By BUNNA TAKIZAWA/ Staff Writer
December 8, 2023 at 17:38 JST
In a video released on Dec. 8, Yoshihiko Inohara, vice president of Smile-Up Inc., formerly known as Johnny and Associates Inc., announces the company's new name will be Starto Entertainment and Atsushi Fukuda, left, will be its president. (Yusuke Miyata)
Smile-Up Inc., the company formerly known as Johnny & Associates Inc., announced that its new name will be Starto Entertainment and has selected Atsushi Fukuda as its president.
Yoshihiko Inohara, vice president of Smile-Up, made the announcement in a video on a website exclusively for its fan club members on Dec. 8. Fukuda is currently the president of a consulting company.
Starto Entertainment will be established independently from the scandal-plagued Johnny’s and will be responsible for talent management.
“We have to find a new company building and do various management things, and we will concentrate on that, and (the new company) will be fully operational around next spring,” Fukuda said in the video.
With the establishment of the new firm, Smile-Up will focus on compensating the victims of sexual abuse by the late founder of Johnny’s, Johnny Kitagawa.
The performers belonging to Smile-Up will sign new contracts with the new agency.
Starto Entertainment will allow performers to sign an “agent contract,” which will give them more freedom to manage their schedules, meet their media responsibilities and perform other tasks.
Fukuda is a graduate of the Nihon University College of Art. After working for Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. and other companies, he established the Speedy consulting firm in 2017.
The company has signed an agent contract with Non, a talent who left a major entertainment agency.
According to multiple sources, Fukuda has already assembled employees of Smile-Up at the company’s office and spoken to them.
The name of the new company was publicly solicited on the website for fan club members.
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