Talk:Shūkan Bunshun smoking scandal

Supplement
The blog written by Hirokazu Mesaki (目崎裕和) is very interesting. He attended Saitama Prefectural Shiki High School (埼玉県立志木高校), the same school as Michiko Enokida, who was the leader of the smoking group. He was friends with Enokida, who gave him the nickname Meckey (メッキー). This is a blog, so I can't use it as source material, but there are several noteworthy descriptions. This blog also provides a cross-section of the high school situations in Japan during the 1980s.

The academic level of this high school was on the low side, and smoking was apparently a run-of-the-mill sight. It's easy to presume that the situation was even worse at Saitama Prefectural Niiza Kita High School (埼玉県立新座北高校), which the beautiful and cheerful Kayoko Yoshino attended, and Tokyo Metropolitan Kurume High School (東京都立久留米高校), which Mika Okuda attended, because they were genuine bottom-of-the-barrel schools. Bunka Gakuin, which Mamiko Tomoda attended, wasn't a high school, and had few rules, so the situation must have been pretty terrible. I'm not sure exactly which high school Mayumi Satō attended, but I'm almost certain it was a private high school. Public school classes are basically assigned numbers, but Satō's class was alphabetical. Private high schools tend to have basically stricter rules than public high schools. I guess this point seems to be universal. In fact, only Satō seems to have expelled from high school for this scandal. In contrast, Enokida was only suspended for three days. Yoshino and Okuda were only suspended as well, although I don't know how many days. In Tomoda's case, she didn't receive any punishments because she wasn't in high school.

As the leader of the smoking group, Enoda's behavior was unbecoming of an idol. Even so, she was repulsed at her high school, mainly by the male students. She was particularly detested by the delinquent group. They didn't like the fact that she was on TV. Enokida also left high school early every day to go to Fuji TV. Yoshino and the other members of the smoking group probably did the same. By the way, Saitama Prefectural Fukuoka High School (埼玉県立福岡高校), which Eri Nitta attended, seems to have been at a similar academic level to Enokida's high school. Nitta claims to have attended only the morning sessions at her high school.

It seems that even after being fired, Enokida remained undeterred and continued to watch Yūyake Nyan Nyan("Sunset Meow Meow") (夕やけニャンニャン). However, she refused to sing Onyanko Club songs at the school festival. She was apparently very fond of Tamaki Gomioka(五味岡たまき, Gomioka Tamaki), who was a member of Onyanko Club for only two months. Okuda, on the other hand, was too frustrated to watch the show for more than a year. Okuda repeated her junior year of high school, so all of her classmates were one year younger than her, which made her feel extremely uncomfortable. Moreover, she had a very short temper, which seems to have gotten her into trouble with her classmates on several occasions. She admitted that there was a time when she was a delinquent girl before becoming a member of Onyanko Club.

By the way, Okuda hated Sayuri Kokushō, according to one of Okuda's high school classmates. Some say that the smoking group was threatening Kazuko Utsumi(内海和子, Utsumi Kazuko), who was one year older than them and already a college student. Eri Nitta and her best friend Miharu Nakajima(中島美春, Nakajima Miharu) were the same age as the members of the smoking group, but these two were acting separately from them. Nitta felt that Onyanko Club was out of place for her as a country bumpkin. The members of the smoking group, other than Tomoda, were also basically provincial, though. Satō clearly stated publicly on the program that she and Nitta weren't compatible in personality. So there was no doubt that Nitta and Satō didn't get along. However, no concrete evidences have ever been presented that the other members of the smoking group didn't get along with Nitta. Tomoda and Nitta are said to have been rather on friendly terms.

By the way, Nitta mentioned afterwards that she drank beer every night with Miharu Nakajima and others on the Onyanko Club tour, even though they were underage. However, this was never a problem at all. After all, this kind of thing is not really a matter of right and wrong, but rather of whether or not it is publicly revealed.