Amid the manipulation controversy regarding the four seasons of “Produce 101,” the Japanese version of the show has clarified its own voting process.

This is the first year of “Produce 101 Japan” and the show’s competition is currently ongoing, with it aimed to debut a new boy group in 2020 that will be active internationally.

Recently, the operations department for “Produce 101 Japan” issued a statement via the show’s website. In the statement, they clarified, “We inform you that ‘Produce 101 Japan’ is a Japanese version that is independent from the Korean ‘Produce 101’ and is produced with its own operation system, and it involves absolutely no corruption.”

The statement went on to say, “All of the vote aggregation for ‘Produce 101 Japan’ is being carried out impartially under the presence of staff members from several companies involved in production. Also, the CJ ENM staff and other people who were involved in the vote manipulation, who have been mentioned in several reports, are not working on the production of ‘Produce 101 Japan.'”

The statement then clarified that a team of staff members from several companies is carrying out the vote aggregation themselves, and it said that an outside lawyer that is completely separate from the production is taking part, ensuring impartiality.

It was recently reported that the police have found suspicions that all four seasons of the original Korean series of “Produce 101” were manipulated. Producing director Ahn Joon Young reportedly admitted to manipulating the rankings for “Produce 48” and “Produce X 101,” and it is said that the police’s investigation into the first and second seasons has uncovered differences between the number of votes revealed on the final episodes and the actual votes that were sent in by viewers.

Source (1)