Two weeks ago a female pop group called The Margarines debuted via a Tokyo news conference. Since Japanese show business has no shortage of young women who want to sing and dance in order to "fulfill their dreams," the new ensemble needed a gimmick.

At first, the premise seemed clever enough: All the members are in debt, and will thus be singing and dancing to pay off those debts. The appeal for fans will supposedly be watching them become solvent, so the singing and dancing is beside the point, but then it usually is with idol groups.

As pointed out in an editorial in this newspaper, what The Margarines are really selling is an implication of sexual availability, which is also true of most idol groups and makes the gimmick all the more disturbing. Human traffickers for the prostitution trade often prey on girls and women who are destitute or in debt. Some people will say that's reading way too much into The Margarines' business model — that these girls just want to be entertainers and this gives them an opportunity to do that — but this argument ignores the selling point, which is that they willingly make themselves available to fans in order to sing and dance and, in turn, get out of debt.