Noriyuki Higashiyama Steps Down as Smile-Up Enters a More Legal Phase of Victim Compensation

Higashiyama’s three-year presidency is over, but the compensation process is not. Smile-Up has put lawyer and compliance chief Masayuki Yamada in charge as remaining cases become more legal and procedural.

TOKYO. Three years after the former Johnny & Associates transformed itself from one of Japan’s most powerful talent agencies into a company devoted primarily to compensating victims, the executive chosen to lead that transition has stepped down.

Noriyuki Higashiyama left his position as representative director and president of Smile-Up at the end of September when his term expired. On October 1, lawyer Masayuki Yamada, the company’s chief compliance officer, became representative director, president and CCO. Managing director Akira Abe also left at the end of his term. Julie Keiko Fujishima remains a representative director.

Smile-Up says the change reflects the nature of the work that remains. After three years of compensation activity, the company expects a growing share of outstanding cases to involve legal procedures and specialist judgments. It explicitly says the leadership change does not mean the abuse response is ending.

The company itself was repurposed in 2023

Smile-Up is no longer an ordinary talent agency.

On August 29, 2023, an external investigation team established by the then-Johnny & Associates released a report recognizing sexual abuse by the company’s late founder, Johnny Kitagawa, and identifying serious governance failures inside the organization.

In September, the company reorganized its leadership around compensation and prevention. On October 2 it announced that the Johnny & Associates name would be abandoned, and on October 17 the company became Smile-Up Inc. It said the old corporation would concentrate on victim compensation and eventually cease operations once that work was complete.

The talent-management business was separated into what became Starto Entertainment. Starto says it began full operations on April 10, 2024, with no capital relationship to Smile-Up and with 28 acts comprising 295 talents at launch.

That split created two legally distinct functions: one company for current entertainment management, and another whose central purpose was to address historic harm.

Why Higashiyama became president

Higashiyama took over the presidency of the former Johnny & Associates on September 7, 2023, succeeding Fujishima. He had spent decades as a performer and television personality, but announced that he would retire from entertainment at the end of 2023 to concentrate on the company’s response.

His assignment was unusual for a corporate president. The task was not to expand revenue, sign new artists or grow market share. It was to process abuse claims, fund compensation, meet victims, implement prevention reforms, shrink the old organization and ultimately prepare the company for closure.

At his September 28, 2026 news conference, Higashiyama said he had personally met 127 victims during his term. Japanese television reports quoted him as saying that hearing directly from people affected had been important to him.

Those meetings were only one part of the compensation structure. Formal decisions on compensation were handled through an independent victim-relief committee rather than Higashiyama alone.

The compensation system deliberately used a lower evidentiary threshold than litigation

In September 2023, the company established a Victim Relief Committee made up of three independent lawyers with experience as judges. The external investigation team had recommended that victims not be forced to meet the same strict evidentiary standard that would apply in ordinary litigation.

The committee interviews claimants, considers the reported abuse and its effects on later life, and determines compensation amounts. Smile-Up then pays according to the committee’s assessment.

The system has not been free of operational problems. In 2024, after an NHK report about the handling of communications with a victim’s family, Smile-Up replaced the head of its compensation division and changed procedures. It said calls with victims would normally involve multiple staff members and, with consent, could be recorded for monitoring.

That episode highlighted a distinction central to any compensation program: creating a framework and operating it in a way victims trust are separate tasks.

By 2024, Smile-Up had become a roughly 20-person compensation company

After Starto took over talent management and other businesses were separated, Smile-Up cut its organization sharply. In a December 2024 update, the company said that after the fan-club business was spun off it had become an organization of roughly 20 employees, focused on compensation and the administrative work supporting it.

Smile-Up and Starto also signed an agreement intended to carry forward measures against sexual abuse and violations of children’s rights. The companies’ compliance officers began holding regular meetings.

Seen in that context, the 2026 leadership change is less a celebrity-business succession than a governance adjustment inside a shrinking compensation vehicle.

