leverage access to their most popular stars. Use of established artists becomes conditional on TV station support of new and upcoming ones. This gets to the point where there basically is no “open casting” in Japan and top stars such as Kimura Takuya have shows built around them.

In my own Master’s Thesis research on the effect of jimusho collusion with TV music programs on the Japanese music market, I found that the vast majority of stars appearing on network music programs Music Station, Hey Hey Hey Music Champ, and Utaban came from the top jimusho keiretsu. Competition should be fierce for appearance slots (only 4-6 per week) as the shows have traditionally been the number one driver of sales. But since the TV stations need actors, models, and performers to appear on their other programming, the larger jimusho have an upper hand in placement. This gives them the most leverage in demanding appearances. You can see this clearly in the link between music show guests and the program’s hosts. For Hey Hey Hey Music Champ, comedy jimusho Yoshimoto Kogyo — a company that produced no talent directly for the music industry until the launch of the show — secured 125 artist slots from around 2,000 up until 2004. Now with the power to launch musical talent, Yoshimoto created musical talent. This ended up blocking 125 other artist appearances from companies focused specifically on music.

So overall, in the case of Music Station from 1988 to 2004, the top five jimusho keiretsu (in this case, Johnny’s Jimusho, Burning Productions including Avex and Rising, Up Front Agency, Sony Music Artists, and Nagara Production Group including Being) made up around 50% of all appearances (2692 of total 5212 slots). This generally held true for the other shows as well. In other words, over half of TV appearances are doled out semi-automatically to the most dominant players and a great majority are doled out to the top dozen jimusho groups.

When you then compare these appearance numbers with Oricon yearly chart hits, the number of music show appearances almost perfectly correlates with chart hits. Simply put: The more you are on TV, the more you are likely to have a hit record. And with dominant jimusho having a lock on the few artist appearances available, this means they generally can also control who gets a hit and who does not. And even when a jimusho produces no hits in a year they still receive preferable placements on TV shows than smaller companies with hits. Johnny’s Jimusho acts failed to have a single chart hit in the early 1990s yet continued to appear on Music Station week after week.

Of course artists from non-major jimusho do get hits once in a while, but the constancy of major jimusho acts appearing means that independent artists become essentially “short-term successes” rather than long-term ones. In my data set, I found that when a new artist from a large jimusho got a chart hit, the average number of hits for that artist in the next two years was around 3 — compared to only 1 for an artist from a small independent jimusho. This is likely related to the fact that the large jimusho new artist on average got 8 TV appearances in the next two years after his/her hit, compared to only 1.8 for the small jimusho artist.

The data in my research strongly suggested that control over TV appearances helped major jimusho keep a strong position in the Japanese music market. Although I have not done the same kind of data-based research on other fields, anecdotal evidence strongly suggests that this jimusho dominance carries over to fashion magazine covers, variety show appearances, and other core categories of the mass media. So the question is now, if only a few firms control the Japanese entertainment world, what kind of talent are they choosing to create and debut?

What kind of performers do the jimusho create?

The first thing to remember is that the jimusho create idols and talent rather than just manage successful performers. In other words, jimusho scout unknowns and then “debut” them to the public with a intentionally crafted look, personality, and style. Model Marie was positioned as “model from a rich family” like Paris Hilton, while Nishikawa Ayako is the “cosmetic surgeon talento.” For Yoshimoto Kogyo, the company has been debuting a never-ending list of “one-gag” talent who are given a particular persona and a single joke.

Jimusho also play a big role in the determining the kind of talento that are tolerated in the market. Johnny’s Jimusho has been able to effectively stop any other company from producing boy idol groups. With Johnny’s boycott power in effect, even the major jimusho Rising Pro (now Vision Factory) had a hard time making their acts Da Pump and w-inds big players in market.

The jimusho system is a closed world of small firms, most of which have long-standing position within the entertainment world. In fact, most of the senior people working within today’s management companies helped produce enka singers in the 1960s and 1970s. Enka singers, as documented by Christine Yano in Tears of Longing, have also been openly “crafted” singers rather than self-created. The general industrial structure of the jimusho world — especially the fact that new firms have a hard time entering — means that essentially the same people have been responsible for crafting new stars decade after decade. Japanese pop is often criticized for churning out “generic” idols and pretty faces who act in a certain way, and we can assume that the consistency of personnel behind these idols is a strong factor in the industry’s conservatism. Johnny Kitagawa — age 79 — still plays a hands-on role on the output of Johnny’s Jimusho acts. (Needless to say it’s hard to find a parallel to this in the U.S. market.) AKB48 are incredibly close in nature to ’80s idols Onyanko Club, mostly because they have the same creator Akimoto Yasushi. Despite 25 years of cultural change, basically the exact same people have the keys to the J-Pop kingdom.

Regardless, there is a stronger economic logic at work in the industry’s preference for “created idols” rather than managing more independently-minded stars. Most jimusho handle multi-field performers, ones who are likely to put out music, appear in bikinis on the cover of Weekly Playboy or Shonen Jump, banter on talk shows, and act in the occasional TV drama or film. The fees from these activities can add up to a nice source of income, and in the case of music, a million-seller can be extremely lucrative.

Yet none of these particular activities tops the greatest income stream: corporate/product sponsorship and promotion. Appearing in a single ad campaign for Coca-Cola or 7-11 will guarantee an extremely high source of revenue for the jimusho through a relatively small amount of work. Compare this with the hard-to-obtain music hit: promoting singles takes millions of dollars in marketing to the public. An ad sponsorship, meanwhile, only takes buttering up Dentsu and Hakuhodo and a few key corporate executives. The rate of investment for an ad campaign is much higher than other activities.

This has always been true, but in recent years, the crash of the music market and decline of TV viewership means that jimusho have more reason to pursue advertising work over payment for actual “performance.” In most cases, the actual performance work should be understood as promotion for the star to eventually secure advertising deals; acts usually have to prove popular before becoming a viable spokesperson for a consumer brand. AKB48, for example, are finally reaching peak profitability now as they move beyond their Akihabara theatre and record sales into dozens of product sponsorships. As the jimusho makes almost all the money from the star’s total body of work, rather than just a single field of artistic endeavor, the industry as a result moves towards explicitly commercialized pursuits rather than artistic ones. You can argue that a pop song is also “commercial” but at least the vehicle is melody, harmony, and rhythm — and not a placard upon a vending machine. Culture is not just a body of ads. But the jimusho’s true business goal is creating a body of ads for their performers.

If the ultimate economic goal is a strong line-up of promotional deals, what kind of talent do jimusho prefer? The firms have a clear logical reason to push stars who lack any barriers to becoming national spokespeople for firms. This obviously tilts the balance towards “nice” female idols. And when making a decision among which newcomers to push, the jimusho will not particularly value inherent or learned talent — a strong voice, skillful dancing, acting chops — as these are only indirectly related to the most profitable work. When you have a singer who is only a singer, promotional work can get in the way of their reputation. While plenty of talented performers end up doing ads — Shiina Ringo, Southern All-Stars, even Oyamada Keigo — they are much less likely to do every ad the jimusho requests and may get in trouble with advertising clients for exerting too much personal opinion/attitude into their work. Their appeal is also limited to a smaller audience interested in their body of work rather than their fame itself.

