Kim Tak was not awarded for “Legend & Butterfly”…the former Johnny’s office will no longer be associated with film awards in the future⁉

The Best Picture Award winners in each of the 15 regular award categories and the Best New Actor Award for “The 47th Japan Academy Awards” were announced at the awards ceremony to be held in Tokyo on March 8, 2010. On that day, the Grand Prize in each category will be selected from among the Excellence Award winners and films.

Looking at the lineup of the Best Leading Actor Award, Best Supporting Actor Award, and Best New Actor Award winners, there were no names of talents who belonged to the former Johnny’s office (SMILE-UP.). The situation has changed drastically from last year.

Last year, Kazuya Ninomiya (40) of Arashi won the Best Leading Actor Award, Ren Meguro (26) of Snow Man won the Best Supporting Actor Award, and Meguro, Hiroki Arioka (32) of Hey! Say! JUMP, and Hokuto Matsumura (28) of SixTONES won the New Actor Award. The awards ceremony was ridiculed as a “Johnny’s Festival. It was even said that the purpose of the festival was to promote sales of paid tickets for the awards ceremony.

This year, however, the “Johnny’s” aspect of the event was removed, as was the case with NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen held last year. It is whispered that the Academy members, who consist of employees of major film distributors, may have refrained from voting because they were concerned about the still unresolved issue of sexual assault by the founder of the company, Mr. Janney Kitagawa.

In the 30th Japan Academy Prize (2007), Takuya Kimura (51) declined the Best Actor Award for his role in the movie “A Samurai’s Life” because Johnny’s’s agency did not want him to compete for the Best Actor Award with the other winners of the Best Actor Award.

It was thought that the relationship with the awards had deteriorated due to this incident, but later, at the 38th awards (2003), Junichi Okada (43) won both the Best Actor Award for his role in “Eien no 0” and the Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in “Tomenoki”. In the 39th (2004), Ninomiya won the Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for “Mother to be”. In other years as well, the former Johnny’s won awards.

It is said that Mr. Kimura’s decision not to accept the award was not based on the wishes of Johnny’s, but rather on the wishes of Mr. Mitsutomo Iijima, then chief manager of SMAP, who now heads New Map, a joint project by Goro Inagaki (50), Tsuyoshi Kusanagi (49), and Shingo Katori (47). Therefore, the fact that they had not won any awards for a while was like an “accident” for the other talents in the film industry.

So far, winners of major film awards have been announced one after another. Among them, none of the former Johnny’s won the “Nikkan Sports Film Awards – Yujiro Ishihara Award,” sponsored by Nikkan Sports. However, “G-Men” starring Yuta Kishi (28), a former member of “King & Prince” and now a member of “Number_i,” won the “Fans’ Choice Best Performance Award. Kishi also won the “Fans’ Choice Best Performance Award.

The Hochi Film Awards, sponsored by the Hochi Shimbun, also went to no former Johnny’s. However, “Rekkai,” starring Kimura, won the award for Best Performance by an Actor. However, Haruka Ayase (38), who played the heroine in “Legend & Butterfly” starring Kimura, won the award for Best Actress. The Blue Ribbon Awards, chosen by the journalists of the seven Tokyo-based sports newspapers, were also unawarded.

It is a well-known story in the industry that the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Actor went to Mr. Okada in the previous year and to Mr. Ninomiya in the last year, thanks to a strong push by their offices. It seems that they tried to push Mr. Kimura again this year, but his office does not have the same power as before, and the fact that “Legendary” was a flop was also a big factor.

Furthermore, Mr. Okada and Mr. Ninomiya, as well as Toma Ikuta (39), who once won the Blue Ribbon Award for Best Newcomer and is now a leading actor, and Shunsuke Kazama (40), who played a supporting role, have already left the old Johnny’s. Although these juniors have starred in and appeared in numerous films, they are likely to be far away from film awards for some time to come.

Nevertheless, the Ghibli film “How Do You Live?” for which Kimura served as a voice actor has been nominated for the “Best Animated Feature Film” at the 96th Academy Awards, which will be held on March 11 (Japan time).

If it wins, it will be the best news for both Kimura and the former Johnny’s office….

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