Gesu was one of my first exposures to j-rock and still a favorite of mine to this day (I'm partial to Daruma Ringo and Suki nara Towanai in regards to albums personally), so this was a pleasant surprise. Out of all his associated groups, I'm still selfishly hoping for DADARAY to come back around eventually. 😮💨
Sometimes an Enon band gets into my streaming feed and I don't realize it's one of his, but as soon as I learn that he's a member I lose interest in the music-qua-music. I bought two of Gesu's EPs in 2015 (and one of Aimyon's too) but the scandal was so big that, even though I generally forget not-that-that-serious musician scandals after 5 years, I have somehow never managed to do so with Enon/Gesu.
Sorry to go on a tangent about scandals, but your post got me wondering about an evolving Japanese show business practice in 2025 - declare that a talent is being indefinitely suspended for undisclosed compliance violations, with no other details provided for privacy reasons. The main one I can think of is Taichi Kokubun being removed from Nippon TV's Tetsuwan Dash, where even he was unsure what caused it (I saw some tabloids wrote stories, but it never seemed to rise beyond rumors).
Patrick, do you think this has become the standard way Japanese entertainment companies want to handle scandals, and we will see more of it in the future? Obviously 95%+ of scandals will be broken by tabloids with everyone trying to contain the fallout, since you would need massive surveillance of celebrities otherwise. I do think that "he/she is gone temporarily or permanently, we provide no information why" is a way for tv networks/record labels/talent agencies to handle the problem without damaging themselves.
It makes sense to do this, when you think about how the public Nakai sexual harassment story almost brought down FujiTV. And ironically, an early example I can think of is when Starto (formerly Johnnys) terminated its contract with Taisei Fukumoto, a junior likely to debut, for violating compliance policy after an internal investigation.
Great comment, and I definitely think it is going to become the norm. Trying to contain it to the best of their abilities is going to be the move forward, though I'm curious how far it will go — I think back on the Reiwa Roman "online casino" scandal from last year, which was a big deal for a bit...but they are now everywhere again. I wonder if in a more nervous ecosystem if they actually suffer more as companies / stations try to get ahead of everything. It's going to be interesting to watch (and to see how they respond when the talent STILL open up to the press, like with the recent ME:I stuff)
had no idea I was waiting for an article like this. as someone who clicks around to a lot of japanese music on youtube but doesn't follow much of the surrounding media, i had looked him up on wikipedia and seen that the scandal was a big deal, seen it referenced, etc. but i really had no idea what else had gone on around it, never seen someone able to really editorialize, and most importantly i was sort of under the impression that gesu had come all the way back and reached their former heights. really interesting to find out i was wrong. feel like i would read another 10k words about this
Thanks for reading! I could probably go way longer on everything Kawatani...I only touch on it briefly, but the five years after really see him embrace this role even more, and there's so many weird twists and turns (Gesu tried to make an international crossover with English-language songs that went totally under the radar!). Gesu has probably managed to reach the point it was before they went viral...music fan darling, a go-to for any domestic festival, maybe a few smaller TV appearances but never sniffing Music Station.
I actually discovered the English language ones while looking up "Watashi Igaimo Watashi" from that album, but I really didn't understand what I'd found! I wasn't even sure they were officially sanctioned - my memory of my thought at the time is "this might be a fan project?"
Gesu was one of my first exposures to j-rock and still a favorite of mine to this day (I'm partial to Daruma Ringo and Suki nara Towanai in regards to albums personally), so this was a pleasant surprise. Out of all his associated groups, I'm still selfishly hoping for DADARAY to come back around eventually. 😮💨
Sometimes an Enon band gets into my streaming feed and I don't realize it's one of his, but as soon as I learn that he's a member I lose interest in the music-qua-music. I bought two of Gesu's EPs in 2015 (and one of Aimyon's too) but the scandal was so big that, even though I generally forget not-that-that-serious musician scandals after 5 years, I have somehow never managed to do so with Enon/Gesu.
Sorry to go on a tangent about scandals, but your post got me wondering about an evolving Japanese show business practice in 2025 - declare that a talent is being indefinitely suspended for undisclosed compliance violations, with no other details provided for privacy reasons. The main one I can think of is Taichi Kokubun being removed from Nippon TV's Tetsuwan Dash, where even he was unsure what caused it (I saw some tabloids wrote stories, but it never seemed to rise beyond rumors).
Patrick, do you think this has become the standard way Japanese entertainment companies want to handle scandals, and we will see more of it in the future? Obviously 95%+ of scandals will be broken by tabloids with everyone trying to contain the fallout, since you would need massive surveillance of celebrities otherwise. I do think that "he/she is gone temporarily or permanently, we provide no information why" is a way for tv networks/record labels/talent agencies to handle the problem without damaging themselves.
It makes sense to do this, when you think about how the public Nakai sexual harassment story almost brought down FujiTV. And ironically, an early example I can think of is when Starto (formerly Johnnys) terminated its contract with Taisei Fukumoto, a junior likely to debut, for violating compliance policy after an internal investigation.
Great comment, and I definitely think it is going to become the norm. Trying to contain it to the best of their abilities is going to be the move forward, though I'm curious how far it will go — I think back on the Reiwa Roman "online casino" scandal from last year, which was a big deal for a bit...but they are now everywhere again. I wonder if in a more nervous ecosystem if they actually suffer more as companies / stations try to get ahead of everything. It's going to be interesting to watch (and to see how they respond when the talent STILL open up to the press, like with the recent ME:I stuff)
had no idea I was waiting for an article like this. as someone who clicks around to a lot of japanese music on youtube but doesn't follow much of the surrounding media, i had looked him up on wikipedia and seen that the scandal was a big deal, seen it referenced, etc. but i really had no idea what else had gone on around it, never seen someone able to really editorialize, and most importantly i was sort of under the impression that gesu had come all the way back and reached their former heights. really interesting to find out i was wrong. feel like i would read another 10k words about this
Thanks for reading! I could probably go way longer on everything Kawatani...I only touch on it briefly, but the five years after really see him embrace this role even more, and there's so many weird twists and turns (Gesu tried to make an international crossover with English-language songs that went totally under the radar!). Gesu has probably managed to reach the point it was before they went viral...music fan darling, a go-to for any domestic festival, maybe a few smaller TV appearances but never sniffing Music Station.
I actually discovered the English language ones while looking up "Watashi Igaimo Watashi" from that album, but I really didn't understand what I'd found! I wasn't even sure they were officially sanctioned - my memory of my thought at the time is "this might be a fan project?"