Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
While I was busy with other Japan-related news, it was announced by what was formerly Johnny & Associates that the talent agency would be renaming itself STARTO ENTERTAINMENT. In a special video made for members of the company’s fanclub, Family Club, COO Inohara Yoshihiko revealed that the CEO will be Fukuda Atsushi, former VP of Sony Pictures Entertainment and former CEO of Sony Digital Entertainment.
The executives had asked fanclub members for potential names, and they gave the eventual reason for the name and the final choice.
“The name is derived from ‘Star’ and ‘To,’ as in ‘to head toward the future,’” the company wrote in an English statement sent to the media Friday. “It is an expression of our commitment to all our artists current and yet to come; with whom we inaugurate a new era in accordance with their individual talents and personal goals.”
According to the official statement from Starto Entertainment, the company will also focus on three new goals: “Greater digitization, including the establishment of a proprietary music streaming platform; increased global openness and overseas outreach; metaverse market entry: extending artists’ talents with state-of-the-art technology.”
I mean, I guess it could be a worse name, like SMILE-UP, the other J&A off-shoot entity, whose task will be to compensate victims of Johnny Kitagawa’s lengthy list of sexually abusive crimes.
