Monster 9 Applies for Bankruptcy

According to Sankei Biz, Monster 9, the production company who created and produces (or in some cases produced) SASUKE, the Muscle Musical, KUNOICHI, Sportsman No. 1, Kinniku Banzuke and VIKING applied for bankruptcy on the 11th of this month.

The company is 35億6600万円 (3,566,000,000 yen) in debt. The debt is split between Monster 9 (18億600万円) and Digital 9 (17億6000万円). Some of the articles note that there may have been some accounting fraud going on. Update: Maybe not fraud but definitely window dressing (粉飾決算), which I'm not sure is illegal or not.

An article on Sanspo says that SASUKE's future is uncertain right now (there was currently no show scheduled to be made).

Earlier in the year, the Muscle Theater in Shibuya, the home of the Muscle Musical, was shut down due to fire hazard violations and the Muscle Park in Chitose, Hokkaido was shut down (it is now open under new management).

Currently, the Monster 9 and  Muscle Musical (update: it seems like some of the member sites are still up but the ones with the musclemusical in their addresses are gone) sites are down. The SASUKE Mania site is still up but any contact information has been removed.

Monster 9 was first created in 2005 and in 2008 it's profits reached 31.5 billion yen.

Update: Creditors have until December 16th to file and there will be a meeting on March 12th, 2012 at 1:30 PM. The lawyer who will act as the trustee is one Shuuji Kitagawa (北川秀二).

Quick clarification: For those asking about the type of bankruptcy in this situation, refer to here. All the articles refer to 破産 (hasan) or more specifically 自己破産 (jiko hasan) which is voluntary liquidation. See section IV of the link provided.

Update: List of known Monster 9 creditors. I don't think the list is complete. All numbers are in the 10,000s.

Other articles:

TSR
IT Media News
Zaikei
NetIB News
ANN News
Asahi
Nico Nico
Yahoo Japan

Muscle Musical in the news マッスルミュージカルのニュース

OK, so I guess the Muscle Musical is well known enough that it can make mainstream news (the first two stories are in Japanese):

The first story is about a Muscle Musical member who is filing for compensation because she was hurt during the filming of an NHK show. The end of this story includes SASUKE and something about how the two shows were created by the same group and both HORRIBLY INJURE PEOPLE. Or maybe not. I could be exaggerating.
Edit: Here it is in English. For some reason, they left out that she was a Muscle Musical member.

This story is a bit old but it's about how three members of the troupe declined to join the Las Vegas troupe and then had their pay slashed and the union that was formed as a result. Here it is in English.

Finally, here is a month old story from the Japan Times Online about the creation of the show, one of the few in English.

Muscle Musical on Muscle Channelマッスルチャンネル におけるマッスルミュージカル

I've written about the Muscle Musical before but I haven't really shown you guys anything about the show yet. Well, right now on BS-i they are broadcasting the Muscle Channel (マッスルチャンネル), the latest show produced by the people who brought you SASUKE (hosted by 佐藤弘道 Hiromichi Sato). The Muscle Musical will be playing in Las Vegas and they also have their own theater in Shibuya。The Musical A Team will go to Vegas to spread the word while the B Team (I'm looking at YOU 知幸) will perform in Shibuya. Anyway, some kind soul with access to BS TV (I know, I know) has uploaded the Muscle Musical part of the first Muscle Channel episode that shows the history and the making of the 2007 version of the Musical. I'll embed part 1 here and give links to the rest. Thanks goes out to youtube user musclemusical (I don't think they are official)! It's eight parts that takes about an hour to watch but some of the stuff they do is pretty amazing. Enjoy!



Pt. 2
Pt. 3
Pt. 4
Pt. 5
Pt. 6
Pt. 7
Pt. 8