The mother of Hana Kimura is taking action against the television series that allegedly violated the human rights of her late daughter. According to the Weekly Bunshun, Kyoko Kimura filed a complaint to the BPO (Broadcast Ethics and Program Improvement Organization) earlier today due to what was contractually required of Kimura during her appearance on The Fuji TV & Netflix series, Terrace House.
Hana was featured in a March 31 episode (titled “The Costume Incident”) of the show in which she stole a hat off another cast member that caused a confrontation. In build for the episode, Fuji released a series of videos on YouTube called “After The Costume Incident.” These clips got over 500,000 views and Hana’s social media was inundated with negative comments . In one of the videos, Kimura was shown talking to a fellow housemate about the incident and wept because she knew she was responsible for the rift. That video ends with Hana stating “I feel like dying.” After this, it was reported that Kimura began hyperventilating and fell down a set of stairs. She was reportedly forced to be filmed during this. Staff did come to her aid, but they made sure her struggles were caught on tape with some fellow house attendees present. An anonymous cast member mentioned how inhumane that all was.
According to Kyoko, Hana was instructed to perform actions that would cause a problem among the cohabitants and did so because of the “consent and pledge” obligations inside the talent contract. Although the talent on screen had free reign, there were expectations of actions to be done on the show to cause conflict or drama.
Hana reportedly did inquire about the “Costume Incident” not airing after receiving the negative harassment on social media, but Fuji TV still did such anyway and it was after that when Kimura chose to end her life prematurely on May 22, 2020. Fellow cast member Kai Kobayashi who distanced himself after leaving the show, backed up some of the ridiculous requirements expected the people on the series. Fuji TV refuted those claims of requirements but members on staff have came out to speak against that notion.
Satoshi Oshirio, an individual who is knowledge in the ways of defamation issues, notes that Kimura was indeed a victim of such matters by the staff of Terrace House.
“There is no script, and it broadcasts as if they were living together freely, but the performers and individual agreements were written according to a modern-day “slave contract” that could frighten huge damages. It can be said that there was a strong governing structure in which the intention of the production side was limited to the production side.Depending on the mode of production by the production side, the self-determination right of Article 13 of the Constitution was deprived. It was connected to the viewer as a true personality, and the SNS burned up. From this point, it can be said that broadcasting has also violated the personality right. Not only the problem of broadcasting ethics whether BPO was punished but also human rights violations. It should be discussed whether it happened or not.”
In addition to the Weekly Bunshun piece, a great deal of the above information can be credited to Farrah Hasnain below:
https://twitter.com/farrahakase/status/1283335485104898049
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