But general “talento” are expected to do this kind of promotional work, and it’s most lucrative for the jimusho to focus on performers who are not too specified. And for the music market, the main TV shows spend as much time interviewing the stars and probing their personalities as actually seeing them perform their songs. The end is result is that the jimusho allow big stars to be poor actors, bad singers, and pathetic dancers, but they can certainly not be controversial, unattractive, or otherwise disruptive. Jimusho face major repercussions when their stars get in trouble for personal scandal — first and foremost because companies have invested massively in using their “clean” image to promote their products. This is why “uncontrollable” talent such as Sawajiri Erika become toxic within the industry. (Although the constant advertising deals of Tsuchiya Anna are a true mystery…) Sakai Noriko’s recent drug scandal seemed tame compared to Hollywood foibles but after years of her corporate sponsorships, there was serious industry reputation at stake. Jimusho supply Japanese corporations with promotional vehicles, and Sakai turned out to be highly defective. Best not to push stars who are likely to generate this kind of business risk.

Even when stars do possess levels of talent, jimusho schedule their activities disproportionately towards promotional work rather than the artistic side of their duties. For example, most TV shows are shot in a “one-take” style as performers do not have time to dedicate their full schedule to the show’s taping. As long as there were no major mistakes, dramas take only one cut of every scene. The business logic is solid here — time should be spent on pursuing promotional work for big companies — but the overall “craft” in Japanese entertainment takes a hit.

Conclusion

So economically-speaking, artist management firms in search of profit pursue advertising deals over performance fees within this particular Japanese industry framework. The end result, however, is that these firms (1) promote “created” idols over self-motivated talent (2) emphasize pleasant looks and demeanor over artistic talent (3) invest most time and resources into lucrative advertising deals rather than creating “culture.”

Every pop culture system focuses on commercialized culture — in other words, crafting pop songs with the greatest chance of broad audience and high sales — but I would argue that the Japanese system, due to jimusho business logic of having performers organized inside companies, goes one step further in direct commercialization (advertising) over creative works (the culture itself).

The missing equation in this, however, is the audience. Japanese consumers have every right to reject this model and demand culture that is “cultural.” There have been times in Japanese history where the public rejects “idols” and its related culture for something more “real.” The most famous was the Band Boom of the late 1980s when Music Station and other standard music shows lost their audiences to live houses around the country. While this was ultimately good for the music market, it was not good for the jimusho system as these bands were less suited towards product promotion than idols. The industry, however, adapted towards the more “real” style to win back the audience, and once they had them back at the same media points (Music Station), they slowly moved the audience back to an idol model in the mid-1990s. There are socio-cultural reasons why the Japanese audience prefers “what is popular” over “what is unpopular but well-crafted” and the jimusho’s control of this system means that they have very strong influence on the long-term state of Japanese cultural tastes.

Yet in the 2010s, as the music market implodes, TV viewership becomes marginal, fashion magazine readership declines, and youth-oriented “popular culture” generally loses its influence among the Japanese psyche, the jimusho are likely to face an existential threat. That being said, small firms are most likely to be first to take a major hit. TV stations will cut budgets on shows, but make up for it with more variety programming — which of course need talent from the large jimusho. Most importantly, the idea of sponsoring products with stars is deeply ingrained within corporate culture in Japan, and whatever its cost, few decision-makers are likely to take the risk of trying a different approach. You can’t get fired for doing a campaign with AKB48 but you may get fired for trying something radically new using Popteen dokusha models. This is why you see Perfume advertise for chuhai alcoholic beverages despite the fact that they are not likely stars who appeal to those drinks’ consumer base.

At least for the next decade the jimusho structure is set, and structural inertia will keep the top jimusho afloat.

This is the third in a four-part series. See Part One and Part Two for more background.

As I have suggested over the first two parts of this series, artist management companies wield an enormous amount of power in the Japanese music industry — a power with which they dominate other institutions and influence overall decision-making. This should not necessarily be self-evident: The jimusho are not particularly large companies, nor highly-profitable companies (on paper, at least). So why is it that the jimusho have historically controlled the Japanese entertainment industry rather than record labels, TV stations, or publishers? The following will show that their power originates from three main sources: possession of master and publishing rights, mass media dependence upon star talent, and perceptions of “extralegality.”

(1) Possession of Master and Publishing Rights

Owning music-related rights can be an extremely powerful tool in the Japanese entertainment industry, especially when most “talent” release music in addition to acting and variety show appearances. And since management companies usually take responsibility for songwriting coordination and recording, they are rewarded with the master rights to the recording. This bestows them with control over the work’s eventual mechanical duplication and third-party use. (Toshio Azami’s 2004 book Who makes popular music? 『ポピュラー音楽は誰が作るのか』 outlines the complex politics behind these rights in much detail.)

In the American industry model, record companies pay for their artists’ recording fees and subsequently receive the master rights. But ever since the 1960s, the larger management companies in Japan have invested heavily in recording and coordination themselves, entitling them to all consequent privileges and decision-making authority. At the time this practice began, Japanese record labels were accustomed to making licensing deals with American record labels. So the practice of leasing master recordings from outside parties was easily extended to domestic companies.

Today, large jimusho often hold master rights exclusively or share the rights with other organizations like record companies and publishing companies. Smaller jimusho usually lack the resources for investment in this area, so the artist’s record company will often finance the master tape production. When management companies hold the master recording rights, record companies must license the master tapes to be able to mass produce the audio media. This is a significant source of revenue in itself and means artist management companies are directly entitled to high profits from record sales — something that is not true in most other music markets.

In addition to master recording rights, artist management companies that organize the songwriting process for their talent often lay claim to the publishing rights which control copyrights for individual songs. These rights allow the collection of mechanical royalties on the duplication of CDs, performance royalties for public usage of the song, and variably-priced synchronization licenses for media usages. Publishing has the most potential for long-term revenue streams, because songs may be re-recorded by future artists or used in other media long after initial CD sales have dried up. As we saw in Part Two, larger jimusho often receive “tribute” from smaller jimusho by taking their artists’ publishing rights.

Holding both master rights and publishing rights gives management companies ultimate decision-making power about a song’s usage, and other parties looking to utilize the song in a new context must win approval from the jimusho. Featuring a song in a TV commercial, for example, requires permission of both the master rights holder and the publisher. With artist management companies normally holding one or both of these rights, they generally keep control over a large portion of musical content, and therefore make themselves a major player in the music market overall. The jimusho are the ones who get to say yes or no to most projects involving music, which over the last 30 years, has been a significant part of the wider geinoukai.

(2) Media Dependence Upon Star Talent

The second source of the jimusho’s industry power emanates from media companies’ profound dependence on management for access to star talent. Television networks and magazine publishers create content for the specific purpose of attracting audiences to sell to advertisers, and the simplest way to do this is to hire celebrities and well-known talent.

In Japan, decision-making authority about artist appearance and performance lays squarely with the artist management company, and therefore, media outlets must negotiate with the jimusho — not the record company nor artist — for access privileges. This may be generally true in other music markets as well, but in Japan, artists’ inability to exit these firms (as laid out in Part One) creates large-sized jimusho with a sizeable “stock” of in-demand talent — often not just in the field of music, but also in acting, sports, and modeling. The management firm’s total negotiating power is proportional to all its stars’ cachet, which means that jimusho benefit from a compounded star power.

Negotiations on the use of one star have implications for the use of other jimusho members. Often large jimusho require networks to take smaller or newer talent on the network’s other television shows as “barter” for use of well known celebrities — a form of tying. Of course, management companies rely on media exposure to sell their talent, but healthy competition between the five major networks and the firms’ ability to limit access to a wide number of talent means management firms have the upper hand: They can threaten to give better treatment to other stations if demands are not met.

