Photo/Illutration Dentsu Inc. headquarters in Tokyo (Asahi Shimbun file photo)

Advertising giant Dentsu Inc.’s “shain techo” handbook carried by every employee once contained a part called “Oni Jussoku” (literally, the devil’s 10 rules).

The overall tone is aggressive and ambitious.

“An assignment should be of your creation, not something given to you,” one of the rules noted.

“You must take on big assignments, as small ones diminish you,” went another.

Haruyuki Takahashi, a former senior managing director of Dentsu, is at the center of the unfolding Tokyo Olympics bribery scandal.

What he has allegedly done makes me feel like replacing “assignments” in the company’s code of conduct with “rights and interests”: “Rights and interests should be of your creation, not something given to you.” and “You must take on big rights and interests, as small ones diminish you.”

Takahashi accepted what appeared to be bribes from different sources through a consulting company he established and other intermediaries.

The money concerned the selection of Games sponsors. The amount he received from major publisher Kadokawa Corp. is said to be about 76 million yen ($530,000).

The company’s chair, Tsuguhiko Kadokawa, was arrested on Sept. 14 on suspicion of bribery.

Kadokawa said before his arrest that the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee had made Takahashi the channel of contact.

That means Takahashi was the committee’s designated representative. If he was open to bribery despite his official position, then wonders never cease.

What made Kadokawa, a veteran publisher, take the risk of resorting to such a shady deal?

Takahashi’s involvement with the Olympics as a Dentsu employee reportedly started with the 1984 Los Angeles Summer Games.

Los Angeles was the beginning of the Olympics being commercialized. The sports event has since evolved into a mammoth business that cannot be sustained without massive funding from the private sector.

What confounds me is that despite the magnitude of the scandal, there are no signs of a move to reconsider Sapporo’s candidacy for the 2030 Winter Olympics.

Dentsu’s in-house “10 commandments” contain this gem: “Once you start an assignment, never abandon it, even if you are killed.”

Please don’t tell me this is the spirit with which Sapporo is forging ahead.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Sept. 16

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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