＜prologue＞
I started a blog called “The Baby Boomer Generation’s Miscellaneous Blog”（Dankai-sedai no garakutatyou:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳） in July 2018, about a year before I fully retired. More than six years have passed since then, and the number of articles has increased considerably.
So, in order to make them accessible to people who don’t understand Japanese, I decided to translate my past articles into English and publish them.
It may sound a bit exaggerated, but I would like to make this my life’s work.
It should be noted that haiku and waka （Japanese short fixed form poems） are quite difficult to translate into English, so some parts are written in Japanese.
If you are interested in haiku or waka and would like to know more, please read introductory or specialized books on haiku or waka written in English.
I also write many articles about the Japanese language. I would be happy if these inspire more people to want to learn Japanese.
my blog’s URL:団塊世代の我楽多（がらくた）帳 | 団塊世代が雑学や面白い話を発信しています
<Added May 19, 2023> Why Other Media Ignored Johnny Kitagawa’s Sexual Assault Reported by Shukan Bunshun
The reason many media outlets remained silent about Johnny Kitagawa’s sexual assaults was apparently due to the carrot-and-stick approach of “daily entertainment, VIP viewings, and calendar sales.”
The sexual assaults by Johnny Kitagawa (who passed away at the age of 87) were reported by Shukan Bunshun for 14 weeks in 1999, and in November 1999, shortly after the campaign began, Johnny Kitagawa and Johnny & Associates filed a lawsuit against Shukan Bunshun and Bungeishunju for defamation.
As a result, the Tokyo High Court ruled in 2003 that the sexual assaults were committed, and the Supreme Court upheld the ruling the following year.
However, according to the testimony of many former Johnny & Associates Jr. members, the sexual assaults continued even after this ruling.
One reason the sexual assaults continued after that is thought to be the “silence against the assaults” by the media and advertising agencies, which have close business ties with Johnny & Associates.
I previously wrote an article titled, “Are Japanese Newspapers Impartial? Impartiality is Impossible in Newspapers!” However, not only newspapers, but also television and other media and advertising agencies have failed to report on the scandals and dark side of companies and organizations with which they have interdependent relationships, such as Johnny & Associates.
This seems to be an attempt to cover up social evils, and I don’t think it values social justice at all. I feel that this latest Bunshun Bomb has brought to light the fact that this is far from being fair and neutral.
<Added June 23, 2021> Takashi Tachibana, the “Giant of Knowledge,” Passes Away
After graduating from the Department of French Literature, Faculty of Letters, University of Tokyo in 1964, Takashi Tachibana joined Bungeishunju and was assigned to “Weekly Bunshun.” However, he left the company within three years because he was forced to cover professional baseball, which was the last thing he wanted to do.
He then began working as a reporter, and in 1974, he published “A Study of Tanaka Kakuei: His Network and Money” in the monthly “Bungeishunju,” which sparked the downfall of Prime Minister Tanaka and established his reputation as a journalist.
When we think of “scoops” in the past, we recall celebrity scandal coverage in photo weekly magazines like “Friday” and “FOCUS,” as well as the 1974 article by Takashi Tachibana (1940-2021) in “Bungeishunju” that investigated the “Tanaka Money Mine Problem.”
Additionally, the “Okinawa Secret Agreement Incident” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Confidentiality Leak Incident, also known as the Nishiyama Incident) that occurred in 1972 was discovered when Mainichi Shimbun reporter Nishiyama, who had interviewed a female Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, gave a copy of confidential information (a top-secret Ministry telegram) about the “Okinawa Secret Agreement” to Japan Socialist Party lawmakers Yokomichi Takahiro and Narasaki Yanosuke, who pursued the matter in the Diet.
In this way, it seems that in the past, “scoops” were created by photo weekly magazines, general magazines, newspapers, opposition lawmakers, etc., but recently, Shukan Bunshun (the “Bunshun Cannon”) has become all the rage.
1. Shukan Bunshun’s “Bunshun Cannon” keeps producing scoops
On October 31st, 2019, Justice Minister Kawai resigned that morning following a report in the daily Shukan Bunshun magazine, which was released that day, alleging illegal bribes of female campaign hosts.
The report detailed the existence of two separate receipts showing that Kawai and his wife, House of Councillors member Anri Kawai, had paid female campaign hosts more than the legal amount of 15,000 yen during the July House of Councillors election, as well as the existence of a secret ledger which clearly stated “30,000 yen per day.”
