The people who think this is promo stunt are ignorant, they don’t know who bunshun is, it’s not some random website or some gossip magazine, bunshun is Japan most famous magazine for their investigative journalism, no one in Japan wants to be in their report, アルルカン just too small for bunshun to waste their page to report it if they think the allegations not true, and if the victim who expose it not an idol. This whole story wraps up neatly simply because how terrible Japanese society treats to sexual assault victims, not to mention the girl is an idol and still work in the industry.
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I have to make a point of this because I don’t like seeing this behavior in the scene, and making posts here is the only way I can talk about it.
One of the unspoken rules of the internet is that anyone can be cancelled at any moment, but you must bring receipts. Accusations cannot be made without evidence, or the social contract starts to break down. So in doing this, someone may have to recount their trauma and throw out some trigger warnings. Part and parcel of the process.
To say that I’ve seen bands react with more severe punishment for lesser infractions is not hyperbole. I don’t feel that reaction from the label to this scandal lines up with what I’ve seen from others. Band members can get kicked out for smoking weed, and entire bands break up because one member gets arrested, but somehow this gets a pass? Something hasn’t sat right with me about this entire situation since the moment it was announced, including the ending.
These statements are also the vaguest bits of prose I’ve read since the last time I wrote an essay for college and had to meet the page count. “Various feelings were born for various people” is a 1000 calorie nothing burger. “I vow to never let something like this happen in the future” umm…you mind letting us know what “this” is? I’m still left asking what happened and now the unspoken expectation is that it’s over.
The only thing that better be over is this band.
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Very true, these are not the words of men who are entirely innocent. The way the management pushed forward with promotional material as if nothing happened and the bassist’s immediate concern being that he would get fired for his girlfriend coming forward shows deep issues with how the band is run and exactly who we’d be supporting by continuing to support Arlequin.
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I don’t support what they did in this band, it’s really bad. Also, I am not a fan of this band, musically they never did anything that make me feel they are an interesting band. That said, if we knew all the private life of all the bands we like, all the writers we appreciate, directors who made movies, we would not do many things. It’s important to separate the artist and their private life, otherwise you do nothing, no human is pure white like the snow.
“Separating the artist from the art” shouldn’t be applied in a situation where said artist rapes their colleague’s girlfriend. No one is perfect, sure, but there’s a difference between being an asshole and doing something illegal that violates another person.
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what gets me is when Daisuki from Psycho Le Cemu got busted for drugs, Japan was like “REMOVE ALL THEIR MUSIC AND MERCH” but for admitting sexual assault , nothing happened to their music. That’s hella fucked.
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Wait, I’m off here, where did he admit?
He admitted they had sex from the jump. The only distinction is whether the sex was consensual or not. And no further details were given out and it doesn’t seem likely that there will be more because everyone’s moving past it as quickly as they can.
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that’s Daishi… and same thing happened to l’arc en ciel with their first drummer.
i think it’s the jaded association between drug trade and yakuza, and record labels punishing those who get caught with something in their pockets, while sex is free from this connotation, unless they were hypothetically pimping or smth, which vk acts don’t do, and I guess arlequin aren’t big enough to tarnish someone really bad with a tiny bit of rape accusation
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If he did something illegal, It’s only the responsability of the justice to give a judgment. No one here can guarantee who say the truth. Kuruto said it was ’ consensual '. So you are telling me you know, for sure, that he is lying ?
It’s seems easy, you just need to accuse someone of rape and its career is over. No need any police investigation, everyone will believe this is true. The woman is saying the truth.
I have an even more radical theory but I’ll keep it to myself. 
Clearly we are not going to agree on this.
Will any of us know for sure what happened? No. But, as stated by multiple people in this thread, cases like this almost never stick (I recommend you read this. A quote from the article: “The legal system doesn’t protect women from sexual harassment, hold offenders accountable for sexual abuse, or take accusations seriously.”) This case never even went to court, the prosecution dismissed it.
