AKB48: A Microcosm Of Dark Corporate Japan. Sexual exploitation of child labor is sooo cute. (A book review and polemic)

[CAT5 9075]

Here's a pretty interesting artcile I came across about a book titled "AKB 48 and the Black Companies (AKB48と日本のブラック企業)". I think most of us are already pretty disgusted by Japan's idol culture, but after reading this, you might walk away slightly more appalled than before.

here:

http://jakeadelstein.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/akb48-a-microcosm-of-dark-corporate-japan-sexual-exploitation-of-child-labor-is-sooo-cute-a-book-review-and-polemic/

 

AKB48 aren’t just a band of teenage girls creepily sexually exploited by a money-grubbing management team that includes an ex-yakuza associate, they’re also symbols of how badly workers in Japan get screwed over–in every way.

Yasushi Akimoto was a Zegen with a vision – having never been popular in high school himself, he recognized the deep sexual frustration and vast need for sexual fantasies festering in the educated and dateless Japanese male. When he came out with “Onyanko Club” in the mid-1980s, people were blinded by the sheer genius of this man. Here he was, peddling quite ordinary high school girls on TV, who all got up on the studio stage to teasingly sing “oh please don’t take my school uniform off, no-no-no!” to an audience who could never hear such titillating pleas when they were 18 so was totally stoked to hear it now, from a gaggle of winking girls all beckoning SIMULTANEOUSLY.

*Zegen 女衒 = sex merchant

[keyinjpop 89]

Nothing surprising or redeeming in this piece.

[Zeus 7997]

There's a lot of interesting points raised in this article. My main issue is that I have to take a lot of this at face value. The article begins by assuming that the reader doesn't know about the underpinnings of the idol industry (and to be fair we don't). He even mentions such grievances as "getting laid off without notice, no maternity or paternity leaves, discrimination against women, sexual and moral harassment in the workplace, poor wages and did I mention no overtime pay?" But there are claims made in this article that I want some other sources for, some of these claims being:

• And once the girls “graduate” (i.e., fired) from the group, they’re left with no skills or abilities and their detour into the sex trade is a lot swifter than the days of Onyanko.
  
  I'm not the most versed in this topic but I have observed that when an idol member "graduates" from one group they move into another group. Is this not the case for AKB48? And if this is not the case, how many of them have ended up in the sex trade? Do we have proof or is this just a logical jump made from something he said a few paragraphs earlier?
   
• Yasushi Akimoto is a Zegen through and through – he’s found a way to cash in on the criticisms and problems within the AKB, by having the girls sing songs (written by him of course) about revolution, sacrifice and worker exploitation. 
  
  Like which songs in particular? Pointing to specific song lyrics and translating them helps a lot for foreigners like me. Otherwise I just have to take it at face value. I have a problem with this because...
   
•  [...]the man certainly knows how to make a yen from peddling idoru fantasies to love-starved males with glasses and bad skin.
  
  

  The group and its songs have attained the following records:
   [...]
  Most singles sold by a female artist in Japan - In May 2013 after the release of the group's 31st single "Sayonara Crawl", the combined sales figures of all AKB48’s singles have reached 21.852 million since the group’s debut in 2006, exceeding the previous best record of 21.416 million held by J-pop icon Ayumi Hamasaki.
  
  Highest sales of female group single in Japan - In June 2013, the 31st single of the group, "Sayonara Crawl"'s cumulative sales number reached 1,872,000 copies, exceeding the previous best record for a female group's single sales (1,845,000 copies) which SPEED had kept for over 15 years with their 1997 single "White Love". The total cumulative sales of "Sayonara Crawl" marked at 1,955,800.
  
  Highest number of consecutive million-selling single sold in Japan - In October 2013, the group's 33rd single "Heart Electric" sold 1,021,000 copies on the first day of release, becoming the 14th consecutive million-selling single of the group and beat the previous record of 13 by B'z.
  
  Most million-selling singles sold in Japan - In December 2013, the group's 34th single "Suzukake no Ki no Michi de "Kimi no Hohoemi o Yume ni Miru" to Itte Shimattara Bokutachi no Kankei wa Dō Kawatte Shimau no ka, Bokunari ni Nan-nichi ka Kangaeta Ue de no Yaya Kihazukashii Ketsuron no Yō na Mono" sold 1,033,000 copies during the first week, scoring their 16th million-selling single and surpassed the record of 15 which B'z had kept for 13 years and 9 months.

