Kotaku says in its post here:
Increasingly, Japanese authorities have been cracking down on drugs and celebrities. Instead of letting these famous individuals off, like police seem to do in the U.S., the Japanese police and the country's media appear to make examples of them, stringing them out to dry. This might be a good thing! It also might be a bit much.
As Justin Sevakis puts it in his post here:
In Asia, it is expected that "talent" (singers/actors/show hosts/etc.) should be role models for society at large. When one gets in major criminal trouble (usually for drugs), what happens next is part of a very well-worn ritual.
Step 1: It's almost unheard of for the talent in question to fight the charge. Things will proceed as if they are completely guilty. If they're famous enough, there may be a press conference, in which they will apologize for letting down all of their fans, and cry a lot.
Step 2: The talent's management agency, record label(s), and any and all companies contracting that person to do work or appearances will immediately drop them from their rosters. Stores will remove their music, merchandise, and other media bearing their name from their shelves. Their listings will be removed from websites. I've never heard of whole anime series being pulled due to a voice actor getting in trouble, but it's fairly rare that a voice actor in prominent roles gets in trouble like this.
Step 3: Time passes, usually at least a year. The discs and merchandise that were pulled earlier quietly get put back on store shelves (and, presumably, streaming services). The talent works through the legal system, and once their debt to society is paid (any jail time, house arrest, or probation ends), the artist is free to try and restart their career, or go work at a convenience store. The artist is not re-instated at their old agencies, but is free to try again somewhere else and make a new start.
There are a few more such cases that have taken place in Japan such as the case with actor Shunta Nakamura, Manabu Oshio and others but the ones related to anime industry are as follows:
1. Noriko Sakai
Noriko Sakai, 44, was found guilty of possessing and using amphetamines in August 2009 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years. But unlike stars in much of the rest of the world, Sakai's conviction was marked as effectively the end of a career that made her popular across much of Asia.
Her record label, Victor Entertainment, had cancelled her contract and withdrawn all her albums from sale, while Toyota Motor had scrapped a lucrative advertising deal. However, in 2012 she returned to the entertainment business, and began performing in a stage play. She's since released new albums, and both it and a few of her older releases are back up on iTunes.
2. Ryo Aska
Ryo Aska of Chage and Aska was arrested for drug posession in early 2014, which caused Walt Disney Japan to remove the music video for the song "On Your Mark." Walt Disney Japan also removed the video from Studio Ghibli collection of short films that was previously released on DVD. In a way, Disney erased the short film from Studio Ghibli's back catalogue. It's as if it never existed. All Chage and Aska websites and social media accounts have either been frozen since then, or taken down, and are not active as of this writing.
