The nominees for the 2023 buzzwords of the year were announced Thursday, with many of the selections spotlighting public interest in the Johnny’s scandal, the World Baseball Classic, inbound tourism and recent advances in technology.
Two of the 30 nominations were linked to the sexual assault scandal involving late entertainment mogul Johnny Kitagawa. One was “seikagai” (sexual abuse) and the other was “enujī risuto/janīzu mondai” (“NG list/Johnny’s scandal”), referring to a blacklist of journalists the embattled talent agency was allegedly advised to avoid calling on during a news conference.
Two words are related to the WBC, which Japan won for the first time since 2009. The first is “akogareru no o yamemashō” (“let’s stop with the idolizing”) — the inspiring words that star player Shohei Ohtani delivered to his teammates before their final against the United States. Ohtani was urging his teammates to pause their idolization of star U.S. players so that they could outshine them.