  
  I omitted quite a few other records of theirs but look at those numbers. Millions? I'm sure that there's more than the "love-starved males with glasses and bad skin" straw man listening to them to make those sales happen. Hell, I know of female foreigners that buy their singles and love this idol group, although that's purely anecdotal. He's playing up the sex angle here to discredit the guy at the top and that's disingenuous. 
   
• unfortunately, the gold stays firmly tucked in his pocket without benefitting the girls he ruthlessly expolits. 
  
  Argument would be stronger if we had figures about how much members of AKB48 make, or how much idol pop members make generally. Either we have those figures and he can use them to back up his claim, or we don't and he can't. Just making this claim without evidence is also dubious.

Now before someone jumps down my throat, I don't feel any particular way about this article. I am not trying to defend or discredit the author. I just feel like the polemic writing showcases that he has an agenda of his own and has no statistics or sources to substantiate his claims. That's lazy journalism.

[stylelover 1086]

I didnt bother to read the article , so my comment is without reading it, but i read zess´ comment.

 

regarding 1: i dont follow them closely, but theres at least a few graduated AKB48 members that release solo stuff now and/or even act afaik. so everyone going to sex trade is certainly not true and doesnt really motivate me to read this.

 

 

also about 3: you already quoted everything important but they are basically the most famous group in japan, so i call bs on "love-starved males with glasses and bad skin". their fandom probably includes these people, but thats it.

[Original Saku 1593]

 

• And once the girls “graduate” (i.e., fired) from the group, they’re left with no skills or abilities and their detour into the sex trade is a lot swifter than the days of Onyanko.

  I'm not the most versed in this topic but I have observed that when an idol member "graduates" from one group they move into another group. Is this not the case for AKB48? And if this is not the case, how many of them have ended up in the sex trade? Do we have proof or is this just a logical jump made from something he said a few paragraphs earlier?

 

I know of a few ex AKB48 members who eventually went into the JAV industry after they "graduated"... but that's only a few so I doubt that there is much credibility to the claim that they all went into "sex trade". 

[Zeus 7997]

I know of a few ex AKB48 members who eventually went into the JAV industry after they "graduated"... but that's only a few so I doubt that there is much credibility to the claim that they all went into "sex trade".

I wasn't even thinking JAV. In the article he mentions

 

Suffice to say, Yasushi Akimoto is what 50 years ago many older Japanese would describe as a “Zegen 女衒”or merchant who dealt exclusively in young women. A Zegen was the middleman who bought and sold girls (often with the express consent of the parents) to the sex trade and entertainment industry and too bad for the Japanese that no one bothered to distinguish between the two until the GHQ came along to tell us Nooooo, they were different. (Okay, we got that now.) The GHQ also did much to stomp out the Zegen operating in and around Tokyo but the middlemen simply went on doing what they did, and took on another name: “entertainment producer.” From sex shows and strip houses to brothels and the euphemistically called “bars,” the Zegen had their fingers in all the right pies (yuck), and kept the best for entertainment industry, which had direct pipeline to the yakuza.

That entire paragraph heavily suggests (to me) that in this context sex trade means prostitution, brothels, maybe even child porn rings, etc. He uses the same term later when he talks about ex-AKB48 members transition into "sex trade". Even above I bolded the point where he says that sex trade and entertainment are two different things, so JAV is out of the picture. So unless he thinks that porn and sex trade are the same thing (which contradicts what I copied above) then that's not what he's talking about.

He's heavily implying unsuccessful pop stars turn into prostitutes which isn't supported by anything in the article or anything anyone has found yet. I also get the vibe from the title "AKB48: A Microcosm Of Dark Corporate Japan. Sexual exploitation of child labor is sooo cute.". But other than this unsubstantiated claim, I fail to see any sexual exploitation here. Is there exploitation of the workers for profits? Maybe but that's up to him to prove with facts. Is the CEO using sex appeal as a way to make the money? Yes. Is this sexual exploitation? Not at all.

After all, the definition of sexual exploitation is the sexual abuse of children and youth through the exchange of sex or sexual acts for drugs, food, shelter, protection, other basics of life, and/or money.