In March 2020, Osaka Mainichi Shimbun reporter Fuyuki Aizawa (formerly an NHK reporter) published a story titled “Wife to sue former Finance Bureau Director-General Sagawa and the government; Suicide Note of Moritomo Suicide (MOF) Employee Released: ‘It was all Director-General Sagawa’s orders’,” and in May, a Sankei Shimbun reporter leaked a story titled “Scoop Photos from the Scene: Prosecutor General Kurokawa Hiromu is a Habitual Gambling Mahjong Offender; 6.5 Hours of ‘Three Cs’ at a Sankei Shimbun Reporter’s Home on May 1st.” The magazine also produced a string of scoops.
More recently, it has also published scoops on celebrity scandals, such as the adultery scandal involving comedy duo Unjash’s Watabe Ken.
2. The History of Shukan Bunshun
Shukan Bunshun is a weekly magazine founded by Bungeishunju Ltd. in 1959, making it as well-established as Shukan Shincho, which was founded in 1956.
Shukan Bunshun is the younger brother of Bungeishunju, which was known as a national magazine. Initially, it was a “refined salon magazine” filled with novels and columns.
Past editors-in-chief include Kazutoshi Hando (1930-2021), who spearheaded the coverage of the Lockheed Scandal. Incidentally, Hando is a war history researcher and author from Bungeishunju, and the husband of Natsume Soseki’s granddaughter, Suetoshi (Soseki’s eldest daughter, Fudeko, and Matsuoka Yuzuru’s fourth daughter).
3. Why is Shukan Bunshun (Bunshun Ho) the only magazine able to produce such a string of scoops?
Shukan Bunshun and Shukan Shincho initially did not employ freelance reporters (even freelance reporters were made full-time employees), and editorial staff handled everything from reporting to compiling.
In contrast, Shukan Gendai (Kodansha) and Shukan Post (Shogakukan) employed many full-time reporters in addition to their editorial staff. Many of them were people who had become absorbed in student movements or the anti-security treaty protests and had dropped out of university.
In other words, while Shukan Bunshun and Shukan Shincho used an “elite few” approach, Shukan Gendai and Shukan Post used a “human wave tactics” approach.
Photo weekly magazines like “Friday” and “FOCUS” also increased their circulation by organizing multiple stakeout teams, investing large amounts of money and manpower, and publishing secretly taken photos every week. However, the “Friday Raid” by Beat Takeshi’s gang sparked criticism of the photo weekly magazines’ reporting, which led to a decline in the magazines’ reporting, and sales of other magazines also continued to stagnate.
So, in April 2012, Manabu Niiya, who became editor-in-chief of Shukan Bunshun, declared, “We will focus on scoops.”
As a result, Shukan Bunshun, which had not had a scoop since its 1984 “Los Angeles Scandal” coverage, shifted gears to a “scoop and scandal” approach.
The first success came in 2016, when it reported on the adultery of Miyazaki Kensuke, a lawmaker who had announced he was on parental leave. This created a “virtuous cycle” in which a large number of scoops were sent to Shukan Bunshun, and the magazine came to be known as the “Bunshun Cannon.”
The list is endless, including Becky and Enon Kawatani’s “sleazy affair,” the bribery allegations against then-Minister of State for Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Akira Amari, Sean K.’s academic misrepresentation, and then-Tokyo Governor Yoichi Masuzoe’s use of a government car for personal use.
However, the targets of their scoops often retaliate, including with legal action, and there have been cases where they have lost cases and paid compensation.
(1) Shukan Bunshun’s reporting system
At Shukan Bunshun, editors discern the veracity of scoop and scandal stories brought to them, and skilled reporters verify the information based on those stories, adding facts to the article.
(2) Rewards for informants
Another strength of Shukan Bunshun is the way it values its writers. While there are magazines that offer larger rewards to informants than Bunshun, Shukan Bunshun’s strengths lie in its comprehensive follow-up system and its established reputation as a weekly scoop magazine.
However, if they make a mistake like the “Red Army Fake Report” in Weekly Shincho in 2009, their credibility will be instantly destroyed, so they need to be careful.
(3) The Salarymanization of Newspaper Employees
In the past, there were ambitious newspaper reporters who competed for scoops, like “crime reporters,” but now it seems that they don’t take on such hardships or risks, and instead just follow up on reports in Bunshun and other newspapers to gloss over the issues.
(4) The Inadequate Reliance of Opposition Lawmakers on Bunshun
Opposition lawmakers are expected to use their “power of national investigation” to proactively and proactively uncover irregularities, but in reality, they have degenerated into picking up on scoops from magazines like Bunshun and demanding that the prime minister, cabinet ministers, and other lawmakers “read this report in a weekly magazine. I demand a thorough explanation from the public about it.”
Am I the only one who thinks that this lack of compensation undermines the value of being a member of parliament and receiving such high salaries?