Using pre-established celebrities as leverage, large firms are therefore able to get more of their new talent into the media, which in turn, creates more overall popularity for their artists. Celebrity stature thus directly shapes market power for artist management companies, and networks are beholden to the firms for access to creative inputs. Networks may be able to forgo the use of one specific artist, but the jimusho system raises the stakes of negotiation to all artists under a companies’ auspices. This can be a huge number in the case of Burning, who controls hundreds of talents organized into dozens and dozens of subsidiary companies.

Johnny’s Jimusho have been one of the companies to conspicuously leverage this power with the media. As a general principle, the company refuses to allow its boy bands to appear on any TV shows with other rival boy bands. In the 1990s, this meant popular groups like Da Pump or w-inds from the Burning-backed Rising Production had a very difficult time appearing on the Johnny’s-dominated music show “Music Station.” In recent years, hit Korean group Toho Shinki (TVXQ) had similar issues. So when Fuji TV music show “Hey! Hey! Hey! Music Champ” decided to throw its lot in with Da Pump and the rival Johnny’s groups in the late-1990s, Johnny’s Jimusho effectively would not let their talent appear on the show for over five years. When a new producer came in and stopped offering guest spots to non-Johnny’s boy bands, Johnny’s acts came back with full force. (More here.) This is a perfect example of jimusho power in action: Even when the TV station tried to challenge Johnny’s Jimusho, they eventually had to give up the strategy.

(3) Perceptions of “Extralegality”

A few of Japan’s largest jimusho bolster their market power through widespread perceptions within the industry that they are likely to carry out punitive actions outside of legal and commercial barriers. In other words, the more powerful jimusho are understood to be linked to organized crime. While the first two reasons for jimusho power focus on measurable economic advantages that can be used as leverage in industry negotiations, the final one may be primarily psychological.

So are the yakuza involved in the Japanese entertainment world? Unfortunately there are no clear answers to this question, as the mainstream media rarely handles the topic, not even to debunk it as “myth.” What we do have, however, is a lot of compelling circumstantial evidence.

Many writers and scholars of Japan have mentioned the general idea of links between the two worlds. In Islands of Eight Million Smiles idol scholar Hiroshi Aoyagi writes of friends warning that “some agencies might be acquainted with the underworld.” Kaplan and Dublo’s Yakuza: Japan’s Criminal Underworld makes note that the Yamaguchi-gumi syndicate was deeply involved in the entertainment business. Most famously, members of that family directly managed the career of enka singer Misora Hibari.

In Takarajima’s Complete True Record of Taboos of Heisei Japan 『実録!平成日本タブー大全』, author Suzuki Tomohiko writes that crime syndicates openly managed and coordinated artist performances in various creative fields for the first half of the 20th century. While police since 1964 have apparently fought to keep the yakuza from working in the entertainment industry, links dating from the prewar have not been fully eradicated. Ugaya Hiro, writing in What is J-Pop? 『Jポップとは何か』, notes that the “dark side” remains strong in the music industry despite its absence in contemporary film and video game production fields. Veteran entertainment writer Honda Kei meanwhile has named specific links between the industry and yakuza bosses, but for this he has been sued multiple times for libel.

Police action of recent years, however, has at least highlighted some of the more structural corruption of the market. Jimusho heads have been arrested and jailed for tax evasion, including Taira Tetsuo from the market leader Rising Production (now Vision Factory) and Yamada Eiji from AG Communication (a Burning subsidiary that produced Suzuki Ami). Tax evasion does not necessarily imply organized crime, but consider the case of Rising’s Taira: At his trial, he begged for leniency from the courts, citing the necessity of “underground” (urashakai) financial measures in the music business. In general, the tendency of artist management companies to keep financial information private, change official firm names on an extremely frequent basis, and splinter into informal groupings creates an industry environment in which improper financial transactions can go easily undetected by authorities. While this would likely be how organized crime would run the music business, this is not solid proof of their involvement.

The best concrete evidence we have of links between top jimusho and organized crime comes from the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department — although not intentionally. In 2007, a not-so-net-savvy cop leaked many confidential police files to the Internet, including a spreadsheet outlining companies related to the Goto-gumi crime family. As reported in magazines like Cyzo and Jake Adelstein’s Tokyo Vice, the file lists top jimusho Burning Productions as a “client business” (クライアント企業). A footnote in Adelstein and David McNeill’s Japan Focus article “Yakuza Wars,” also mentions, “In December of 2007, the National Police Agency sent out a formal request to the Federation of Civilian Broadcasters asking them to sever ties with organized crime groups.” If there was no organized crime in entertainment, the National Police Agency would clearly not need to make such a request.

While the role of organized crime in the Japanese entertainment business is still shrouded in mystery, the most important thing to understand is that industry workers act under the assumption these rumors are true. All of the industry sources for my master’s thesis believed that many of the top jimusho have links to organized crime. Few are interested in talking about this on the record, of course, but the entire idea — even if an urban myth — still rules the psyche of people working within the entertainment market. Needless to say, jimusho that did have mob backing would grow stronger by being able to make credible threats of violence and being able to tap into a free flow of dirty money. Yet even if these links do not exist or are weaker than imagined, the widespread perception of extralegal punishments would guide actors to avoid unnecessary conflicts with firms alleged to be allied with the underworld.

These suggestions of criminal connections cannot explain artist management companies’ power, and it is good to remember that there are plenty of strong artist management companies like Sony Music Artists who operate above the board. But the possibility of connections to the underworld has the effect of making smaller firms’ deferential to the larger, possibly dangerous management companies. Organized crime presence creates significant market distortions since conflicts would be solved outside of market and legal spheres and decisions made for reasons other than rational market logic. A member of the production team for a network music television program commented to me that one of the larger jimusho received preferred treatment in casting because the firm was “scary.”

Final installment: Why jimusho “production logic” rules the Japanese content industry

Following the one-two-three punch of the Tohoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear crisis in Fukushima, much ink and many pixels have been spilled over foreign media outlets’ treatment of the disasters. In particular, many foreign residents (including myself and other members of this web journal) have accused the overseas mass media of panicking locals who rely on English-language news (and their parents) by overplaying the nuclear situation in comparison to more measured domestic coverage. Those playing devils’ advocate, such as Uesugi Takashi, claim the foreign media brought a balanced viewpoint to a dangerous situation the Japanese government is doing its best to downplay.

Whichever side you take, there’s one piece missing from the puzzle: How do Japanese feel about the coverage of their country from abroad? And more to the point, how do domestic journalists feel about their foreign counterparts? Largely because everyone has had their hands full dealing with the unfolding crises, there’s been precious little commentary from the Japanese about the portrayal of their nation’s predicament abroad. Until now.

“The most notable aspect of the incident was the sheer number of journalists who ‘deserted in the face of the enemy,’” declare Yokota Takashi and Yamada Toshihiro, who reported on the crisis in Tohoku as correspondents for the Japanese language edition of Newsweek. Their article, entitled “And Then the Journalists Ran Away,” is a scathing critique of the behavior of the Western mass media in the early days of the Fukushima disaster.

Until now, Japan regarded the foreign media with an unadulterated measure of respect. We honored their journalistic standards as we relied to a degree upon their authority. [...] But this fairy-tale crumbled during the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami. Entangled in the very news they were supposed to report, [the Western media] lost all sense of composure.

Yokota and Yamada paint a portrait of journalists who were as terrified of the dangers of radiation as the readers and viewers to whom they were supposed to be delivering the news.

