Japanese Idol Fined 650,000 yen for breaking love ban rule. Should AKB48 worry?

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/int...0000-yen-for-dating-contract-violation/.93113

It doesn't say who the girl is or what group she was in, but the judge agreed that the 17 year old girl was responsible for causing the group to shut down.

I don't know about you guys, but I think this is going WAY too far. If someone from AKB goes to court one day for being in a relationship, who knows what will happen? I hope that will never be the case.

If anyone can read kanji, here is the original article:

http://www.nikkansports.com/m/entertainment/news/1540235_m.html

Does it say the name of the girl or the idol group?

 

No, just says a six-member group that debuted in July 2013 and disbanded in October.

 

It's not AKB48 groups. Don't worry.

Sent from my ASUS_T00J using Tapatalk

 

OOT but...
Dang dude, i was going to put the same article
but in the other threat about the love-ban rule in the idol world

 

It depend if it's actually a clause in their contract which it was in this case + the girl caused her group to disband (tho idk why just get new member or grad, company sounds shady af) It was included in her contract and she agreed to it it and her violating the rule caused the company money and group disbandment...so...yeah I get why the court would side with the company even tho this sounds so unethical
But AKB isn't going to lose alot of money if a member got caught in scandal when they got 12048012948 spares nor are they disband. If they haven't sued anyone yet I doubt they'll start so..
Beside I'm under impression these days they don't even deal with scandals and just ignore it after Sashi and Milky recovered after their scandals..

 

well, it depends on their contracts; i don't think akb has any actual love ban written down. it's all just a matter of idol's image, the worse they could lose is a few fans. it seems the majority don't even care abotu scandal anymore; or well maybe the majority never cared

 

I agree with others that it depends on the contract. It may sound harsh, but every member's actions reflect upon the whole group, just like athletes in major sports who are fined for personal conduct because it reflects negatively on the whole team. So if there's a clause in the contract that explicitly states no romantic relations are allowed, then a fine is technically justified. Just like breaking any other terms agreed to by contract. (Although, blaming them for the whole group shutting down sounds like a stretch.)

Having said that, I've never seen any evidence that AKB contracts include a love ban rule, and Aki-p himself has said it's not a rule, so I doubt we'll ever see something like this in AKB. However, I'm sure there are some general guidelines for personal conduct in the AKB contracts. Legal speak that allows Aki-p to determine for himself if someone has broken the rules and can be punished within the group or fired.

 

I'm generally fine with fining violations of duty, especially if it's a duty the person has willingly accepted, unless that duty is violated because it is in conflict with another more important duty. If pretty much everyone involved knows the duty exists, it doesn't even have to be written down in any kind of formal contract for a violation to warrant legal action in my opinion.

 

Last year alone, there have been two separate instances of idol group managements asking their former members for reparations and payment of livelihood expenses, as a result of them breaking the rules and getting intimate with fans. Both of them were small fry groups, so I don't know how much of it was serious and how much was just a self-advertisement stunt, to be honest. One is the infamous NZero (formerly AKBN0, not surprising since the group already makes money off pretend-dates with fans), the other is an even more minor group called Aoyama Saint Hachamecha High School. The reasons for the lawsuits and the courses of action seem to match, but not the details about the members, so it's probably a third small fry group...?
At any rate, if anything, it would be completely understandable to ask members to keep a modicum of distance with their fans and make them understand how not respecting the rules would lead to a damage in image. These new forms of fanservice interaction are already under fire by antis -- in their eyes, even things as commonplace as handshake events are seen as a soft version of hostess clubs. You can just image what it would look like to them if a fan tried to hit on the members during one of these interaction events and managed to get intimate with them: that's right, "straight-up prostitution". When it comes to such groups with an already limited pool of supporters to stand up for them, the social backlash might indeed be fatal for their business.

