Starto Entertainment facing a 300 million $ lawsuit

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STARTO Entertainment has issued a response following its unexpected inclusion in a $300 million lawsuit filed in Clark County, Nevada. The case involves allegations of sexual misconduct by Johnny Kitagawa, the late founder of Johnny & Associates (now operating as SMILE-UP.), and includes claims against executives and related parties.

The plaintiffs, Junya Tanaka (43) and Kyohei Iida (37), allege that they were subjected to sexual abuse during their time with the agency. Tanaka claims he was abused at a Las Vegas hotel in 1997 at age 15, while Iida alleges similar incidents in 2002 when he was 14. Both assert that the abuse continued during their respective tenures, with Tanaka’s lasting until 1998 and Iida’s until 2006.

In addition to SMILE-UP., the lawsuit names Kitagawa’s niece, Julie Keiko Fujishima, and other executives, accusing them of failing to intervene despite being aware of the abuse. Each plaintiff seeks $50 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages.

STARTO Entertainment, established as a completely independent entity in November 2023, has expressed confusion over its inclusion in the lawsuit. The company stated:

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"We have no capital or management ties to SMILE-UP. and no involvement with the alleged incidents. It is perplexing to be named in this case, and we deeply regret that this situation has arisen without a full understanding of our history and role."

The company confirmed that it would carefully review the complaint once officially received and respond appropriately. SMILE-UP., meanwhile, has contested the jurisdiction of the U.S. court, emphasizing that the plaintiffs reside in Japan and suggesting that the matter should not fall under American legal purview.

This lawsuit marks a significant development, as it is the first filed in the United States since SMILE-UP. publicly acknowledged Kitagawa’s misconduct in 2023. Through their lawyers, the plaintiffs have expressed a desire to raise awareness of how abuse allegations were historically suppressed in Japan, hoping the case will encourage societal change.

Since its formation, STARTO Entertainment has focused on fostering a supportive environment for its talents, distancing itself from the controversies of its predecessor. Despite this unexpected legal challenge, the company remains committed to transparency and fair practices, reinforcing its dedication to the future.

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Well what relationship did Starto have with Johnny's before hand?

He literally was the founder and CEO of the company and ran it for almost 50 years till he passed away at 87 years old. Later, since not having kids, his niece Julie Fujishima inherited the CEO-position but she got into a bit backlash from even taking the position, due to that she knew more than she told the public and so people wanted her to leave and give up the position as a CEO. Julie claimed that she never even thought what her uncle did was even true. She said she first heard about it in the early 2000s when her uncle was in court and about a case where someone apparently found out that Johnny would've molested a few men, most likly underage. Julie said that she asked her uncle at that time cause she couldn't belive the alligations against him, but thought he said the truth when he told her that this was a most likly just a mistake by someone trying to get him down for something, because Starto, formerly known as Johnny&Associates (or better known as Johnny's Entertainment) is the most successfull music company in Japan and so therefore might got a lot haters. When she heard from her uncle that he told her he was sure to not have done anything, she belived him since she thought he was a good person. Only when he died she apparently got to hear that he lied to her all the years just to not make her feel weird.

People didn't belived Julie's words at all, because she also apparently voiced it in a way that made it feel suspicious. She got told by many people she should resign and go. She even got threatened by many people and someone even tried to collect people's signatures on change.org but after some days this person cancled saying she overreacted and thought back at it saying its a bad thing still, yet too harsh to ask people to sign up to get Julie kicked out of Starto if Julie really hasn't known of all of it till Johnny died. Julie lied to everyone, even claiming her mom apparently never said anything, even tho its known that her mom who is Johnny's sister knew of everything that Johnny ever did.

The thing is Johnny build Johnny&Associates in the 60ths when he was extreamly young and made it a music agency for men, however it was known since the early 80s that he was kind of suspicious and some people said things that made people feel weird about him. The first time it got to the public was in a court meeting in the early 2000s but he had the power and money to get out of it claiming he was clean and did nothing wrong. However some people, especially foreign JPop-fans knew there was this thing and felt akward about his presence in the music industry. When he passed and his victims decided it was now finally the time to speak up, they all let it out on Julie and wanted to get the whole company to go down for what happend in the past.

