Idol group manager arrested for years of alleged abuse of underage member

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: the idol world is dodgy.

Let’s be loud and clear: we hope the young women (well, girls — they are usually young teenagers) know about these potential risks before they get into the industry.

Sure, there are respectable managers out there, but bad apples and the bunch and all that. The industry is highly competitive and exploitative, known for making its young members work long hours for little pay, and for sexual abuse (no doubt partly accepted by people in the industry as the equivalent of the casting couch).

The media has reported another cautionary tale in this regard.

Tokyo Metropolitan Police yesterday announced the arrest of the 37-year-old head of a management agency on suspicion of violations of the child welfare law.

The allegations relate to an 18-year-old member of a female idol group that Yuji Hoshino managed and produced.

According to police, the idol claims that Hoshino abused her around 200 times from June 2018 to October 2022.

He is specifically accused of “obscene acts” with her at an apartment in Tokyo on October 2020 and May 2022, when the idol was under 18.

The group is not named in media reports, suggesting it was not a mainstream or major music idol group, and may be almost entirely unknown. But the aspiring members of such minor groups are probably the most at risk of this kind of exploitation by older men, since the members have no power or status in the industry to speak out against abuse. To do so effectively means ends their career as an idol.