Starto Entertainment

After he died in 2019, Johnny & Associates' founder Johnny Kitagawa's sexual abuse was revealed in 2023, on October 2, Julie Keiko Fujishima, Kitagawa's niece and successor, decided to compensate the victims and close the business.^[8] The name “Johnny” was erased from the company name because of Fujishima's desire to "erase all traces of Johnny Kitagawa from this world".^[9] Johnny & Associates changed its name to Smile-Up and concentrated on compensating the victims.^[8] Together with the change of activities of what was now Smile-Up, the establishment of a new company was being sought to ensure the continued activities of celebrities belonging to Johnnys & Associates, and Atsushi Fukuda, president of consulting firm Speedy Inc. was chosen to serve as its CEO.^[3]

Fukuda previously served as vice president of Sony Pictures in United States and also as president and CEO of Sony Digital Entertainment,^[10] and had been involved in corporate management and the talent agency business since founding Speedy Inc in 2017.^[11] Fukuda was chosen as a candidate for CEO because Smile-Up was interested in promoting "agent contract," a free work style, for its celebrities in the future.^[12] Fukuda, said to be well versed in the field of celebrities agent contracts, is known for having re-launched the career of actress Rena Nonen,^[13] who had been in a slump after quitting her agency.^[14]

The new company name "Starto Entertainment" was announced on December 8, 2023.^[15] The company name was chosen after much discussion from among 140,156 entries from fan club members. The name was chosen, because “... it is derived from ‘Star’ and ‘To,’ as in ‘to head toward the future,’”.^[15] On its official website, the company says, “We will accompany the current stars and those who will emerge in the future, following their individual personalities and goals. From here, we will start a new legend. This is what we are trying to express”.^[16] Fukuda also announced in his comments, that same day, that the artists can choose between a traditional management contract or a more liberal agent contract.^[17][18]

In establishing Starto Entertainment Inc., 10 million yen in investment capital was invested by management and employees, and neither Smile-Up, its affiliated companies, nor Julie Keiko Fujishima, the founding family member and president of the former Johnny & Associates invested in the company.^[19] At a press conference on December 9, 2023, CEO Fukuda announced that the company had found a way to obtain a loan from a financial institution for several hundred million yen in working capital for the time being.^[20]

Starto announced that it began full-fledged operations on April 10, 2024.^[21] As of April, it had 295 performers under contract in 28 groups, and 185 staff members. Many of the staff had previously worked for Johnny & Associates and were not involved in sexual abuse.^[7] Starto also said that it had established internal and external reporting channels for early detection of problems.^[21]

It is said that, in the past, celebrities from the former Johnny & Associates often did not co-star with celebrities who had left the agency or with competing boy bands.^[22] Fukuda mentioned this point as well, explaining that from now on he would make it possible to co-star with anyone,^[23] and that while Starto was also looking at overseas activities, nothing would get done if he talked narrowly about co-starring or not in the small world of Minato, Tokyo, where many of Japan's talent agencies have their headquarters.^[23] Fukuda said that from now on he will not allow any celebrity to say “I don't want to co-star with that celebrity".^{[24][note 1]} On July 6, 2024, on the program The Music Day, both King & Prince remaining members, as well as the members that had left (now re-grouped as Number_i), appeared within one hour of each other. Tomohisa Yamashita, who had left the agency in 2020, also appeared in the same program. Starto artists collaborated with non-Starto artists in music duets.^[26]

Fukuda stated the circumstances surrounding his appointment at a press conference on December 9, 2023.^[27] Initially, he was the most critical of Johnny Kitagawa's problems.^{[note 2]} Fukuda decried the crimes committed by Johnny Kitagawa, saying that the crimes committed were not at a level that could ever be forgiven in the world.^[30]

At the time of the October 2 press conference, Noriyuki Higashiyama was to be president of the new company,^[31] about a week later, Higashiyama, Julie Keiko Fujishima, and Yoshihiko Inohara had an opportunity to meet with Fukuda to talk to him about an agent contract.^[32] Fukuda said he was impressed by Higashiyama's big decision to retire from show business and focus on compensation work for victims at Johnny's, after initially saying he wanted to continue acting until he was 90.^[32] As he listened to what the three of them had to say, he came to realize that there was a culture within Johnny & Associates like a “lineage of admiring cool senior,”^[27] and that this culture had generated so much content that it now influences Korean popular music, etc. and that it would be a shame to see this disappear in the face of this criticism.^[27] Fukuda also said that he thought it would be a loss of Japan if their singing, dancing, and acting content were to fall apart, even though it is a treasure of Japan.^[33]

Afterward, Higashiyama then decided against becoming president of the new company,^[34] and Inohara honestly told Fukuda that he had become an executive of the company through this process, but that he knew nothing about management and asked Fukuda to be the president.^[27][35] Fukuda initially declined, saying that it was too much of a burden, but he accepted, partly to protect their culture and partly because he wanted to reform the old traditions that persisted in the Japanese entertainment industry.^[36] In accepting the presidency, Fukuda said that he understood management but knew nothing about training celebrities, and asked Inohara to teach him that part of the business.^[35] When Fukuda took over as President, he first began interviewing 160 of his celebrities.^[35] The first person he met was star celebrity Takuya Kimura. Fukuda spoke with Kimura about the future of the company. As a result, Kimura understood and recognised Fukuda and communicated this to his juniors.^[35] As a result, Fukuda said, he was able to facilitate smooth interviews with the rest of the celebrities. He offered the celebrities two types of contracts: a new "agent contract" to broker work and negotiate contracts, plus a traditional "management contract" to manage their schedules and follow up on their daily activities.^[35] The celebrities could choose between the two types of contract and were also allowed the freedom to move to another agency. They were also free to leave the company and said they were prepared to accept celebrities who had left the company but wished to return.^[35]