[Shmilly 519]

The thing with AKB is that everyone wants to be a part of it. There's huge nationwide auditions for new members, and singing/dancing schools where hopefuls go to learn how it goes. I don't know how many young girls are forced into applications by family members or coerced by talent scourers, but I think there's plenty of them who willingly try to join the idol steamroller that is XXX48. I find it hard to believe that this many people either don't know or care if it's really true that the rate of entering the adult industry is so high.

 

Also don't forget that AKB members aren't even allowed to find boyfriends. The reason there's so damn many of them is because the different groups are rotating performances since they're so in demand for TV, concerts and shows, etc. I don't know how much the girls earn but at least the frontrunners (who star in TV ads, magazines and whatnot) are probably getting a decent salary. And I've seen plenty of examples of those who 'graduate' going on to other sectors of the entertainment industry, or beginning solo careers, rather than the adult industry.

 

Don't get me wrong, I think it's shocking that these girls are denied a normal education and upbringing from such a young age, but I personally don't see enough evidence that they aren't enjoying the AKB lifestyle or regret signing up for it. After all, they competed with thousands of others to get in. Yes, it's over sexualized, but that's unfortunately become part and parcel of the group's identity. I can't say how much it's still rooted in the darker origins.

 

And in reference to the inequality in working conditions for men vs women, a recent poll actually found that over 60% of women wanted to become housewives rather than work full time like their husbands. Gender roles are pretty well entrenched in Japanese society right now.

 

I'm only speaking here from what I've gleaned myself in the last year or so of living in Japan - I don't follow AKB48 at all or even listen to their music, there's just a huge exposure to them, particularly here in Tokyo. As for the author of the article, there's a fair amount of bias in there, but I respect him and his book Tokyo Vice is a good read. The man worked for Yomiuri Shimbun (the biggest newspaper in the country) in the past.

[keyinjpop 89]

Zess, about the money the idols make...

 

 

 

< AKB48 Yearly Income Ranking >

1. Maeda Atsuko (19) – 20 million yen (~243,140 USD)

1. Shinoda Mariko (24) – 20 million yen (~242,140 USD)

3. Oshima Yuko (21) – 18 million yen (~218,502 USD)

4. Kojima Haruna (22) – 16 million yen (~194,224 USD)

4. Itano Tomomi (19) – 16 million yen (~194,224 USD)

(Please remember that these are only estimates done by YUCASEE MEDIA).

Source

[nullmoon 784]

 I respect him and his book Tokyo Vice is a good read. 

 

I tried to read this his ego kept getting in the way.

[relentless 254]

Fascinating. The one thing I took note of was some of the members (the author mentioned some of which are 12) have appeared in adult magazines in Japan. I have no idea what the differences are, if any, between adult magazines in the States and Japan; but if that is true, then it does appear to be more based around sexual exploitation than anything else.

 

 

Though it makes me wonder: If Japan wasn't so collectively sexually frustrated, would this still be a problem?

[Ito 2438]

While I hate AKB and most of what it stands for and does (which this article does talk about), it seemingly jumps off the deep end...which Zess seems to have covered quite well. I mean, there is no doubt that these girls are being paraded around as objects of sexual fantasy. I'm one to believe that the reason the members can't have boyfriends is so that the "ronries" can project themselves in tot his spot.  I also think the group as the music value of a wet noodle.

 

And while I find most of it deplorable, I don't think that this is anything new for Japan. So much of his comments lack any information to back it up. This feels like something written by a conspiracy theorist.

[DogManX 179]

Cough. relentless, my man. Sorry to burst in like this, but. Babymetal. There you have it.

 

Coold bloodeed.

[relentless 254]

Cough. relentless, my man. Sorry to burst in like this, but. Babymetal. There you have it.

 

Coold bloodeed.

 

 

You must be familiar with the girls in BABYMETAL being in porn. Well, to each their own.

[DogManX 179]

Oohh that struck hard. I nearly felt the cringe through your letters. Although I was not thinking to take the thought that far actually..that was you...

 

Anyways I'm outta here. Idol crap always prepared for new ridiculous scandals.

[madygrain 515]

Things that stood out for me:

 

-All this business is suposedly mostly based on men's sexual frustration and being unable to get dates with girls at a young age.