Take, for example, the case of a journalist from America’s one of the world’s most well-known financial newspapers, who was covering the U.S. military support efforts alongside correspondents of this magazine. [...] In normal times, this Tokyo-based correspondent conducted himself with the utmost of composure. On the first day of our coverage of the U.S. military, he coolly filed stories from the front lines on his smart phone.

But when dawn broke the next day, he was a changed man. This was right as the situation at Fukushima Daiichi began to worsen. Hastily packing his bags, he began to rush away from the command center. When a U.S. military spokesman tried to persuade him that we were in no immediate danger, the preoccupied journalist cut him off with an “I just want to get out of here!” before disappearing into the city of Sendai.

Yokota and Yamada, however, reserve their harshest criticism for television reporters.

Hands down, the American television stations were the most hysterical presence. Playing up the drama of world news is their bread and butter, but it reached new heights in Tohoku [...] At first, the point was to showcase their reporters doing on-site coverage. But this quickly devolved into a circus.

The pair go on to describe a breathless report by CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, which (by very nature of being in English) undoubtedly wasn’t seen by many locals. It took place just after Cooper learned about the second hydrogen explosion at the Fukushima Daiichi complex.

In a live back-and-forth [from Japan] with a nuclear expert back in the studio in America, Cooper peppered his fellow reporters with questions like “How far are we from Fukushima?” and “Which way is the wind blowing?” Upon hearing that he was more than 100 kilometers distant from the Fukushima reactors, he exclaimed “Then shouldn’t we get out of here?” Whether he was doing this in order to build a sense of drama, or out of sincere apprehension, we don’t know. But what is clear is that he made no attempt to calmly ascertain the facts of the situation, and in so doing needlessly fanned the fears of the audience.

Even the most well meaning attempts to frame the situation often came off as clueless, according to Yokota and Yamada.

Some [foreign journalists] lost their intellects along with their cool. [...] Even going so far as to delve into stereotyping. [...] When the 800 original nuclear workers were reduced to 50, the Western media quickly dubbed them “The Fukushima 50” and praised their valor. But this also proved fertile ground for prejudicial references. England’s Sky News called them “Nuclear Ninja” and “Samurai,” while the famed German paper BILD referred to the JSDF helicopters dropping water on the plants as “kamikaze.” At first glance this sort of reporting might seem harmless, but it isn’t.

The pair reasons that these “racist” stereotypes aren’t just sloppy reporting. They draw attention from the people who are truly suffering: the actual victims of the tsunami.

Effectively the predicament of the victims has been made secondary. Little has been reported about those who are desperately searching for their families, the lack of adequate medical care for the elderly who make up the majority of refugees, or the economic impact of the disasters.

They describe a vicious cycle that affected not only viewers, but governments as well.

When foreign media saw reports like Cooper’s, which overstated the terrors of radiation, many began to wonder if the situation wasn’t actually far worse than the Japanese were leading them to believe. It’s entirely possible that this overplaying of the dangers more than necessary played a key role in the decisions of several embassies to evacuate their citizens.

Yokota and Yamada reserve some words of praise for the media outlets that are treating the situation with the attention they feel it truly deserves.

The New York Times, which has run no shortage of articles that stereotype Japan, has increased the number of reporters covering the country and continues to do good work. And many other foreign journalists actually requested to be sent to Japan to support Tokyo bureaus deflated by the journalistic exodus.

But the pair conclude that even as things improve, the impact of foreign-media-fed hysteria remains.

The fact remains that the use of inflammatory words “Chernobyl-level disaster” continues to paint the entirety of Japan as devastated. The fear of radiation has led cargo ships to avoid ports in Tokyo and Yokohama, and there have even been cases of experts being forbidden from entering stricken areas to conduct surveys of the conditions there. This is hindering recovery. It’s a second disaster caused by the media.

Japan survived the trial of the Tohoku/Kanto Disaster, but we can’t say it’s thanks to the foreign media.

Popular culture may be imploding in Japan, but this has been good news for the otaku. With not much competition from the trend-minded consumer habits of normal human beings, the otaku have become the most influential player in the market. The few cultural breakthroughs of the last few years have come from this long-standing subculture’s deep psychological need to interact with people in mediated ways, from obsessing over idol collectives, making songs powered by vocaloids, collecting toys, anonymously writing online about their newest favorite anime featuring little girls, and following every moment of Cooking Idol Main.

To get a better sense of what is going on lately in otaku culture, Marxy of Néojaponisme sat down with Patrick Macias — editor of Otaku USA and author of such books as Cruising the Anime City: An Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo — and Matt Alt — author of Yokai Attack!: The Japanese Monster Survival Guide and Ninja Attack!: True Tales of Assassins, Samurai, and Outlaws — in a cold basement, warmed only by the glow of an old kotatsu.

Listen to the hour-long discussion on the past, present, and future of otaku culture and what it means for us non-otaku.

Download: On Otaku: Marxy x Patrick Macias x Matt Altt
General Néojaponisme Podcast RSS Feed: .rss

Related Articles:
• Matt Alt translation of seminal 1980s article “What Kind of Otaku Are You”
• Matt Alt translation of seminal 1980s article “Can Otaku Love Like Normal People”
• Podcast with Patrick Macias on Japanese style and fashion: Harajuku Requiem
• Podcast with Patrick Macias on Japanese recessionary culture: The Tonkatsu Tapes

Each country or cultural region has a uniquely-structured industry responsible for producing, promoting, and distributing the products that make up what we consider “pop culture.” In the case of Japan, there is a single organizational category most responsible for the form and content of pop culture: the artist management company, called colloquially jimusho (“office.”) The jimusho wield a powerful cultural influence on all fields that require performers — television (variety and drama), advertising, music, modeling, gravia, and films.

I will argue in this series that much of the content produced in these specific fields conforms to the business needs of artist management companies much more than it is created in response to audience desires. The opposite is also true: Non-jimusho controlled fields such as manga and indie music have enjoyed much more freedom of expression. In the case of manga, placement of certain titles within magazines is often tied directly to consumer feedback, meaning that competition is alive and well and consumers play a large role in guiding the industry.

With this in mind, we aim here to get a full understanding of the jimusho system in order to understand the structure in which Japanese popular culture is produced. Seeing that there is little written formally about the jimusho, we offer this multi-part series on Japanese artist management companies.

A note: This series is not meant as an “exposé” but a collection of the most reliable information about a relatively secretive industry for the purpose of sociological and business analysis. We welcome any corrections and additions.

Part I – What are the Jimusho? Roles and Labor Relations

The main role of the jimusho is essentially to “manage” the careers and schedules of artists, entertainers, athletes, and celebrities. They, however, claim a much deeper hold on the industry than simple management. The jimusho create stars much more than they just help maintain their fame. The stronger jimusho plan out every part of the performer’s persona, style, mannerism, and career. Most jimusho also have publishing wings, creating long-term revenue streams from songwriting related to their stars. Many idol management companies — such as Johnny’s Jimusho — finance and produce the master recordings of their singers, relegating record companies to pure distribution roles. This also means the jimusho can capture a large percentage of money made from CD sales.

The first important thing to understand about Japanese jimusho is the relation between labor and management. These companies are sometimes called “agencies” but they do not normally use “agent relations” — i.e., where stars hire the jimusho to act on their behalf. In the United States, William Morris and CAA perform agent services for 10% of the deals they broker, but stars have the ultimate power in that specific relationship as they are allowed to change agents or agencies at any time.

