>>102577175The JP CEO wasn't actually a CEO.
It seems like JP had a separate P&L but not ultimate control of their own budget. They sent all money to the US main organization, and had to wait to get it back to pay out JP staff and talents.
So Makino is more like a "regional manager" than "CEO". The actual VShojo CEO, Gunrun, if the only one with answers and he's in hiding.
Makino (the JP "CEO") even took a pay cut this year, and was told that his pay cut would help pay the talents instead, but even he was lied to by Gunrun.
>>102577272It's more likely that they just mismanaged: bad merch logistics, bad coordination with sponsors, plus they overspent it on a mix of useless stuff and "new projects" that never got off the ground. They had 3 gens planned simultaneously! Until they could debut them and realize and money from that, any money they spent planning those gens was pushing them closer and closer to insolvency.