On April 10, the concert We Are! Let's get the party Starto! was held at Tokyo Dome, featuring 13 groups from Starto, a total of 72 artists. The event was directed by Jun Matsumoto (Arashi) and Tadayoshi Okura (Super Eight).^[37] This performance was also held on May 29 and 30 at Kyocera Dome Osaka. A portion of the performance on May 29 was streamed live on YouTube, and the performance on May 30 was streamed for a fee.^[38] In response to the 2024 Noto earthquake that occurred on January 1, the charity song “We are” was released by Starto artists of 14 groups, 75 people in total.^[39] The song was released for digital download on April 10 and on CD on July 24, with all proceeds donated to support earthquake relief efforts.^{[39][note 3]}

On April 29, the formation of KAMIGATA BOYZ, a collaboration group of four groups from the Kansai region, Super Eight, West, Naniwa Danshi, and Ae! Group, was announced.^[41] Their debut single Musekinin de Eejanaika Love was released digitally on May 3, and a video of the song was released on YouTube the same day.^[42] On May 15, Ae! Group made their CD debut as the first group since the full launch of Starto.^[43][44]

Jun Matsumoto, member of Arashi, announced his departure from Starto for solo pursuits starting May 30th. He continues as part of Arashi through an agent contract.^[45]

In September, Starto, in cooperation with Young Communication (YC), the site that hosts many of the concerts and stage performances in which Starto's contract artists appear, announced that it had filed a request for disclosure of information regarding the operator of a ticket-reselling website. According to a statement that the agency released on its official site, Starto had discovered around 10,000 cases of ticket scalping involving their artists, 3,000 of them being of the group Naniwa Danshi alone, for whom around 100 tickets were being resold at an excess of 100,000 yen. In August 26, Starto and YC had requested the information through Tokyo Flex Law Office for 299 transactions, but received no information in return. On September 5, WaveDash, the operating company of the "Ticket Distribution Center", the site where the scalpers were detected, announced that it would refuse to disclose the information, so Starto and Young filed a request with the Tokyo District Court for disclosure of information based on the Provider Liability Limitation Act. The agency emphasized its commitment to eradicating illegal ticket resales to ensure that more fans can purchase tickets at their intended prices. It is considered the first case nationwide that an entertainment business requests information to a reseller site.^{[46][47][48][49]} In 2019 "Prohibition of Unauthorized Resale of Tickets Act" was passed and crackdown of high priced resellers was strengthened. One case was that of a 24-year-old nursery school teacher that was arrested on suspicion of violating the Act. From June to September 2019, the woman had illegally resold electronic tickets to three people for an Arashi concert, ranging from 40,000 t0 133,000 yen. In August 2020, the Osaka District Court sentenced her to one year and six months prison, sentence suspended for three years because of admittance of guilt, and fined 300,000 yen. Her plan was to get tickets to obtain the best seat, reselling the surplus tickets to obtain funds for the next event.^[50]

Those who made their CD debut as a group are commonly referred to as "debut group".^[51] There are also individual actors and entertainers. Those who belong to Starto but have not yet debuted or started acting are trainees and are commonly referred to as “junior".^[52] Although 4U is a group with a long history of activity, it has not made its CD debut.^[53] New trainee recruitment began on May 25, 2024.^[54]

• Atsushi Fukuda - Chief executive officer^[63]
• Shinichiro Tsukuda - Chief operating officer^[63]
• Yoshihiko Inohara - Chief marketing officer^[63]
• Kazuhiro Tatsuki - Chief financial officer^[63]
• Mika Wada - Chief customer officer^[63]
• Yuichi Yoshimura - Audit ＆ Supervisory Board Member^[64]
• Masao Takiyama - Independent director^[65]
• Masahiro Daiko - General Manager of Osaka Branch Office^[65]

Starto continued with the charity projects as part of their 2024 activities. The single "We are", sung by the special unit "STARTO for you", formed by 75 members of 14 groups, was released in digital form on April 10, and as CD on June 12, with proceeds of the sales of the single going to Noto Earthquake relief funds.^[66][67]

As of June 5, 2024, the "Smile-Up Project", which was the name of the last Johnny & Associates project, which served during the COVID pandemic, and was used during the first activities with Starto, is no longer, being reborn under the name "Mindful", for which a new company has been established. General Incorporated Association "Mindful" will take over the charity activities, as well as other social contribution activities, like mental health care (which includes the support for sexual assault victims), enrollment support for higher education students in the Nursing field, and others.^[68][69]

Organized by Starto Entertainment

• Official Website
• Junior Official Website
• Starto Entertainment on Instagram
• Starto Entertainment on Twitter
• Starto Entertainment on YouTube