Johnny’s lost Hiromi Go right after his “departure” in the late 70’s… “winter time” that is hard to believe now.

The former Johnny’s’s Office (now SMILE-UP., Inc.), whose founder’s sexual crimes and child sexual abuse came to light, has been reported by the media, who should have been complicit, with the question, “How did the Johnny’s’s Office become an ‘empire’? In an October 8 broadcast of TBS’s “Special Report,” Tetsuo Ichikawa, a former drama producer for TBS TV, stated, “The end of the ’70s was a time of great change.

The end of the 1970s was, in a sense, a period of stagnation, or rather, a winter season for Johnny’s.”

What that “winter season” was, however, is not as well known as one might think. The media did not report on it, and the details have never been made public. We would like to take this opportunity to review the details.

The reason for the “winter” of the Johnny’s office can be summed up in one word. Hiromi Go became independent.

After failing an audition for the film version of Yukio Mishima’s “Tidal Wave,” a beautiful 15-year-old boy was scouted by Janie Kitagawa, who was present at the event. It is not unusual for people from other production companies to approach unsuccessful auditionees for movies and TV dramas, and Janie Kitagawa must have gone to the audition venue with a light heart. Soon after, the boy was performing at concerts of the Four Leaves as their “little brother” and was given the name “Hiromi Go,” which was derived from the call of “Let’s Go Hiromi.

Hiromi Go made a splash with her role as Taira no Tsunemori in NHK’s 1972 historical drama “Shin Heike Monogatari,” and her debut with “Boys and Girls” in September of the same year was an explosive success, making her one of the “New Family of Three” along with Saijo Hideki and Noguchi Goro. He became one of the “New Trio” along with Hideki Nishijo and Goro Noguchi, and his success greatly enriched the office.

Two years later, Johnny’s made the decision to register and incorporate a company. Surprisingly, until then, Johnny’s had been under the umbrella of Watanabe Productions, and many people in the industry viewed it as “a section of NABEPRO. This is why Four Leaves is listed among the “past NABEPRO talents,” and why Shinichi Mori from Schoolmates is said to be “a treasured child of Janie Kitagawa,” and why Hiromi Go’s rapid success has led to his complete independence from NABEPRO.

However, a surprising event occurred at this point. Hiromi Go was transferred to Burning Productions, which had just been founded, at the same time that Janie Kitagawa was hospitalized with a duodenal ulcer. As Janie Kitagawa recalls, “Hiromi’s transfer was also a shock.

I can say that Hiromi’s transfer was also a shock. I wondered where the trust in human beings lay. I wondered where our trust in each other as managers lay. （While I was in the hospital, there was a fuss about the transfer. So, if he had not been transferred, he would have been working as a missionary again when he got out of the hospital. Conversely, if he had not transferred, I would have died.” (Gendai Business, “The Miraculous Five-Hour Interview with Mr. Janney Kitagawa,” July 10, 2019)

Anyway, the Johnny’s office, which had just set sail, entered a “winter season” after losing its biggest rower, Hiromi Go. At the time, Johnny’s had the following talents.

Four Leaves, Eiji Hatta, Natsu Toyokawa, Teruyoshi Aoi, Little Gang (Hideki Matsubara and Yasuhisa Soga), The News (Hiroshi Ogawa, Hiroshi Ikeda, Masaru Miyazaki, and Hideto Tabuchi), Byakkotai (Yoshitaka Ono, Toru Hasebe, and Tomio Iwasaki), and Johnny’s Junior Special (Toshio Itano, Masaaki Hayashi, Masahisa Hatakeyama, and Junichi Inoue).

The Four Leaves were again pushed to the top, and had hits such as “Dancing Girl” and “Bulldog,” but their sales did not explode, and their TV appearances continued to decline, with their only regular program, “Utae, Yan Yan! Yan Yan! (Tokyo 12 Channel, now TV Tokyo) was also terminated, and the group was eliminated from the NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen (Red and White Singers’ Championship), in which they had participated for seven consecutive years.

The “New Three Families” of Hiromi Go, Saijo Hideki, and Noguchi Goro remained popular, as did Shinya Hiromi Go, Michiru Shiro, Zutorubi, Finger 5, Yuma Kusagawa, and Yosuke Ookawa. After that, the “Rock Gosanke” (Shinji Harada, Char, and Masanori Sera) gained idol-like popularity and attracted the yellow cheers of female fans.