Japanese jimusho, on the other hand, hire their talent as salaried workers. They pay their “employees” a monthly salary, which usually starts at the relatively low ¥200,000 and can be re-negotiated on a yearly basis. (That being said, many famous stars have not been able to significantly raise their salaries to match the revenues they have brought to the company.) In exchange for the salaries, the artist relinquishes rights to 100% of their media appearance fees, copyright royalities, publishing payments, and any other income. Yes, 100%. If an artist secures a lucrative commercial contract, for example, this will not be reflected in his/her salary as any kind of bonus.

Management companies claim rights to this income, however, on the logic that they invest large sums in building up a young star. Hiroshi Aoyagi, author of Islands of Eight Million Smiles: Idol Performance and Symbolic Production in Contemporary Japan notes that the price of producing an “idol” singer can cost upwards of ¥30-40 million. The companies provide new talent (although most often charge for) lessons in singing, acting, dancing, manners, speech, and other skills required for celebrity status. Jimusho create appealing stage names, change appearances (sometimes even fronting money for plastic surgery), and provide clothing and cosmetics most flattering to the talent. Only when the talent makes their formal debut does the company see any returns. Therefore this high risk business model requires that all eventual income go directly to the management company.

Now many stars are able to negotiate an income increase in light of greater sales, but those who cannot unfortunately are not able to move to a different management company. While stars in the United States can change their agents and personal managers at a whim, Japanese stars cannot freely move management companies. In my own survey of 1300 popular musicians between 1985 and 2004, only around two dozen changed management companies. In other words, it is not a free market where Japanese stars can look for the best management deal. It is a “closed system.”

How do the jimusho keep stars in their stables? As a way to ensure that talent do not leave for other agencies for better deals, the jimusho have informal agreements to blacklist any talent who “defect” to other companies or go independent. With each star being an “investment” — both in terms of training but also of use of the management companies’ established media and industry connections to become famous — the jimusho have an economic incentive to curb their talent’s mobility. This secures profitability for their initial investment.

There is only one accepted way of changing jimusho: moving up to a more powerful organization. Horizontal movement or going independent are essentially verboten. Larger jimusho, however, can steal talent from smaller ones. We saw this with Kanno Miho, for example, leaving the small Tani Promotion to enter big player Kenon.

Like most aspects of the “closed” jimusho world, this blacklist is rarely detailed in specific terms. The case of mega-star Suzuki Ami, however, offered a very strong example of the blacklist in action. As reported by Steve McClure in Billboard, Suzuki attempted to leave her management company AG Communications after its CEO Yamada Eiji was arrested for tax evasion. Her parents cited “damage to her reputation” and received legal approval to break her contract with AG. Despite the legal right to go independent, the industry appeared to have conspired behind-the-scenes to punish her actions. All her advertising contracts mysteriously dried up, and later when she released her own music, she could not find basic distribution for the CDs nor television airplay. In effect, she was frozen out of the industry. She only came back in once she signed a new deal years later with Avex Entertainment. Not all blacklists are permanent, but they can “disappear” a star right at his/her peak, which is normally a death blow to a long-term career. Suzuki Ami never really recovered.

Cabal-like blacklists like this fail in most markets because there is such high incentive for companies to “break” the agreement and steal the profitable talent. The strongest jimushos’ power over the market, however, may be adequate to scare away anyone who wishes to scoop up ronin talent. And the blacklisting may not require wholly negative action. For example, YouTube star Magibon recently made allegations that her former jimusho would call up and offer Magibon’s clients their pick of the agency’s stable of famous stars to work in the place of Magibon. This could be considered a “positively-reinforced” blacklist.

The end result of this labor relation between talent and their jimusho is that the management company has full control over their salaried employees. And with the jimusho world working together to discourage movement, talent cannot use labor mobility as a way to break the agencies’ power. And with investments into master tape production, jimusho do not just hold power of their talent but within the industry as a whole. We will look at the source of jimusho power in later installments.

Next time we will look at broader organizational characteristics of jimusho: specifically, small size units structured into keiretsu hierarchies with a single company at the top of the ladder.

Click here for The Jimusho System Part Two: Organizational Characteristics of Jimusho — Size and Keiretsu.

Tokyo Damage Report: Interview with an ex-Visual Kei record executive

A lot of mysteries with this interview — is there really a Satoh-san? why does he speak such colloquial English? why is he giving away all of the industry’s secrets? — but I would like to assume the information is being presented in good faith. This is a must-read article, in any case. We at least learn the kinds of things we should be looking for in order to verify the industry portrait contained within.

There are a few points that match up the Visual-kei “con” well with patterns of the larger Japanese music industry that we know exist:

• Total management company control of artists. In both Visual-kei and idol worlds, the companies hire talent as salaried employees and determine every part of the total package. While this is seen with manufactured pop stars in other countries, it is disappointing to learn that even the crazy indie rock bands in Japan are basically cookie cutter. This also proves again that the business model is forcing super fans to buy the music as one more character good rather than creating “good” songs that appeal to a wider audience. In other words, companies abuse the culturally Japanese praxis of demonstrating loyalty: consumption. The system does not just de-emphasize musical talent, but also de-emphasizes good songwriting and production. No one needs to even try.

• The entertainment industry is a massive tax-evasion scheme. With the arrests of Rising (now Vision Factory) CEO Tetsuo Taira and Avant-Garde CEO Makino on tax evasion charges in the last decade, it is clear that the entertainment business allows for — and according to Taira’s court statements, requires — massive tax evasion. Satoh-san in the interview states in concrete terms how the practice works, with padding receipts between companies as a way to launder money. A few famous indie fashion brands got in trouble for something very similar back in 2005, so this not just the music industry. Since most of this is happening on the jimusho side, major labels from giant companies (Sony and Toshiba, etc.) may not be directly participating in this. But it would be a big surprise if they did not know it was happening. The other big question is why the Japanese government allows this to continue, thus robbing itself of huge tax revenue.

• The false appearance of corporate diversity. By changing the name of labels and management companies, the Visual-kei market appears to fans as if it has healthy competition. In reality, one company basically funds the entire operation. This is also how the alleged Burning “Keiretsu” is purported to work, although with no actual above-the-board evidence, we have to trust industry insider accounts. A scan of the Oricon pages will show hundreds of little management companies, but in reality, they are all organized into larger groups led by a central management company. The only way to prove the links is to look at publishing and corporate records, but most of the super secret connections exist in a plane totally unaffected by official documentation.

• Industry practices as “secret knowledge.” The most disappointing thing about this Visual-kei interview or any insider entertainment industry gossip is that it must remain in the gray zone of knowledge. There is often circumstantial evidence that supports the ideas — for example, Suzuki Ami did disappear suddenly after a “successful” legal battle with her management company — but we never have the mass media or government giving us concrete proof that something illegal or unethical is afoot. The closest we get is the arrest of jimusho managers as the police cannot hide the arrest. But the mass media, greatly dependent upon talent for profit, would not dare expose the entire industry. Those arrested are just “bad apples.” How the Japanese entertainment industry works is full of rules and regulations that can never be made public. So we are stuck having to read suspicious accounts in third-rate publications that often do not mention full names in order to protect themselves from libel. Wikipedia Japan refuses to consider this information in its articles. The truth is essentially cast out to media limbo, while the tatemae facade remains the most legitimate narrative of how Japan works.

The publication of the magazine Koakuma Ageha in 2005 sent a shock-wave through Japanese society: when did cabaret-club hostesses become socially accepted to the degree that they have their own widely-available fashion magazine? And when did “kyabakura girl” become a glamorous and enviable occupation for young women? The answers to these questions were not apparent. And since the Japanese media is not allowed to talk about trends in terms of socioeconomic class or subculture, Koakuma Ageha‘s popularity gave the impression that all young women, no matter the family background, have suddenly clamored to work nights in Kabukicho.

