The same structure as in “Battles without Honor and Humanity”… “Sad similarities” between hit men and Japanese idols

Part I of this article, “” Only Mr. Janney knows everyone’s name…” The ‘Astonishing Reason’ for the Unusual Unity of Johnny’s Idols “

In the first part of this article, I confided in you about the overwhelming differences between Johnny’s idols and idols from other agencies. We will now delve further into the “backbone” that they seem to have in common.

Hints of the second work, “The Hiroshima Death Struggle

In order to solve the mystery, I would like to draw an auxiliary line of reasoning. I will try to hit on it by introducing something completely outside of the genre.

There is a movie called “Battles Without Honor and Humanity. It was released in 1973, and the five-part series was a huge hit until the following year of 1974.

Toei, known for its ninkyo films featuring Koji Tsuruta and Ken Takakura, broke out of the old mold and went for a real-life documentary. Based on a non-fiction book by Koichi Iiboshi. Directed by Kinji Fukasaku. Screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara, known for his in-depth reporting, conducted further research and interviews to flesh out the story. The main character Shozo Hirono (Bunta Sugawara) and the other characters all have models.

The most controversial of the five-part series is the second part, “The Battle of Hiroshima. Many have called it a masterpiece.

Bunta Sugawara plays the role of a rhapsodist in this film and has a small part in the story. There are two main characters in the story. One is the postwar gangster Katsutoshi Otomo (Shinichi Chiba), and the other is a contrasting yakuza named Shoji Yamanaka (Kinya Kitaoji).

Yamanaka is a killing machine on his way back from prison. He hums a song from his pre-college training camp and carries a pistol in his pocket, calling it “my Zero-sen. He is living the romance of a wartime military youth.

This may reflect the sentiments of screenwriter Kazuo Kasahara, who faced the end of the war as a boy navy soldier. But that was not all.

Humiliation” inflicted on Janie Kitagawa

In Kasahara’s memoir “Showa no geki” (Ota Shuppan), he openly confides in his interviewees (Haruhiko Arai and Hidemi Yue) about the circumstances behind the creation of the play. The following statement was found in the book.

AraiSo Yamanaka – the model for the play was a man named Koji Yamagami, and when you tried to include a scene in which Yamanaka gets blown up in prison, you were cut off by Minoh-san (model for Shozo Hironoh), is that right?

KasaharaThat’s right. (Omitted) Yamakami is such a great guy that he is legendary in Hiroshima, so they thought that including a scene in which he gets his ass handed to him would damage his legend. That is what happened.

AraiWhat Mr. Kasahara wanted to include was that Yamanaka’s becoming a murderer after leaving prison was triggered by his experiences in prison–in short, the story of Kappa and Anko becoming a bull’s-eye. In other words, Kappa and Anko became the bull’s-eye.

Kasahara That ‘s right. (Omitted) I felt that if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t be satisfied with the film.

Similarities with “Hitman

<The story of Kappa and Anko was told to me by a legendary yakuza (Masao Kanno) who was called “BONNO.

He said, “When you go to prison, they dig your mane. The one they dig is the kappa, and the one they dig is the anko.

After being released from prison, these “anko” become hitmen, or hit men, and kill people, he said.

He said, “You can’t commit murder, which is an abnormal behavior, unless you have been the victim of it once. In other words, he wants to rebound from the humiliation he has suffered–in other words, he wants to become a man.

In other words, the logic goes like this: a man is raped by a man in prison, and the raped (anko) commits murder in order to restore his “lost masculinity. It is an amazing world.

I thought to myself, “Oh, this is an amazing world.

This is the world of Johnny’s idols!

Of course, they are not hit men. Not all of them may have been sexually assaulted. They were. The problem is that they are “seen” as having been sexually assaulted. They gave themselves over to an aging office manager. …… in exchange for success in the entertainment industry.

Even if that is not the case, you are “seen” as such. They feel guilty for being “seen” as such, and are covered in humiliation as the oppressed. Isn’t that precisely the problem?

If you look at anonymous Internet message boards and anonymous posts on Twitter (now X), etc., you will find many such heartless and foul-mouthed slurs against Johnny’s idols. So widespread and long-publicized are the rumors (no, they are not even “rumors” anymore) of Janie Kitagawa’s sexual assaults.

In the next article , “[The biggest reason for Sho Sakurai’s tearful face] Even erupting in a distorted form… The tragedy caused by Johnny’s’s intense ‘love’ “, we will address the factor that no one could point out, which is the strong sympathy Johnny’s’s idol attracts from women.