First of all, this is the kind of stuff that get’s talked about in the open because of an intense ‘saving face’ culture over there that also bled into japanese law. Things are more likely to be so much worse that being let on for Momoka. That rot goes very deep making it difficult bring about needed labor law and meaningful ethics reform inside of companies. Speaking out even if everything you say is 100% accurate will get your ass sued into oblivion because you hurt somebody’s feelings. It’s not just idol agencies but entertainment companies structured like idol agencies and anyone else who decides to act like a victim to weasel their way out of accountability for their own cruelty and/or stupidity. Adding onto what @lorcan_nagle said a few minutes ago, Oshi no Ko is another example of japanese media starting bring up these sort of issues which are also completely freaking out entertainment companies over there for just merely bringing up these issues to the wider public along with the outright classic anime flick Perfect Blue.
This example (3 comment long thread) I gave back in February in the assholes thread shows an much more extreme case than this BB article. Things for that company have gotten worse over there with more people starting to speak out against the company which led to their CEO saying at shareholders meeting yesterday that they’re in the works of attempting to apply japanese defamation law overseas to silence critics from both former employees and folks online (which will ultimately blow up in his face again haha).
As for the parasocial exploitation practices mentioned in this article, unfortunately it’s not exclusive to asian countries with a notable example of Twitch streamer Amouranth concealing that she had a husband (keyword HAD) who was also her manager who came up with that idea to hide their relationship in the first place to rope in guys. Still completely fucked up no matter where’s it’s done, to which sexual orientation of an audience it gets applied to, or heck even when it was done. This is hardly a new practice at all