Johnny is known as one of the worst sex offenders in Japan, altho he was never actually charged for what he did during his lifetime cause it was kinda hard to even get onto him and he used his power and money to get out of the situation at least once. It's bad because since he opend his company in the 60s there had been men and also a lot young boys who joined his agency in hopes to debut as singers and boygroups, yet he managed to molest most of these people, to a level that it was stated he molested up to around 10K men between the late 60s and early 2010s. A row of the victims had been even the now artists under the agency. But it got very messed a bit when he passed and it wasn't 100% clear in the media now if he really did what he did or not. Some people blew it up a bit right when Johnny passed since one of his victims cried on TV in relive of finaly being rid of him (I forgot who, but it was a boygroup member in his 30s) and it got very messed when the singer Jin Akanishi wrote a song about Johnny, that made people question what the hell was the realations between Jin and Johnny since Jin stated he always looked up to Johnny, liked and loved him and whats not that made people feel disgusted at the song that Jin wrote about Johnny.

A few years later when Julie became the new CEO, the media really tried to get the company down for good due to their past and it begun to be very stressfull for the victims, the staff of the company and all the idols who havn't been into all of this. Many Japanese and foreign brands stoped working with the company and their artists, many TV channesl decided to not let acts perform, not invite acts to talk shows and also not air Jdrama with members of their groups in them etc. It got very messy. Even the British TV channel BBC released a documentary about Johnny Kitagawa due to being one of the most fucked up cases in the music industry to ever exist.

After Julie resigned as CEO, many acts and some trainee left the company and a former producer of the company made his own one called TOBE where he signed a lot former acts of Johnny's after having enough of the company. Later on Johnny's got a lot pressure by the public, since now more and more people who got molested by Johnny opend up about how they got to know Johnny and what happend to them. But it got very dark, since one of the victims took his own life after opening that he was molested about 30 years before and since then in constant need of medication against depressions and how he was seeing a psychiatrist weekly for 30 years now, but people online didn't took it for real and bullied him so much, that he wrote on a website before taking his life that he got mentaly sick more and more for half a year after opening up on social media that he was one of the victims.

At that time the staff and new CEO of Johnny's decided to split the company into two and renaming it from Johnny&Associates into Starto Entertainment and also building a help foundation called Smile Up that has to work seperatly. The goal of Smile Up was to find as many victims as possible and compensate them with money for what happend to them. This can only be achived if the victims come up themselfs. However its hard to distinguish real victims from people who lie for the money. But if Smile Up manages to get most victims till nobody is reaching out no more they will eventually close down at the end and than only Starto will be left.

Johnny's entire past is just a total living hell and its a shame that he was never punished in is lifetime for what he did.

Maybe these wiki-entries also help you to read more on him and the company

Johnny Kitagawa - Wikipedia

Starto Entertainment - Wikipedia

Quote from DaisyTheGenuine

Thanks so much!

I was a bit confused because I thought Smile Up= Johnny's and Starto was more of an offshoot affiliate and not a brand change

Johnny's dosn't exist for around 2 years soon no more. The building is still the same, not the name. They didn't even hung up a new company name to where the old sign was on their wall. People in Japan had been weird when they announced to remove the sign from the building and fans ran towards the company building to watch the sign removed. In an interview a woman said she stans acts of the company for 20-ish years and was not liking the name-change and acted up as if she didn't heard of the whole situation with Johnny Kitagawa. Another fan, a teenage girl said (no joke) that even tho many people know Johnny was a asshole, they still should'nt have removed the sign and renamed the company. She was like people need to know trought the name of Johnny that this company was build on a dark past. It was odd, especially when the media reported it was estimated that about 10K people (mostly women) came to watch the sign being taken down.