Johnny's becomes Smile-Up. Japanese music company hit with sex abuse scandal takes on a new name

abcnews.go.com:

The Japanese entertainment company that has acknowledged its founder sexually assaulted hundreds of boys over the span of five decades has taken a new name: Smile-Up

TOKYO — The Japanese entertainment company that has acknowledged its founder sexually assaulted hundreds of boys over the span of half a century, took a new name on Monday: Smile-Up. It also vowed to focus on compensation for victims of the abuse.

Tokyo-based Johnny & Associates, founded in 1975, will eventually fold, but its performers can join an independent company that is being set up, said Noriyuki Higashiyama, the company's new leader and a former star at Johnny’s, as the company is known.

Higashiyama, tapped last month to head the old Johnny’s, will now be president of both Smile-Up and the new company. The new company's name will be put to public vote by Johnny’s fans.

“All things with the Johnny’s name will have to go,” Higashiyama told reporters at a Tokyo hotel. “A wounded heart isn’t easy to heal. Compensation on its own will never be enough.”

In recent months, dozens of men who were performers and backup dancers as teens and children at Johnny’s have come forward, saying they were sexually assaulted by Johnny Kitagawa.

Kitagawa, who died in 2019, was never charged.

So far, 325 people have applied to the company’s compensation program, and that number may grow. Payments will begin next month, Higashiyama said. How the monetary amount will be decided was not yet clear.

Last month, Kitagawa’s niece Julie Keiko Fujishima resigned as chief executive at Johnny’s and apologized for his past. She still owns 100% of the unlisted company but will not be part of the new unnamed company, whose capital structure is still being worked out.

Fujishima did not