Enter market researcher Miura Atsushi, who started looking at the why’s of the phenomenon. Back in the 1990s, Miura worked for shopping building PARCO‘s think-tank Across, where his job was to pontificate on the latest consumer trends and social movements to keep corporate clients in touch with the “leading-edge.” Now with the sharp decline of art-infused, cutting-edge consumer culture, Miura has turned his eye to heavier and less optimistic social issues. The popularity of his 2005 book Karyū Shakai (『下流社会』, “Downwardly-Mobile Society”) provided the media sphere with an easy way to bring up the slightly-taboo topic of Japan’s growing income divide. The credibility of Miura’s claims relies on his simple methodology: his conclusions mostly come straight from data analysis, based on his company Cultural Studies‘s large-scale youth surveys. Unlike the other pop cultural theoreticians, Miura is just “reporting the survey results” — an inductive antidote to the wilder and generally-unprovable “latent desire” pontificating of formal sociologists like Miyadai Shinji.

Miura’s latest book is Onna ha naze kyabakurajō ni naritai no ka? 『女はなぜキャバクラ嬢になりたいのか?』 — “Why Do Women Want to Become Kyabajō?” He took interest in the topic after conducting a mobile phone survey in 2007 for the advertising firm Standard Tsushinsha on the topic of “Generation Z” — Japanese aged 15 to 22. The survey asked young women, “What profession do you want to do/which job would you like to try doing?” (「なりたい職業、してみたい仕事」). He was shocked to find that “kyabajō (cabaret club girl) / hostess” ranked at #9 with 22.3%. Thinking this must be some statistical fluke, Miura chartered another survey of the same demographic in 2008, but he got nearly the same result: the kyabajō / hostess category came in at #12 with 20.5%. In short, one-fifth of young Japanese women aged 15 to 22 apparently hoped to work in the mizu shōbai industry. When he took a similar survey of women in “Generation Y” (age 25 to 32) for comparison, he found that only 9.1% had either wanted or still want to try out the hostess profession. Miura came to the conclusion that there has been a recent social shift toward wanting to work in this sector and started on specific research towards the topic.

The premise of the book — that young women have increased desire to become hostesses and kyabajō — is obviously controversial, and there has been some backlash against Miura’s statistical methods, best outlined in the Amazon review section for the book. Most criticism focuses on the fact that women in the survey could freely check as many occupations as they pleased, thus not proving they “want” to become hostesses as much are “would be fine with it.” To Miura’s credit, however, he fleshes out the hard data by interviewing 32 actual kyabajō and kyabajōs-in-training, and nothing about their stories seems to contradict his general conclusions on the phenomenon.

Even taking the possible survey biases into account, Miura’s results do match up with multiple clues in the broader pop culture that the hostess profession has become more socially-acceptable in the last decade. Prime time television dramas like Jotei follow the exploits of hostesses without any moral judgment on their line of work. Popular manga in mass market weekly magazines take up the challenge of young hosts and hostesses aiming to become “#1″ with the same narrative tone as if they were in an amateur band aiming for the top of the pops. Coffee advertisements offer quotes from hosts to convince consumers about the product’s value. The aforementioned popular magazine Koakuma Ageha has transformed real-life kyabajō into elegant fashion leaders and lifestyle models for the gyaru community.

Of course, the actual situation is much more complicated than “all Japanese girls want to become hostesses.” Miura is able to build a very specific demographic and psychographic profile of young kyabajō and kyabajō-wannabes, illustrating exactly which subset of Japanese society is most contributing to this growing labor sector. He found that kyabajō are most likely to have the following characteristics:

• low socioeconomic background
• low level of education
• moved to Tokyo from small villages in outlying prefectures (in the case of Tokyo, most hostesses are from the Tohoku region)
• high rate of parental divorce (double the rate of the total survey sample)
• hate being in their school, their own house, their own room, or their own living room (especially compared to those who want to become government workers)
• are confident about their looks
• strongly dependent on men
• comfortable with traditional gender roles
• hate their moms, like their dads
• read magazines Egg and Koakuma Ageha
• love the music of Hamasaki Ayumi

This list almost perfectly illustrates the profile of a single Japanese socioeconomic class-bound taste culture: namely, the “yankii” taste culture situated in lower-middle and working-class communities outside of Tokyo. Many of the above factors — divorce rate and socioeconomic background, for example — are well-known to be correlated. The embrace of “traditional” values such as gender role division and dependence on males could also be posited to be more associated with a certain social environment and education level. And when Miura asked women in the survey whether they wanted to “break the rules,” the hostess set generally answered in the negative. (Those who want to work in the sex industry, in comparison, were affirmative on the question.) The data’s “typical” kyabajō does not see the profession as a “rebellion” against community mores, but as a logical extension of her teenage lifestyle and limited career opportunities.

To explain why this specific group of women has embraced the kyabajō profession as a legitimate career, Miura mainly focuses upon structural economic factors. First and foremost, women are no longer able to secure a middle-class existence for themselves solely by marrying a man with a full-time job. During the Lost Decade, writes Miura, the steady dismantling of the corporate safety net meant men could no longer provide economic stability for their wives and girlfriends. Furthermore, even if women want to work themselves, they have had a particularly hard time becoming sei-shain “regular employees” in the recessionary environment. These conditions have created more pressure for women to establish financial independence, but for women with low levels of education and low social capital (both the result of non-urban working-class backgrounds), kyabajō is one of the few jobs that can provide high incomes and independence at a young age.

The women’s economic necessity for hostessing is reflected in their fiduciary behavior. Contrary to popular dismissals of kyabajō as soullessly selling their sexual dignity to buy foreign luxury goods, the kyabajō interviewed by Miura for the book claim they are mostly saving the money for the future. (The average salary seems to be around ¥6,000,000 a year, which is very good for a 20-something but not extravagant.) Most acknowledge that they only have a limited time in this particular industry and are trying to create a nest-egg for the future. Some even send money home to their parents. Although this parallel is a bit loaded, the idea of sending money back to parents almost perfectly echoes the pre-war system of prostitution where poor farmers’ daughters would be sold off to brothels to help their parents pay-off debts. Surely cabaret clubs are not as extreme in terms of labor duties as brothels, but children earning money for the household has been taboo amongst the middle-class for at least the last 100 years.

Miura’s profile of hostesses also clearly delineates the cultural tastes of the profession’s leading demographic group. We receive the rich detail that hostess-wannabes read the magazine Egg — a glimpse into pre-kyabajō cultural affiliation. Egg is the quintessential “deep gyaru” magazine — for the ganguro yankii wing of the fashion movement rather than the part that touches upon middle-class mass style (like Popteen). Egg readers are disproportionally based in places other than Tokyo, so the profile of the kyabajō seems to almost perfectly match that of the female yankii — women with a particular set of cultural and sexual values who mostly live in non-urban prefectures. Girls who read softer fashion magazines like non•no or arty high-fashion magazines like Spur are apparently not hostess material, which makes logical sense. The values of the gyaru subculture — in terms of sexuality, future hopes, and gender dynamics — are much more conducive to mizu shobai than any others.