Should AKB48 worry?
First thing first, unlike these underground groups, AKB48 is a group that is nowhere near the danger of disbanding because of a member's sudden departure. Also, the fact that AKS is already a wealthy enough agency would make them look like douchebags if they were to ask even more money from their members as a repayment for "damaging their image". It would only result in the opposite effect of further sullying the agency's reputation, more than the member's misconduct ever could.
Secondly, AKB is on the forefront of the mainstream, meaning everything they do would be inevitably under the sun. As such, there're many more sponsor deals to protect and many more risks to carefully consider. Any stupid action against members who are signed up to powerful agencies would definitely result in them pulling out their support from the group's activities and cause a financial downfall. In fact, considering that among the partner agencies they have some of the size and influence of Burning Productions, HoriPro and Watanabe Pro (all of which pretty much singlehandedly shaped up the Japanese music scene from the 1960s onwards), I doubt they would even listen to what AKS has got to say. We've basically come to a situation where it's the tail that wags the dog, even on internal decisions.
Most importantly: it's almost 3 years since AKB has adopted a full laissez-faire stance on idol relationships, after they realized that interfering would be more damaging for them. Why would they start caring again just now? Akimoto himself has been repeating for years that the love ban doesn't exist as a written rule, and that it's application was more of a matter of maintaining the member's productivity on the job. In fact, the stance has become so soft and permissive lately, it's almost ridiculous. As an example, the Nogizaka staff said this on Sayuringo's scandal:

- It was also brought up in the movie [the documentary], but how was it when the scandal occured?
"It's a personal opinion, but we couldn't help but sympathize for Matsumura (Sayuri). She was emotionally at the end of the ropes and didn't have many friends to talk about things. Had she had trusted friends to confide in, things wouldn't have turned out this way. It's not like we condone it, but idols are (socially) hindered moreso than fans can imagine. This is what I want you to understand."
​

Does it sound like the statement of a group ready to sue their members? Nuff said.

All things considered, this court decision merely helped set a precedent that the relationship ban, like any other contract restrictions, is fully approved by the law (whereas it was previously considered "gray zone" stuff at best). This should shut up all the people who still scream that it is an "illegal infringement of human rights", since this time the verdict came straight from a judge.
The choice of whether to apply it or not, and to what extent, is still left to the agency's discretion, of course, and some definitely don't care.

 

I feel talking about AKB member being forced to pay a fine...

What's the phrase for it?
I donno... Jumping to conclusion?

 

So now it is a LEGAL infringement of human rights, which makes it a hundred times worse. Law-abiding doesn't equal ethic or just. This is all just terrible and the judge strikes me as a yucky and creepy for accepting this as a reasonable punishment for a girl being a girl.

 

Every workplace has its rules, some might not make sense outside of the workplace but are understandable within it. Assume I work as a bank receptionist and for one entire week I show up at the job wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt and cargo pants instead of the mandatory suit. Since this workplace has certain dresscode rules, the management can punish and fire me for not keeping decorum.
Can I spin this situation as an "infringement of human rights"? Of course. Who are you to place a restriction on what I can wear, Hitler!
Will it make sense? No.
When it comes to the relationship ban in idol groups, some people try to appeal to emotions because "love" is somewhat involved, but it's pretty much the same thing to me. You may call the court verdict as "yucky and creepy" as you want, but in this case it's the the girl's actions (accepting to be wooed by a random fan and getting intimate with him) that are questionable, along with the reasons she joined the group in the first place.

 

So they should just rip the signed contract in half and pretend it never existed?

 

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/east-...-orders-teen-pop-singer-pay-managers-breaking

 

"Slave to the rhythm"? What kind of language is that. Sounds like propaganda. And it's just disrespectful towards actual slaves who are/were denied so much more than having relationships, which is totally laughable in comparison.

 

Another idol group in trouble.
AKB48, despite got absolutely nothing to do with it, also suffered collateral damage and indirectly slandered just because
1. Writer have agenda against them
or
2. Need the AKB48 tag to get more net traffic

Nothing new.

 

My god, the stuff that passes for "journalism" on the internet. Don't even click the link to give them the traffic, it's pure tabloid trash.

This guy somehow made AKB the focus of the article (for clickbait obviously) even though it had nothing to do with AKB, then added in a few random isolated cases of negative idol stories to portray the whole decades-old idol industry as some cruel shady softcore porn ring. You could take the same approach at virtually any industry and find enough selective bad examples to make it sound like hell.

 

According to writing staffs on Aramajapan, this kind of articles are simply gossip, and it's not meant to be taken seriously, so it's ok to write about things dishonestly.

And they also admitted that writing with agenda brings in more net traffic.

 

Please consider not being allowed to wear Iron Maiden t-shirts during work hours isn't as grave an infringement as not being allowed to "associate with the opposite sex".