Japan axes Netflix collaboration after outcry over dating show Badly In Love
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
The cast of Badly In Love 2. The series spotlights Japan’s so-called “yankii” (delinquent) sub-culture.
PHOTO: NETFLIX
- Japan's justice ministry cancelled its partnership with Netflix's dating show Badly In Love after public backlash over the portrayal of ex-juvenile delinquents.
- The ministry stated the collaboration was not meant to glorify crime but ended it due to concerns from victims of crime.
- The show remains popular internationally and continues airing without government support, highlighting themes of rehabilitation and personal growth.
AI generated
TOKYO – Japan’s Justice Ministry said on Aug 21 it will cancel a collaboration with a controversial Netflix dating show featuring former juvenile delinquents, following backlash against what some called the glorification of crimes.
Earlier in August, the ministry launched an unusual partnership with the streaming giant’s Badly In Love, releasing a poster starring its Season 2 cast members, including heavily tattooed men.
Badly In Love spotlights Japan’s so-called “yankii” (delinquent) sub-culture by lodging together young men and women with wild and often criminal pasts, including former yakuza gangsters and motorcycle gang members.
Since its release in December, the show has proven an unexpected global hit, with Netflix saying Season 1 maintained a weeks-long top 10 presence in South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The ministry’s Rehabilitation Bureau had justified the campaign on the grounds that the show’s depictions of the participants’ harsh upbringing, atonement and personal growth jibe with its belief that “a person can change”.
The ministry promoted the programme as part of the campaign, and the show will continue to air without the government’s support.
“It was never the intention of this collaboration to endorse crime or delinquency, nor to glorify or trivialise these acts from someone’s past,” the ministry said in a statement on Aug 21.
“But we have received a lot of concerns and criticism that it can cause discomfort among people victimised by crimes,” it said, adding that the partnership will be terminated.
Badly In Love 2 came under fire after an episode aired in which one cast member confessed that, as a teen, he had been arrested for setting someone on fire to prove he was “not chickening out”.
The cancellation of the campaign, however, “isn’t meant to deny efforts to help rehabilitate people who committed crimes in the past”, the ministry said.
Badly In Love executive producer Dai Ota told AFP in April that before running Season 1, the production team had “extensive internal discussions” to ensure the show would not be perceived as “condoning the violence”.
“Our hope was to show that these young people – who have often been marginalised or labelled as ‘social outcasts’ – are simply youth who worry, struggle and genuinely grow,” he said. AFP
Badly In Love is available on Netflix.
