TV Report On The U-15 (Junior Idol) Boom In Japan

Yesterday, NTV’s Real Time News aired a report on the U-15 idol phenomenon, in which companies are producing photo books and DVD’s of girls under the age of 15 in skimpy clothing and sexually suggestive poses. The anchors describe this new trend as a problem and the report takes a critical look at the junior idol business. Here it is in two parts:

Part 1

Summary:
A news crew follows around 6th grader Mai Sasaki, an 11-year-old junior idol whose father films and creates her photo books and DVD’s. In one particularly creepy scene, the cameraman father tells a lingerie-clad Mai to get on a bed and make a “lion pose.” He later jokes about how big her breasts have become. His blurred-out face and NTV’s background music only add to his creepy image. The report then shows us some newspapers that have questioned the U-15 idol boom, with headlines such is “Is it really OK for them to do that?”