1,047 claims and 578 payments do not mean the process is nearly over

As of Higashiyama’s September 28 news conference, Smile-Up said it had received compensation claims from 1,047 people. The Japan Times reported that 578 had received compensation, 231 had been judged ineligible and 226 could not be contacted.

Those figures should not be treated as a simple completion percentage. Cases can differ widely in documentation, identity verification, contact status, settlement acceptance and legal posture. Some claims have moved into mediation or litigation.

Smile-Up’s explanation for installing a lawyer as president reflects that reality. The cases that remain are increasingly likely to involve legal process, disputed assessments or specialist decision-making rather than a high-volume administrative workflow.

Yamada has been inside the governance process since 2023

Yamada is not a lawyer recruited from outside at the last minute. He has served as Smile-Up’s CCO since the 2023 restructuring and has been involved in the company’s internal governance and compliance work.

After the controversial “NG list” connected to the October 2023 press conference leaked outside the company, Yamada conducted interviews and reviewed documents as part of Smile-Up’s investigation into how the list had been created and used.

He has therefore been involved in the company’s response architecture from close to the beginning. Combining the president and CCO roles now aligns with Smile-Up’s statement that the remaining work is becoming increasingly legal and procedural.

Julie Keiko Fujishima remains a representative director

Higashiyama’s departure does not mean the former leadership structure has disappeared entirely. Fujishima, who preceded him as president, remains a representative director.

Her continuing role has been one of the persistent issues surrounding the restructuring. The 2023 external report criticized the old company’s governance and the concentration of control around the founding family, while Smile-Up argued that the old corporation needed to remain in existence to bear responsibility and fund compensation.

The September 2026 announcement does not provide an end date for Fujishima’s role or a fixed date on which Smile-Up will close.

It would therefore be inaccurate to portray Higashiyama’s departure as the full termination of the old corporate structure. The company has shrunk and changed purpose, but its legal responsibility continues.

Starto is separate in law, but public scrutiny follows the industry

Starto Entertainment was established without a capital relationship to Smile-Up. It manages talents, develops younger performers and operates the current entertainment business, while Smile-Up focuses on compensation.

Starto has published measures covering internal reporting channels, human-rights and compliance training and external consultation systems for talents and younger performers.

Corporate separation, however, does not erase historical continuity in the eyes of audiences, advertisers and broadcasters. The same entertainment culture, many of the same performers and the legacy of the former agency remain part of how the industry is understood.

The long-term question is therefore not merely whether Starto is legally separate, but whether safeguards learned from the scandal are embedded in everyday industry practice.

The issue is not when Smile-Up closes, but how

Smile-Up has repeatedly said it intends to cease operations after compensation work is completed. It still has not given a specific closure date.

That may be unavoidable. Claims can remain unresolved because people cannot be contacted, disagree with compensation assessments, require additional verification or pursue mediation and litigation. A fixed deadline can conflict with a promise to continue until necessary cases are completed.

Yamada’s appointment illustrates the shift. The company has moved from building a high-volume compensation mechanism toward closing difficult individual cases through legal and specialist processes.

That makes transparency in the final phase particularly important: how long monthly progress updates continue, how disputes are reported without violating victim privacy, what happens to unresolved matters if the company winds down, and how responsibility is preserved after the corporate entity eventually disappears.

What institutional legacy remains?

The scandal forced changes that extended beyond one executive. The former company introduced an external investigation, a chief compliance officer, a human-rights policy, independent compensation processes and reporting mechanisms. Starto created its own governance and reporting systems.

There is continuing debate over whether those measures were sufficient, timely and properly implemented. Victims, legal specialists, media organizations and corporate partners have not necessarily judged the response in the same way.

The wider lesson concerns an entertainment industry where young performers can face large power imbalances. Independent complaint channels, safeguarding for minors, board oversight and accountability by broadcasters and production partners are not problems that can be solved by a single corporate reorganization.

Higashiyama’s departure closes one chapter of the crisis response that began in 2023. Smile-Up’s own stated mission will end only when the remaining compensation and legal work is finished.