Lawyer fighting sexual harassment gets sued for sexual harassment

Well, isn’t this just the pot calling the kettle black?

A prominent lawyer known for his work to stamp out sexual harassment is himself now being sued by an actress he represented for, you’ve guessed it, sexual harassment.

The complainant is a 25-year-old woman who goes by the name Chino. The stage actor wants the 47-year-old Izutaro Managi disbarred and is seeking ¥11 million in damages.

Managi has spoken in the National Diet on the issue of harassment and frequently appears in the media to discuss the problem in the theater and movie business.

In 2018, Chino set up a support organization for victims of harassment in the theater world. Managi was an advisor, but Chino claims that he started harassing her from the following year, relentlessly asking her out from September 2019 and January 2022 on the pretext of talking about a civil lawsuit in which she was a defendant.

Concretely, she says he did things like stroke her thigh, kiss her on the street, and repeatedly send her sexual messages on LINE.

For example, he would ask her to send him photos of herself in the bath. Chino says she felt like he was pressuring her to have sex with him to continue providing his services as a lawyer.

On March 1, Managi released a statement on his blog that admitted he had sexually harassed her and apologized. “I thought she was interested in me,” he said in an attempt to explain, if not justify, what he did.

Sadly, Managi’s own actions seem to suggest how deeply ingrained sexual harassment is — even among the men who purport to tackle it.