BLOG REPOST- A Documentation of Johnny Kitagawa's Alleged Past

I realized that there are a lot of blogs that were deleted or have became defunct in the past few years. The horrible thing is when these blogs are actually made of quality posts and juicy discussions that can no longer be read because the awesome page transformed into the dreaded 404.

One of those blogs is uso-ippai of tumblr who had been translating Japanese entertainment industry gossips for the sake of the English-speaking online audience. It only lasted for months though and the tumblr blog is now abandoned. Hell even Majide had stopped updating huhubells. Good thing we still have Minus Kakugo and the other blogs...

So now I'll just share to you a blogpost by uso-ippai (that was originally split into two parts) that looks back on Johnny Kitagawa's past scandals, just for discussion/knowledge purposes, especially for those who doesn't have tumblrs.

Text Translation Original Sources: Part 1 and Part 2, I also added some photos for reference

"Johnny’s Entertainment is a company that leads the idol empire in the entertainment industry. Many stars were born from this empire that is spearheaded by its president, Johnny Kitagawa. Go Hiromi, Kondou Masahiro (Matchy,) Tahara Toshihiro, Shounentai, Hikaru GENJI, SMAP and Arashi to name a few… But there has never been talk of the inner workings of this company. We go in search of the truth behind the iron veil of this empire through various unofficial books.

One of these books is “To Hikaru Genji” published in December of 1988.

The author is Kita Koji, an ex-member of the group Four Leaves, a popular Johnny’s idol group that debuted in 1968 and participated in Kouhaku for 7 years in the 70’s. The book depicted his meeting with Johnny Kitagawa, their relationship, and finally his fall into the hell called methamphetamine addiction.

A story about the truth behind the glamorous life of a former top idol, told by the person who experienced it, became a top seller at the time. Within that, the most shocking is probably a part about Johnny’s sexual molestation of boys, a retelling that detailed one such incident from beginning to end.

Anyway, it was a raw and terrifying detailed account:

Johnny took my erect penis into his mouth, and elicited sounds while he sucked. While he manipulated my sex organ with his mouth and tongue, I ejaculated into his mouth and he swallowed it as is…

Kita was scouted by Johnny Kitagawa himself when he went to see a performance of Johnny’s (Johnny’s first idol group) at Nichigeki Western Carnival (an old music festival) and started living with Johnny soon after. It was also the start of his troubles that involved Johnny Kitagawa’s homosexual behavior.

In the same book, Kita claimed that after their meeting, the above illustrated behavior continued for 4 and a half years on a nightly basis. “We were living the lives of a married couple more so than lovers,” wrote Koji. Even his stage name, Kita Koji, came from the Kita in Johnny Kitagawa. At the time, he felt satisfied and joined to Johnny by the love he provided.

And that sense of fulfillment lasted until the very end. He believed in Johnny, but when he became a top idol through Four Leaves, he started to say no to Johnny’s advances.

Around that time, Johnny has also gotten more interested in younger boys. Like Hiromi Go, Toyokawa Sho, and Kawasaki Mayo, all boys in their teens. And as Four Leaves lost popularity, they were headed for a disbandment.

After the Four Leaves era, Kita battled drug addiction. Mary paid him a small fee once a month, but since he couldn't live without drugs, he spent most of it on drugs.

He saw many similarities between himself and the members of Hikaru GENJI, so he wanted to write a book to warn them not to repeat his own mistakes.

With the publication of his books, Kita’s relationship with the agency was irreparable. But during 02, there were talks of a Four Leaves reunion. But this time, J&A will be using brand new members. The original members were all shocked by that decision.

Egi Toshio (another member of Four Leaves) was arrested in ‘99 for the possession of methamphetamine, during the court date, Aoyama Taka (also of Four Leaves) testified for him.

“During Four Leaves, we were paid 30,000yen a month, by the time we disbanded, we were paid 500,000yen a month. And we received 2,000,000yen when we quit.”

When Egi called the agency to ask for a loan, they told him that, “Four Leaves is no more, and so we are no longer associated.”

But even then, the agency continued to earn money through their songs and images. When Shunkan Bunshun wrote the series of articles accusing Johnny of sexually harassing young boys in ‘99, this was one of the sources.

“Aoyama’s testimony really added fuel to the fire and brought the attention back on the book Kita wrote. A lot of ex-Jrs came together to try and expose Johnny’s harassment but Kita himself did not join. It was a stipulation of a Four Leaves reunion that he stayed quiet on the matter.” 

Said a music industry insider.

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Johnny & Associates didn't start out as an entertainment production company. It started out as a baseball team called “Johnny’s Gundan.” Many fans might not know about it now, but back in the ’60s, around 30 or so young men came together in Yoyogi Park to play baseball. And a young Johnny Kitagawa was their coach. The first group under J&A was Johnny’s.

This team was made up for 4 childhood friends: Iino Osami, Aoi Teruhiko, Nakatani Ryo, and Maie Hiromi.

In 1961, the four of them were invited by Johnny to watch the movie West Side Story. They were so touched by the movie that they said they wanted to start dancing too! So they took the name Johnny’s from Johnny’s Gundan.

Johnny’s is the first idol group produced by Johnny Kitagawa, but they were also the first group of young boys to have suffered through Johnny’s sexual harassment.

The book, “Johnny’s no Gyakushu” was published in Oct of ‘89. It was another expose book like Kita Koji’s book earlier. The author was said to be Johnny’s but it wasn’t all four members, only Nakatani Ryo himself. He picked that name because he felt that it was part of the four members’ history and belonged to them. He wanted to write about the greed and sex that happened behind the scenes and the rage he felt towards Johnny himself.

The draw of this book is basically the claims of Kitagawa’s questionable behavior towards young boys. Nakatani claimed that they all went through a ceremony, and once, an 11yr old boy within the baseball team was also the target of molestation from Johnny.

Johnny was the coach of the baseball team and the four of them would often go to his house after school. There, he would prepare snacks from America, toys, and audio equipment for them to play with as they pleased. And once, Nakatani went to play at Johnny’s house by himself, and that’s when he was met with Johnny’s true intention. “If you do this, it feels good.” Johnny would say as he stroke Nakatani to ejaculation.

The other three members also met with similar treatment but they didn't feel that they were victims during the time. At first, they’d joke that Johnny is “just another strange old man.” And Nakatani even said himself that he didn't know how important sexual behaviors were, so he didn't really feel violated.

"When I got older, I realized how different my experience was from other people’s. That came as a huge shock to me."

And Nakatani later fell to drugs to deal with such trauma. With the number of ex-Johnny’s that have drug problems, how can people not see that there was something wrong with this agency?"

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Now I did a few research and Kita Koji passed away in 2012 due to cancer. He had been keeping his illness a secret but left a final entry in his blog. 

"In it he said he'd had a happy life and asked fans not to grieve for him. He signed off by poignantly addressing Johnny Kitagawa and his sister Mary: 'Thank you. I'm grateful to you.'  Source

Makes you really think on their relationship....