Nana Katase “struggling with leaving the office”… the crucial difference between her and successful independent celebrities

On December 17th, Nana Katase (40), who resigned from Kenon, made a live broadcast on YouTube and revealed the reason why she left the company.

In December, she suddenly resumed her social networking site, but it was a lonely restart, with only about 800 people watching her live feed.

In recent years, there has been a spate of celebrities who have become independent or moved from major agencies, and there are three main patterns.

There are three main patterns. Recently, when Becky (37) left Sun Music in August, she announced with the president and other executives that she was moving to an independent agency created by the talented manager who had been in charge of her for nine years, and that she was going to form a business alliance with Sun Music. I heard that she has a contract with Sun Music to pay a percentage of major work such as commercials to her former agency. I’ll get some sales and I won’t have to deal with any problems. So there are advantages for the major agencies to allow her to go independent.

Of course, there are also cases where people go independent or transfer with a manager they know well without forming a business alliance.

This is the case with Shingo Fujimori (38) of Oriental Radio. Fujimori, 38, of Oriental Radio, left the company amicably after much discussion with Yoshimoto Kogyo and his manager, Yona Tobimatsu. It was a wise decision, since the appearances of Manager Tobimatsu are the most popular on Fujimori’s YouTube channel. Yoshimoto Kogyo has a lot of contract employees, and there are also courses to train staff at the training school, so they are not that picky about independence. Yumi Okada (21) and Ayame Tsuyoshi (29), who moved from Oscar Promotion, also became independent with their managers. It’s a relief for a talent to have a friend who has experienced both the good and the bad by their side.

The third is a case of making a fresh start and starting over in a completely new environment.

Asami Mizukawa (38) is a friend from her school days, and “Saraba Seishun no Hikari” is a former comedian who was a senior member of Shochiku Entertainment and is now working as a manager after going independent. It’s an advantage that they know each other well, but both of them are like newcomers as managers. It’s hard to be flexible in some ways.

This may be evidence of the importance of the know-how and personal connections of the major agencies even after independence.

In 2007, the Japan Fair Trade Commission warned the “Johnny’s Office” that it might be violating the Anti-Monopoly Law if it pressured TV stations not to allow the three former members of SMAP to appear on their shows. Since the Fair Trade Commission issued a warning to the “Johnny’s Office” in 2007, there are no more offices that apply explicit pressure.

However, there are still discoveries on the part of TV stations, and there are many auditions that you can only attend if you are involved in the industry. There are many jobs that are decided through horizontal connections. Immediately after going independent, major actresses such as Ryoko Yonekura (46) and Hikari Mitsushima (36), who had been negotiating for appearances on their own for a while, ended up joining forces with their former managers.

There are an increasing number of celebrities who work freelance from the start, such as those in “Lalaland,” but the staff in charge of them still come from major agencies.

There are more and more talents who work freelance from the beginning, such as in “Lalande,” but the staff in charge are from major agencies. If you work as an individual, you don’t know the market prices, and it’s easy to be underestimated in terms of fees, so you end up being used cheaply and quickly consumed.

Even in the TV industry, there are great strategists behind great generals.

From the January 7-14, 2022 issue of FRIDAY