Financial Concerns Drive Rush Towards Independence of Kuroki Haru, Tanaka Tetsushi, and Tabe Mikako

It is not particularly unusual for a celebrity to leave his or her agency and go independent or transfer to another agency. Every year, someone, famous or not, goes independent or transfers to another agency.

In April, it was announced that actors Kuranosuke Sasaki and Ryuta Sato, both members of the entertainment production company K-Factory, had left the company after their “contracts expired.

At the end of March, actress Mikako Tabe also left “Hirata International,” to which she had belonged for about 20 years, and established her own private agency. Other “big names” such as Kuroki Hana, Tanaka Tetsushi, and Nagatsuka Keishi also announced their resignations one after another.

There is no word of any particular problems or trouble with the office. It seems that all of them left their offices “amicably.” …… Why have there been so many departures and independence? A senior executive at a major entertainment agency told us the compelling story.

If the contract expires and both parties are satisfied, it can be called an amicable exit. If not, then it is an amicable exit. In other words, if you quit even though you had been doing your job well up to that point, it is because you were dissatisfied in some way, which is absolutely true. It may be a case of human relations, but money, in other words, the aspect of remuneration, is probably the most important factor.

The remuneration differs according to the rules of the office and the individual talent, and can be divided into two main categories: salary or commission, but in the case of commission, the percentage of share is not constant, he said.

Some offices take 50%, some 70%. There are also salaries for other staff and managers, and if the office pays for the maintenance of a private car and the living expenses of the talent, the ratio must be the same to keep up. In detail, money is also paid out for sales, such as entertainment expenses to sell to TV stations and other media. Those are the so-called management fees. The cost of lessons and other training expenses incurred when the actor was a newcomer must also be recouped.

(TV magazine writer) However, as a seasoned and popular actor, he does not need to pay for lessons, and he does not need to make sales pitches because job offers will come to him even if he keeps quiet. What’s more,” says a writer for a TV magazine,

In the old days, TV stations would ask major entertainment agencies to perform for them. Nowadays, more and more young talented actors are emerging. TV stations no longer need to rely on the big agencies, and they have more opportunities to use small agencies and freelance actors who actively market themselves to them.

Even if you belong to a big agency, they will not give you the kind of sales that actors want. If that is the case, it is better to be independent and make sales on your own to get work. It may be a natural trend for popular actors to feel this way.

This seems to be the case. From the actor’s point of view, there is no need to be affiliated with an agency to take a margin. So, what are the advantages of belonging to an entertainment agency in this day and age?

‘The biggest advantage is that it protects us. In other words, it is a countermeasure against some radical fans and the media. It is complicated and limited for individuals to do it. Secondly, they can replace the penalty fee. If you cause a scandal and are dropped from a drama, TV program, or commercial, you will surely be charged a penalty fee. Not only will you have to pay back the appearance fee, but you will also be asked to pay compensation for damages, and these days it is not uncommon for the amount to reach hundreds of millions.

It is not possible for an individual to pay this amount. In such cases, the office will advance the money and the talent can pay it back in installments, or in some cases, they may not have to pay it back or they may be asked to pay half of the amount. That has not changed in the past.

In the entertainment industry, where anything can happen, veteran actors who admit to themselves that they ‘don’t have to worry about scandals’ probably mean that they don’t have the advantage of belonging to an office. So, can’t an office prevent a talent from becoming independent? In the past, there have been many cases of independence before the expiration of a contract, which led to trouble,

In the past, there were many cases in which a talent became independent before the expiration of their contract, but the only way to prevent this is to build a solid relationship of trust with the talent so that they think, “I want to stay with this agency,” or “I only want to work with this manager. The office’s position has become much weaker than in the past.

He laughs bitterly. The number of talents going independent is expected to increase in the future, and the crisis of the extinction of entertainment agencies is just around the corner.

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