Miura describes the cabaret club itself quite pithily as “theme park of traditional gender roles.” In an age where men have to actually make an effort in personal presentation and manners to win over possible girlfriends and can no longer sexually harass secretaries in the workplace, the kyabakura provides men with a chance to return to a much simpler time, before women became educated, independent, judgmental, aggressive, and demanding. Kyabakura and hostess clubs offer men increasingly-rare female adulation for a simple payment. They can be drunk, loud, obnoxious, and speak with toxic tobacco-scarred breath, but the hostesses are required to treat them like kings — just like an idealized recreation of the good ol’ days.

Many women, however, consider the hostess job no harder than desk work, and in particular, enjoy the fact that their job allows them to dress up in a glamorous way and find constant “acknowledgment” from the opposite sex. Miura suggests that kyabakura provides these women, who never succeeded at school and had a rough home life, the self-confirmation that they are good at something for the first time. They feel respected by customers and can work towards finding a wealthy spouse in the customer base.

Most hostesses — perhaps in a reflection of classic yankii values — want to marry at a relatively young age, and the pages of Koakuma Ageha are filled with perky confessionals from divorced 20-something mothers with multiple young children who work at kyabakura to support their families. For the hostess looking for a husband at work, however, things are not always so easy. Miura claims that one of the reasons so many mizu shobai girls spend their hard-earned money on host clubs is that hosts are the only men in their lives who will promise to marry them. Of course, promising matrimony is a core duty of the host job, but the hostesses can walk away sated that night at least.

Miura sees this rise in the number of hostesses as part of a broader trend for society: youth’s desire to continue their cultural lifestyle into adulthood. In his survey comparison between Generation Z and Generation Y, he found that the latest crop of young men and women are desperate to become singers, actors, and models. Generation Y was much more realistic and seemed content on more “serious” jobs. In the past, Japanese society’s high toleration of youth culture stemmed directly from the social contract that youth would abandon all cultural activities at employment (usually aged 23 for white collar, earlier for blue collar). Now that companies cannot offer youth the previous level of benefits for “going straight,” most youth without long-term career prospects are choosing to bring their youth style into adulthood. The gyaru pioneered this social change, and now one of the few growth fashion markets is gyaru brand clothing made for mothers and their young children. Oddly, the gyaru still believe in early marriage and early childbirth, but they have abandoned the lack of fun and glamour formerly associated with adult responsibility.

So there is a “kyabajō segment” of young women, mostly corresponding to the gyaru/yankii subculture. Young college students and daughters from “good families” are well-known to work part-time or occasionally at cabaret clubs, but the “career girls” most definitely fit a specific subcultural affiliation. That understood, does this really mean something for society? Haven’t the working and lower classes been historically been the suppliers for the sex industry and the mizu shobai? If we believe the Miura evidence and analysis, economic conditions have deteriorated to the degree that a certain segment of women are electing to work a relatively-degrading job in order to maintain a middle-class level of income. But as the book suggests, the profession itself is not as dire or exploitative as say, the pre-war brothel system. Girls make the choice to join and can essentially quit whenever they want. Prostitution is less ambivalently bad; hostessing can be dangerous and demeaning, but in theory, there are protections in place to keep it from being sexual slavery.

That being said, the high salary for hostessing — in light of low education and no skills — should be our first clue that employers are compensating for something negative in the work duties. First and foremost, the job leads to no long-term career nor builds any portable skills. So while a clerking position pays little in its 20s, women can move up the ladder to a certain degree in their 30s and 40s to make a better salary. Hostesses have at most, a decade at the job and then cannot use that experience for anything else (other than being a “mama” perhaps). And exceptions aside, the hostess work generally degrades the labor and social value of the woman. The stigma has been reduced in recent years, but in most cases, hostessing can be a “scandalous” past background in a way that “secretary” never could. The kyabajō job also does not build strong social capital: working in Kabukicho means running around with yakuza, touts, and pimps, who are low on valuable social capital themselves. (There is also the issue that being a “kept woman” rather than a wife, which we can assume is a common path for many hostesses and kyabajō, means no legal rights to property from their partner.)

These facts tends to discount the “economic empowerment” argument, that the hostess business is a nice welfare system that transfers money from corporations (through entertainment budgets) and middle-class men to working-class women. And even in this model, those with power and capital are abusing their position to win special conditions from the recipients. Women can only receive these funds if they are young and willing to act out a form of sexually-charged subservience. In a more “fair” economic system, there would be high-paying jobs for women not conditional on indulging men. Yes, any job in the hierarchical white collar Japanese corporate system means hiding personal feelings to please the whims of the boss, but in an office atmosphere, this is not predicated on sexual gratification nor strict sexual division (women pleasing men).

But could the popularity of kyabakura amongst men be a good sign? The fact that men must pay high fees in order to receive unconditional treatment from kyabajō means that women are not willing to act accordingly in “real life.” The better solution, of course, would be a mass move away from the kind of childish misogyny that fuels the hostess industry, but Japanese men have shown long-term resistance to the new gender values (or at least tolerance) that have come to be strongly rooted in the rest of the post-industrial world. The word “feminist” in Japan does not even mean “one who believes in gender equality”: it means “one who is nice to women.” It appears that kindness to the second sex is still a radical idea.

Miura’s research has been and will continued to be challenged. Some times for legitimate reasons, but there will always be serious resistance from men to a re-conception of the hostess/kyabakura industry as a site of class exploitation. Flirting is more fun when you don’t think the girls are sending the money back home to support their poor family in some tiny Hokkaido fishing village. The “greedy girls who want Louis Vuitton bags” myth created a comfortable equality of sin: men would go to hostess clubs out of lust, women would work there out of avarice. But nothing about Miura’s research should be surprising or controversial. Japan has a long history of hostess-like institutions — from geisha to the cafe waitresses of the 1920s — and the lower classes have always been the main supply of labor. But now thanks to magazines like Koakuma Ageha, these girls are no longer invisible. They have their own world, own style, and own values. The only thing new is that they are succeeding in making this lifestyle seem appealing for those not predestined to end up there.

The following interview originally appeared in the June 2009 issue of Japanese magazine Cyzo (previously available online, but currently unavailable; Google cached part one and two). We have published this translation without the publisher’s express permission. We do not confirm, condone, or endorse the content, but merely provide the translation as a way to view into the discourse of the Japanese printed media on the Japanese entertainment world.

In the interview, veteran entertainment reporter Honda Kei discusses Suhō Ikuo — CEO of management company Burning Production and widely understood to be the most powerful single person in the Japanese entertainment world. (He is often called the “Don of the geinoukai.”) Despite such power, Suhō almost never appears in the media, is rarely photographed, and few people outside of the industry would know his name. Many publications (and previous incarnations of his Wikipedia entry) have subtly hinted at Suhō’s alleged relationships with the so-called “underworld,” but Cyzo‘s Honda interview is one of the few times where someone has made claims of this matter on the record.

Burning CEO Suhō’s True Face and Means of Power, as Seen from a Man Who Continues to Fight with the “Don”

Entertainment journalist Kei Honda is a man who continues to offer outspoken criticism of the (management company) Burning Production and its CEO Suhō Ikuo — normally said to be a “taboo of the entertainment industry.” In an entertainment mass media that is uniformly “Burning-friendly,” Honda has, up to this point, been sued five times by Burning. He also says he has been intimidated by mob members… so why does this man keep fighting with his pen?

—Mr. Honda, how many times have you been sued for slander by Burning Production’s Suhō Ikuo for writing critical articles about him?