 

-Parents willing to sell their daughters to Zegen thugs. 

 

This is disturbing and really fucked up socially and culturally wise.  They have a lot of work to do.

 

-"Most telling of all, they were excessively and agressively, ordinary." 

 

This whole thing is pretty ugly but I have to admit this is really smart. They are fantasy fulfillment so why go for the godess-like beauties? They are not many of those in high schools so better to drop the idea entirely and make the fantasy more realistic somewhat. I honestly don't see this kind of thing as bad of perverted in the abstract terms of "having ordinary people be superstars". I think western stars are forced to be too unreal creating unreasonable fantasies for many people. Having the level of fantasy, perfection or to put it simple "photoshopness" drop would be beneficial in my opinion.   

 

It was an interesting read, thanks for the link. i kind of lament this was just a book review I would like it to be much more insightful like Zess says. But even if it doesnt seem well documented or unbiased, brought interesting things up for me. 

 

I also didn't know Babymetal has ever appeared in suggestive mags. Awful.

[digi 192]

Ah, the idol community. 

 

Of course it is obvious that groups like these were made to feed into the sexual desires of some (or lots of) people, especially men. Men who are often considered "otaku" or "hikikomori" by standard society (or even consider themselves those two terms). The whole point of them not being allowed to have boyfriends is so they can maintain that "pure and innocent" look that brings in the crowds. 

 

However, it's ridiculous to say that these girls are 100% exploited and involved in sex trade. I have no doubt that some MAY be involved in it, but the good majority have went on to better things. Even taking up an acting or other solo career after they have graduated. Now, with that aside, there's a good amount of these idols that have also went on to adult film industry/gravure-related things, but that is vastly different from any sex trade. 

 

With that said, I'm not particularly against the idol phenomena but I'm not with it either. My reason for not being against it is simply because these ladies know what they are getting into, or at least, they should by now. I do have to agree that putting a young girl in some sexy lingerie and making her dance around semi-seductively with other barely-clothed girls is a little more than unnerving, but in Japan, this stuff almost seems like the norm. 

[Pretsy 1343]

The amount of totally negative posts here made me giggle a bit but since criticism is more appreciated here than actual *upsides*:

 

http://campaign.baitoru.com/baito-akb/

 

 

They are looking for part-time members now, and oh my with these details they posted in the link above (I have to shamefully quote aramajapan here, sry whoever is affiliated with that site's staff):

 

 

 

JOB DESCRIPTION

Activities include taking part as a television commercial member, event appearances, radio, magazine, handshake events

HOURLY WAGE

1,000 yen

COMPANY

AKS Ltd.

LOCATION

Chiyoda, Tokyo (nearest station: Akihabara) and event venues nationwide

HOURS

7AM – 9PM

Middle school student restrictions

Legally less than 7 hours a day and 40 hours a week including school hours

 

High school student restrictions (18 years old or less)

Legally less than 8 hours a day and 40 hours a week

 

PERIOD

Until February 27th, then renewable for 3 months

 

cheap labor yo

 

ps. 1000 yen = approx. 10 USD / 7 euros

[relentless 254]

Generally, $10/hour (working less than 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week) is not cheap labor. Anywhere else that would be very good for a teenager to get for a job while they're in school; but in this context it seems low from an entertainment standpoint. Though, I don't know average wages for Japanese musicians, so I wouldn't know.

[Pretsy 1343]

Generally, $10/hour (working less than 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week) is not cheap labor. Anywhere else that would be very good for a teenager to get for a job while they're in school; but in this context it seems low from an entertainment standpoint. Though, I don't know average wages for Japanese musicians, so I wouldn't know.

(bolded) this is what I meant really though (in my country it's way too low tbqh - except if you dabble around with gardening for private matters etc.)

 

But seeing as the average hourly wage for part-timers in Japan (according to Nikkei BP) is about 973 Yen (approx. 9,5 USD  + AKS themselves said they are going to follow the normal "Baito" etiquette in this case)  - I can't say much about this...

[keyinjpop 89]

I work full-time and barely make 10 USD hourly. I honestly would wear a school uniform for that pay.

[beni 2149]

Now I feel bad for finally enjoying their music. ;-;