ZONE: MIYU fired, and something's rotten at Runtime!

[TotallyUncool]

That's a good point -- Runtime is probably putting a lot of pressure on Maiko to toe the line, but her loyalties have to lie with Miyu and the others, and I'm sure she knows that if that's how Runtime deals with Miyu, then eventually they're going to treat her like dirt as well.
It is a mess. I just hope that if Runtime is the sinking ship that it deserves to be, everybody who's under contract to them gets a chance to jump clear before it heads to the bottom.

[wotakubrandon]

Agreed. I was so excited when ZONE came back but was a little gutted when Tomoka left so suddenly but still it was nice to have them around in some capacity. The whole thing has been kind of spoiled now that Runtime is showing their ass.

[TotallyUncool]

Someone at H!O suggested an interesting possibility -- that Sony might own the ZONE brand, rather than Runtime. That would be a lot better.
And that raises another possibility -- this could be part of a larger, behind-the-scenes conflict -- possibly between Runtime and Sony for control of ZONE. If that's the case, then given what's happened so far, I think there's no question that it would be much better for Sony to be in control. At least they've got some basic music-industry common sense. I wouldn't trust Runtime to take out the garbage at this point.

[wotakubrandon]

The thought had run through my mind yesterday that it might actually be Sony influence and not Runtime that caused this but I don't know enough about either to make an accurate guess or theory.

[TotallyUncool]

If it's a conflict between Sony and Runtime for control of ZONE, then it looks to me as if either Runtime panicked and made a seriously bad move, or whoever is in charge at Runtime is making some very irrational decisions. Sony is big, corporate, and professional, so I'd expect their public actions to be very smooth, with any dirty work being done by lawyers working behind the scenes. Runtime is relatively small, and pretty far from the centers of entertainment-industry power, which (I think) makes it more likely to be in the hands of one person (or a small group) whose judgment and understanding of how to successfully do business in the music industry may not be very good at all. In any event, their recent moves have hardly been smooth.

One little bit of maybe-evidence: Currently, Runtime's web site still lists ZONE as part of their lineup, but the graphic just shows a plain-looking ZONE logo, with no indication of who's in the group. That may just be a case of "we don't know what we're going to wind up doing with it, so we'll keep the name up there," but it could also be an attempt to aassert their rights to the name. It's hard to say, but like just about everything else about this situation, it looks kind of weird and thrown together.

[wotakubrandon]

The name my be a use it or lose it kind of thing. I know people that have movie rights have to actually USE the rights or they revert back to whoever had them before. It's why Fox keeps making X-men movies, as long as they do Marvel can't.
Also apparently Maiko is in a group called Jack&Queen which I didn't know until about an hour ago so she may be gone too and they might add new members of ZONE.

This is a mess.

[TotallyUncool]

If Runtime tries to pass of a fake ZONE, nobody's going to buy it!

Someone at H!O pointed out that ZONE's main songwriter, Norihiko Machida, quit Runtime in 2005, and has been working as a music teacher since then -- having apparently abandoned songwriting altogether (a strange thing to do, given his brilliant track record). At the time, as I recall, the official story was that he didn't want to write songs for anyone but ZONE -- which fit with the heavily sentimental atmosphere surrounding ZONE's breakup, but in general, that kind of resolution is good for maybe two or three years on the outside.

And as it turns out, he's been keeping a blog, in which he apparently hasn't mentioned ZONE, Runtime, etc. at all. His most recent entry is from January 31. Two people talk about the Miyu story in the comments, but that's it. More ZONE/Runtime-related mysterious-silence creepiness...

[wotakubrandon]

That seems to be common in Japanese industry though. I want to say Maki Goto is the only person I can think of who left their agency and talked about her time there while signed to a different one.

[TotallyUncool]

Maiko gets the sad and thankless job of burying ZONE, and ending what's already ended. I think, though, that she'll handle it with grace -- which is a lot mofe than I can say for Runtime.

[erilaz]

Here's the Tokyohive article, for those who can't read Maiko's announcement:

http://www.tokyohive.com/2013/03/zone-m ... rate-ways/