‘Nazi’ costume row over Japanese girl band

Sony Music Japan and high profile record producer and impresario Yasushi Akimoto have apologised after a row broke out over a Japanese all-girl band’s Nazi-like outfits.

The mostly teenage members of Keyakizaka46 appeared at an October 22 Halloween concert in Yokohama in black knee-length dresses that looked like military overcoats, and black capes and officer caps with a golden bird symbol resembling the Nazi eagle above a swastika.

欅坂46 ナチス軍服を着てライブ → 批判殺到 pic.twitter.com/TltRiTPalX

— トマト大好き (@tmato30kcal) October 24, 2016

There was an outcry within and outside Japan. The US-based Simon Wiesenthal Center, a human rights group focused on anti-Semitism and hate speech, earlier this week expressed its disgust and demanded an apology.

“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,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Associate Dean of the Wiesenthal Center.

“We expect better from an international brand like Sony which has caused embarrassment to Japan.”

In an apology delivered a few hours after the Centre’s media statement, Sony Music Japan insisted there had been no intention to link their costumes with Nazi regalia, which are banned in Germany.

“We express our heartfelt apology for causing offense … because of our lack of understanding,” the company posted on its website. “We take the incident seriously and will make efforts to prevent a recurrence of a similar incident in the future.”

Producer Yasushi Akimoto formed Keyakizaka46 in August 2015. Their debut single Silent Majority was #1 on the Japanese charts after selling about 260,000 copies within a week of its April 6 release.

Akimoto has a pool of 100 teen girls from which he forms girl bands including AKB48.

The songwriter is also an executive board member of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organizing committee, said he was unaware of the outfits before the performance, and blamed his “lack of oversight.”

He added that the costume designers had not intended to offend, but would ensure such a controversy never repeated with staff education and advance checks.

There have been similar Nazi-costume furores in Asia, particularly in Japan, South Korea and Thailand.

It’s not the first time that Sony Japan and the Wiesenthal Center have clashed. Five years ago there was anger when the band Kishidan appeared on MTV Networks Japan sporting Nazi uniforms. The record company issued an apology then too.

Two years ago, South Korea girl band Pritz caused similar protests after wearing bright red armbands strikingly similar to the ones Nazi officers wore.

PRITZ has been gaining attention, both internationally and in Korea for their uniforms that resemble nazi uniforms. pic.twitter.com/TYQdFkIBPt

— ➹Virtual✌ (@coziamdheniel) November 16, 2014