Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
Yamaguchi Tatsuya was recently revealed to have given a 16-year-old girl alcohol and forcibly kissed her. Recently his group, TOKIO, held a press conference during which revealed that he had resigned from the group.
When the five met on April 30th, Joshima explained that Yamaguchi said, “I will quit TOKIO and handed in his resignation. I am responsible for hurting TOKIO”.
Though just as notable were the other TOKIO members feeling responsible in some way for this and also sticking up for the victim against people going after her.
The members of TOKIO came out and are making their apology to the victim and her family by bowing in unison.
Joshima Shigeru is apologizing to the fans, their sponsors and staff who have supported them.
Joshima said that he believes that Yamaguchi’s responsibility is a responsibility shared with each of the members.
Drummer Matsuoka Masahiro is now speaking about Yamaguchi Tatsuya. He is in tears while talking about Yamaguchi and what he has done. You can see Matsuoka in conflict, anger but also saddened by all that has happened.
When he heard Yamaguchi saying he wanted to return to Tokio, Matsuoka said, “If TOKIO is a place where it makes him to not realize that he is going down a cliff, in my opinion, I would rather see TOKIO eliminated as soon as possible!”.
The press are asking the members questions. Matsuoka was very quick to admonish Yamaguchi’s actions “The sake is not bad! The one that is bad is you!”. Matsuoka was blunt about Yamaguchi’s alcoholism, telling him, “You are sick”.
Vocalist Nagase Tomoya is now speaking. And he is apologizing to the victim, the victim’s family, everyone including the staff members, the sponsors, etc. Nagase is talking about how he was shocked about what happened and he wants people to not blame or identify the victim.
Nagase Tomoya said, “It is not permissible for Yamaguchi to return”.
Kokubun Taichi is asking people to please forgive TOKIO. He is the most sympathetic so far. Kokuban said, “When Yamaguchi resigned, I did not know what had happened. Even though we accepted Yamaguchi’s resignation, I can not abandon Yamaguchi. I will continue to watch and see how he deals with this case, with the victim and her family”.
I think they handled this about as well as they could.
Apparently this incident exploded in Japan to the point where even Johnny Kitagawa felt it necessary to make a personal apology. Of course, that is fucking hilarious in a way considering he’s done far worse shit.
Hope the settlement the victim got to make this go away legally was gigantic at least.