Honda (H): I have been sued five times, for writing about Suhō’s dark associations with crime syndicates, the nature of his media control, and his true face. He demanded compensation for damages for the slander and I was sued. Out of the five, he withdrew the charge or we settled out-of-court four times. None of the suits reached final court judgment. The remaining one is currently pending in appeals court. Suhō apparently is telling people, “Even though we settled, it’s a crime of conscience that he keeps writing very similar things.” But no matter how many times I write, Suhō doesn’t ever change his ways.

—When did you first encounter President Suhō?

H: It was when I just started out as a novice writer for Shukan Post (Shogakukan), so it must have been 35-36 years ago. At the time, I found out about a sex scandal involving singer Minami Saori (currently married to Shinoyama Kishin), who was in Burning. I got a tip that a writer from Shukan Shincho got into a fight with Suhō about the incident and had his glasses broken. In order to confirm the story, I went to the Burning office and asked “Is Mr. Suhō here?” Suddenly the man who was cleaning the office wielded his mop like a sword. I remember that the mop guy was Suhō.

—Was that grievance what made you point your spear of criticism towards President Suhō?

H: No, it wasn’t anything personal. The big thing was, at that time, the owner of a big management company had told me in real grief, “The Japan Association of Music Enterprises has finally allied with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department to try to sever the ties between the yakuza and the entertainment world. And even though they are cleaning everything up, Suhō is doing the exact opposite.” Suhō, through wielding power, was able to further cultivate associations with the mob.

—Why does Suhō associate with the crime syndicates?

H: Maybe he likes them? When Suhō came into the entertainment world, the mob was involved in running management companies and promoting singers. So there would have been points of contact all over. And I think that world of “duty and obligations” maybe agrees with his skin. It’s just that kids look up to the entertainment world and so it must conform to social norms. We can’t allow those kinds of associations. There was a consensus in the industry to move towards getting rid of the mob, but if the leader of the industry, Burning, wasn’t following those rules, what can you do?

—Why do you think President Suhō came to be called the “Don of the Entertainment World”?

H: This is my theory, but Suhō focused on the music publishing business, and at the time, he partnered with Watanabe Masafumi (now deceased), who dominated TBS’ music shows. Suhō turned the “race” for the Japan Record Award into a business. He took the sports paper writers and music critics involved with the awards out to high-end clubs and threw them big parties on their birthdays. He gave them presents. For weddings and funerals, etc. he would send unprecedented amounts of money, and with that, he was able to create cozy relations with the entertainment media.

So all the management companies and record labels that wanted to win a Japan Record Award would rely on Suhō, and in return, he would get that singer’s master recording rights or publishing rights. And if the singer won the award, those rights would create even more money. Using the conduit to the entertainment media he cultivated at that point, he could then suppress scandals. And Suhō, who had amassed huge financial power, was able to bring in great people working for him. He would also assist aforced the music publishers in his keiretsu to give him copyrights and the entertainment companies to give him business rights, and he created a money tree. He had money, controlled the mass media, and created a real business model. If you can do that, you are absolutely “the Don.”

—As an entertainment reporter, what do you think of the mass media people who are subservient to Burning?

H: I though it was inexcusable! After all this, I quit my job at Shukan Post and became a freelancer, doing a lot of work for Tokyo Sports. The bureau chief at Tokyo Sports at that point approached me and said, “Our Culture Department is way too cozy with the management companies. So you should do as you like.” I thought, “what, am I a bullet?” No one in the Culture Dep’t liked me, but I started to cover the entertainment world. Even though the mass media knew about Suhō’s dark associations and scandals about Burning talent, they stayed quiet. I thought, if that’s the case, I will just cover it all myself and bring scandals about Burning talent to light in not just Tokyo Sports but in media like Asahi Geino (Tokuma Shoten) or Tsukuru (Tsukuru Publishing), or Hanashi no Channeru (Nihon Bungeisha).

—President Suhō never tried to win you over?

H: He did. I don’t know if it was him acknowledging defeat from my attacks, but about twenty years ago, through a friend, he had a couple of plans for conciliation. As a result, I had the chance to dine with Suhō, and for a while, we had friendly relations. I was taken to a performance by Hosokawa Takashi at the Shinjuku Koma Theatre and got to go backstage. There, I heard Suhō ask Hosokawa, “Did you greet oyabun Noda?” “Oyabun Noda” was the godfather of a huge crime syndicate. Discovering these clear associations with the mob made me realize that I just shouldn’t be hanging out with Suhō. So I separated from Suhō about a half-year later, and because of that, I was told suddenly by him, “Tomorrow I am going to wire ¥2 million to you, so could you tell me your bank account?” I refused, saying, “I have no business receiving that,” and that was it with Suhō.

—After that, how were your relations with Suhō?

H: I personally strengthened my criticism of him. When I did that, I received anonymous calls to my home. My wife picked up and the guy said, “I am a classmate’s of Suhō. Because the Anti-Organized Crime Law has made things complicated, I can’t say the name of my syndicate, but tell your husband to make nice with Suhō.” The substance of the call made it clear that it was a threat. I could not allow this intimidation of my wife, who is not involved in the industry. I eventually figured out who called, and it wasn’t his classmate, but a guy who was in one of the mob groups that he runs with. But even after that, I kept writing about scandals related to Burning. When I did that, I was finally sued for slander.

—Do you think President Suhō hates most when you write about his relations to crime syndicates?

H: Maybe he hates that, but in my memory, he has never really said that my concrete statements about his connections to the mob have no basis in fact. Basically, he insists that the entire article is slander. He sued me for my book The Crumbling of the Johnny’s Empire (『ジャニーズ帝国崩壊』) published by Rokusaisha, and in there, there is an eyewitness account that when Fifth-Generation Yamaguchi-gumi’s Lieutenant Takumi Masaru (now deceased) came to Tokyo, Suhō went to meet him frequently at the ANA Hotel in Roppongi. But that particular part was not challenged.

—From what you saw, has Suhō’s power only risen over the years?

H: They say that Suhō got scared and stopped coming to the office after the shooting incident at Burning in 2001 [where someone shot a bullet through the office window] . Around then, he purchased a golf course in Okinawa and started working as the owner. He got hooked on golf, and they said that he started to slowly lose the unifying force worthy of a Don.

But from my point of view, I just couldn’t see where he had lost power. At that time, Suhō had expanded his conduit with the financial world. He was beloved especially by a now-deceased former chairman of a giant paper company. He also created connections with powerful politicians and had a honeymoon relation with former NHK Chairman Ebizawa Katsuji. And he built up connections even with people in the judiciary. They say that Suhō’s son is even involved with the company Japan Risk Control, which employed Norisada Mamoru (who lost his job at the Tokyo High Court Counsel because of a sex scandal) as a top advisor.

When K-Dash chariman Kawamura Tatsuo came to prominence, the entertainment industry was a flutter with things like “Suhō’s power has fallen” or “the Suhō era is over,” but that’s ridiculous.

In the fuss over the marriage between Fujiwara Norika and Jinnai Tomonori last year, Suhō wielded power behind the scenes to the degree that Yoshimoto Kogyo (Jinnai’s agency) couldn’t move hand or foot. From the leaked information about their engagement to the exclusive live broadcast rights given to Nihon Television, that was all Suhō’s own work. I wrote about this in the magazine Kami no Bakudan (“Paper Bomb”, Rokusaisha), which brings us to the fifth suit against me I mentioned earlier, currently pending. Just as always, Suhō sues with legal means those who cannot be controlled by the carrot and the stick. But the fact that Suhō has come to do it like this, I think is a reason why the mass media succumbs to him.

I love the entertainment world and all the people who work hard so hard in it. But I don’t plan on dropping my pen as long as the industry is being controlled by dirty people.