Sony Music apologizes for band’s Nazi-like outfits
Print Edition
SONY Music and the producer behind a Japanese girl band that performed in military-style costumes resembling Nazi uniforms apologized yesterday following a protest lodged by the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Teeny-boppers Keyakizaka46 had sparked anger with their black one-piece dresses and capes, complete with peaked caps bearing a golden bird symbol resembling the Nazi eagle above a swastika, donned at a Halloween concert in Yokohama on October 22.
The Jewish documentation, monitoring and human rights organization in a statement issued on Monday expressed “disgust over the use of Nazi-themed uniforms donned” by the group.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s associate dean, said the display was “inappropriate and deeply offensive” and called for Sony Music Entertainment — the group’s label — and producer Yasushi Akimoto, to apologize.
“Watching young teens on the stage and in the audience dancing in Nazi-style uniforms causes great distress to the victims of the Nazi genocide,” Cooper said.
“We expect better from an international brand like Sony which has caused embarrassment to Japan.”
Hours after the statement was issued, Sony Music apologized, blaming its “lack of knowledge in designing costumes that reminded people of Nazi-style uniforms.”
“We apologize from the heart for causing unpleasant feelings,” the company said in a Japanese-language statement on its website.
“The costumes will never be used again.”
Akimoto also posted an apology on the girl band’s website. “I am very sorry for failing to oversee matters as the producer,” he said.
Akimoto, also a lyricist, is the mastermind behind the group and many other similar girl bands, most famously AKB48, which consists of a 100-strong pool of girls in their teens and early 20s rotated in and out of the public eye based on their popularity.
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