Recently, there’s been speculation that Lost Judgment will be the last game in the series due to a disagreement between Sega and Johnny & Associates, the talent agency behind Takayuki Yagami actor Takuya Kimura. The fallout stems from Johnny & Associates not wanting the Judgment games to launch for PC, as it conflicts with its particularly strict likeness policy — essentially, the company doesn’t want Kimura’s face to be so readily accessible on the internet.
To most of us in the West, these circumstances may seem odd, although it’s perfectly normal in Japan where it’s become standard procedure for anyone working with Johnny & Associates. In general, Japanese talent agencies have strict rules, as evidenced by idol Minami Minegishi shaving her head to apologise for breaking her agency’s no-dating rule.
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In my excitement for Lost Judgment, I started digging for answers as to why the first game didn’t feature the fan-favorite karaoke feature. It’s been a staple of the series since Yakuza 3, so the minigame’s absence is strange — it was pretty disappointing that Tak and Kaito couldn’t belt out their own rendition of Machine Gun Kiss.
I didn’t know it at the time, but my curiosity was leading me down a long, messy rabbit hole. My knowledge of Kimura only extended to his career as a J-Pop star, and I had certainly never heard of Johnny & Associates. It wasn’t until the company name kept popping up in forums and tweets, with fans claiming the talent agency was likely responsible for the lack of karaoke in Judgment, that I decided to dig further.
It’s fair to say a lot of Judgment players in the West fail to realise who Takuya Kimura really is — he’s not just some actor or your average J-Pop star. He was one of the singers of boy band SMAP, the biggest Japanese music group of all time. Not only are they considered a national treasure — they’re one of the biggest and most successful bands across Asia to date.
SMAP started in 1988 and didn’t split until 2016; in that time, the band conquered not only the music world, but TV, games, radio, film, theatre… you name it, they’ve done it. They even had a weekly TV show that saw the likes of Lady Gaga and Quentin Tarantino make appearances. It’s hard to convey just how massive SMAP is, but a good example is that one of their songs, The Only Flower in the World, is still taught in schools all over Japan.
They were — and still are, despite no longer being together — a huge deal in Japan. You can’t go anywhere in Tokyo without seeing advertisements featuring one of the SMAP guys. The dissolution of the band was met with a lot of controversy, with one of the members of the Prime Minister’s cabinet even expressing his concern it would negatively affect Japan’s economy. Fans raised petitions demanding that SMAP stay together, leading the band to eventually apologise on their TV show for the distress they felt they were causing.
Even if you’ve never heard of SMAP, you’ve likely seen one or two of the bandmates in some form before, as many of their adverts went viral. Remember the GameCube advert with hot Mario? Yeah, that’s Inagaki Goro from SMAP. Or the Japanese Banana commercial that has become a commonplace GIF? That’s Shingo Katori, also from SMAP.
So, why didn’t Sega take advantage of the fact that Kimura is a professional singer who is more than capable of recording a few karaoke tracks? Well, it likely comes down to one of two things. Perhaps it was a budget issue — Sega couldn’t foot the bill for the vocal talents of such a huge star, especially in a spin-off title. However, it’s more likely that it comes down to Johnny & Associates and its notoriously stringent policies.
If you’re wondering why you’ve never heard of SMAP despite them being the biggest band in Japan, it’s because Johnny & Associates’ acts are deliberately denied international exposure. The agency controls the appearances of its stars and owns the rights to all of their music, merchandise, and images, to the point where, until recently, the company didn’t even allow photos of their talent online — not even on its own website. Album covers showing the singers could not be posted on the internet, with websites being forced to silhouette out the singers, while Tower Records stores either blurred out the album covers or had to get creative and show the only part of the products they could — the part that doesn’t feature the band.
Johnny’s seems to have applied the same strict policy to Sega, too. When Judgment launched, a Famitsu article silhouetted Kimura out of the press images.
For a long time, any music performed by groups that were represented by Johnny & Associates could not be streamed at all. Shingo Katori, another SMAP member, cameoed in episode four of Galileo, yet when the series was launched on Crunchyroll for international audiences, that particular episode was notably absent.
The same thing happened when Ryosuke Yamada, a member of Hey! Say! JUMP, was cast as Edward Elric in the live-action adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist. Thanks to Johnny & Associates’ strict rules, two different posters were used to promote the film. The one used online was not allowed to feature Yamada, despite him being the main character. Posters used in Japanese movie theatres were still allowed to show him front and centre.
It’s not hard to believe that Kimura would be similarly restricted with Judgment. It’s surprising that Johnny & Associates even agreed to let him be a part of the game in the first place — the consensus seems to be that Kimura likely agreed to the project by himself, with the agency left to nitpick over the details.
This wouldn’t be the first time the SMAP star has taken on a project without the agency’s approval. Kimura agreed to take on the role of Manji for Takashi Miike’s Blade of the Immortal when the director approached him directly after Johnny & Associates had already repeatedly refused the project.
There doesn’t seem to be a clear cut reason for the extreme measures that Johnny & Associates takes — stunting the international growth of its stars seems to go against the basic concepts of good business — so I can only assume it’s down to possessiveness. The agency clearly has a lot of control when it comes to media in Japan, although it naturally wouldn’t have the same level of control overseas. Perhaps this is why it doesn’t allow its stars to become internationally renowned, instead preferring to keep them where they are more easily managed.
So where does that leave the possibility of the karaoke minigame appearing in Lost Judgment? Well, there’s hope, even if it is only a slim chance. The founder of Johnny & Associates, Johnny Kitagawa, passed away in 2019 and the agency has been haemorrhaging talent ever since. It’s widely believed that Kitagawa was responsible for the controlling nature of the company, and signs indicate the agency is becoming increasingly relaxed in regards to its stars. In 2021, the company made its first official English Twitter account. It has also started to add photos of talent to its website, stopped silhouetting people out of images, and allowed more music to be available digitally. Additionally, a strange policy that prevented stars from accepting awards — which forced Kimura himself to decline a Japanese Oscar in 2006 — has been removed.
As of now, Kimura is the only SMAP member to remain with the agency, and while it might seem like an odd choice, many believe it’s so at least one of the band members has access to SMAP’s enormous music catalogue.
Judgment creator Toshihiro Nagoshi has been quiet about karaoke in general, and has not commented on it when specifically asked. It seems to me that if karaoke isn't planned for Lost Judgment and there is no drama surrounding the matter, Nagoshi would simply state this and upsell the new dance minigame instead. As it stands, his vagueness could be because the karaoke minigame will feature in the game, likely due to Johnny & Associates relaxing its stance on things, and that it will be a surprise for fans.
Special thanks to the group of SMAP fans who helped with Japanese sourcing.
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