As a woman I have seen the amount of men out in the world who have no idea what “consent” means. It’s downright scary. Of course police investigations are necessary, especially to make sure the perpetrators go to court and get convicted, but the current practice of blaming victims of lying as soon as they come forward is only making victims to not want to say anything. That will only protect the perpetrators.
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Did I say the woman in this case is lying ? No I didn’t.
I just say that yes it’s a possibility. Like it’s also possible the story is true and there was no " consent ".
If like you said the justice in Japan dont do anything, it means the people/fans, are allow to do their own justice ? So yes you decided to choose your camp, without any rationnal proof. I recommend to watch, or re-watch " M " by Fritz Lang to understand
Hes gonna have a hard time, Japan has a conviction rate of 99%. They force them to confess even if they are innocent. I know its pretty fucked up but thats the reality.
You don’t want to get into trouble there, if you ever planned moving to/visiting Japan…
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that’s japan in a nutshell. being caught with drugs is treated with the heaviness of someone who committed sexual assault, and committing sexual assault gets treated with with the lightness of someone who got caught with low quality weed.
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Where on Earth did I say that this would be ok? Violating someone’s bodily autonomy is never acceptable. No one here has suggested that we should sharpen our pitchforks and go do a public lynching, which is what happens in M: an angry mob wants to kill the main character. The plot of the movie has absolutely no relation to this situation.
The situation here is simply consumers (fans) coming to the conclusion “My trust is broken and I am no longer comfortable supporting this person/group financially”, which is their right. Anyone is allowed to stop pouring their time, money and energy into something they don’t like anymore.
In this instance, Kuruto and Arlequin have decided to keep going as a band. They are probably going to lose some popularity (they’re certainly not going to lose all of their fans), and if they won’t have enough fans to sustain them in future activities, they’ll move on with their lives and do something else. There’s plenty of other jobs out there besides being a musician.
This is going to be my last response in this thread, I don’t feel like I have anything else to contribute to this topic.
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I never thought you would attack Kuruto " physically ". This is completely nonsense.
When I said you do your own justice, it means you decided before the law in japan, that this guy did something " illegal ", without any proof. In a sense, you are the voice of justice. You can say what is legal and illegal. And if people decide to stop support the band like you said, it’s a way to make Kuruto/the band pay for this story.
And in the movie (you seems to know a movie based on a plot which is interesting), the " image " is similar, the citizen are doing their own justice, they think they are justice.
There’s little point in worrying about other people enacting justice, since despite our displeasure the band is still moving forward together. Where the line is between expressing displeasure and enacting justice is something for the staff to worry about moderating, and even then I think it’s pointless because there aren’t enough details. I was fully expecting the idol in this situation to go ballistic on socials, but she didn’t, so slinking back into (relative) anonymity means she has skin in the game. The follow-up articles that were promised never materialized, all the band statements have been vague as hell, and given how little we know, I bet the legal authorities saw that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict so they threw the case out. That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, just that Kuruto got away with it.
I said wait for details before jumping to any conclusions earlier in this topic, and I still stand by that, and if there are no more details then the only logical thing to do is to distance myself from this band and express why to other fans who may wish to do the same. I just have to assume that the situation as it is is not as it was presented to us, given how little details have been divulged even now. We will never know the truth, so the only question that remains is can you support a band where two members were complicit in some shadiness? That’s a personal question not up for debate, but personally these guys were slipping long ago so it’s not much for me to write them off and go listen to someone else.
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So if I understand correctly, if there are no more details about this story, it means for you, everything that was said is true, and Kuruto raped this girl ?
Wow you are going very quick to conclusions.
It’s surprising because you also mention after that " we will never know the truth ".
No. There are no more details, so everything that was said is dubious at best. Something unsavory happened, no one wants to elaborate, everyone involved wants to put this behind them. Anything else would be postulation, but I don’t think anyone cared enough to help the victim, so she read the tea leaves and shut up. Said it many times that the punishment is not proportional to the injustice done, and it leaves enough of a bad taste in my mouth to not care about this band anymore. Is that more clear?