Who is friends with whom? Its cute and sweet when fandoms crisscrossed.

As reported,

[partial translation]

Johnny’s & Associates had a rich history that encompasses 5 decades and have produced idol groups, like: Hikaru GENJI, Shounentai, TOKIO, SMAP, KinKi Kids, and Arashi.

CD releases by J&A have always been a hit and Johnny’s have continued to be an overwhelming brand name, which is inherited by younger groups that plays an active part now. It is known that relationships among Johnny’s have started since the groups are in Juniors. For this reason, friendship among Johnny’s is valued no matter which group they came from.

(c)sugareth

A Johnny’s writer shares his knowledge about friendships and acquaintances among groups. For example, Hey!Say!JUMP‘s Yabu Kota is friends with A.B.C-Z’s Totsuka Shota since junior days, it is also known among fans that the two consults each other about work. Hey!Say!JUMP’s Arioka Daiki is also friends with Sexy Zone‘s Kikuchi Fuma that they even celebrate each other birthdays. Sexy Zone’s Sato Shori is well-loved by his seniors that he gets invited in Nakayama Yuma‘s house and ABC-Z’s Totsuka gives him clothes. Furthermore, KAT-TUN‘s Kamenashi Kazuya has been drinking buddies with ABC-Z’s Kawai Fumito and Kis-My-Ft2‘s Yokoo Wataru.

(c)itoshisa

“Most friendships formed during their Junior days because most of them goes home together or they practiced choreography’s for dance auditions. Also, it’s easier for some members to share their troubles to persons outside their group, but still from the same generation. Sometimes, they are friends with members in the same place as them like Kis-My-Ft2’s Miyata Toshiya and ABC-Z’s Tsukada Ryoichi. In addition, an objective advice from someone outside group is more helpful when members of the same group is having differences in opinions. Though there are times when the groups just ask their seniors for advice. The likes of SMAP‘s Nakai Masahiro and Tackey&Tsubasa‘s Takizawa Hideaki is known for laying emphasis into Junior training/upbringing . I think it is certain that it is one of Johnny’s strengths to inherit success experience,” according to a Johnny’s writer.

(c)hybrdi-angel14 via shatteredtenshi

The thing that an agency like Johnny’s was able to cultivate good human relationship and still continues to be at top of the entertainment world is indeed a huge deal and influence.

via realsound

an old article that basically summarizes almost every BFFs in Johnny’s, HERE.

Thank you Aoyama Theater…!

As reported,

(c)yarayarareta

Last June 6th, Tackey& Tsubasa‘s Imai Tsubasa chaired “PLAYZONE 1986…..2014~Thank you! Aoyama Theater” that was held in the same theater at Jingumae Tokyo. The work premiered in 1986 as Shonentai‘s starring stage; hence, PLAYZONE was staged every summer at Aoyama Theater and with the theater’s closing at the end of March next year, this will be the last show at the same theater.

Imai received the baton last 2010 to expand the stage together with Nakayama Yuma and Yara Tomoyuki. They did a medley of 24 songs including Shonentai’s “Kimi dake ni”. Imai, who performed onstage with a body fat ratio of 7% commented, “Although I’m lonely, I would like to return the favor to all fans of all generations who continued to support us with kindness for the past 29 years.”

Sakamoto Masayuki, Domoto Koichi, and Hey!Say!JUMP members also attended the show’s premier. Higashiyama Noriyuki also arrived with a Dom Perignon and choreographer Travis Payne celebrated his 43rd birthday.

“PLAYZONE 1986…..2014” will run until Aug 9th, which will be the 1208th performance since it premiered and is expected to mobilize 1,708,650.

via Nikkan Sports and Sanspo

(c)yaraniyarareta

Aoyama Theater will still be open and Tsubasa is such a nice guy.

As reported,

Schedule and cast for “PLAYZONE’15” has been announced. Actors line-up, includes: Imai Tsubasa, Nakayama Yuma, 4U, They Budou, “MAD“, Travis Japan, and Yara Tomoyuki.  24 performances are plan starting on January 6th to 22nd.

It was earlier announced that Aoyama Theater will closed down on March 2015 and PLAYZONE’s summer run this year will be their last. However, during the opening night last July 6th, it was announced that as a courtesy to Imai, PLAYZONE will still be allowed to hold performances next year.

For full schedule on PLAYZONE’15, check Tackey&Tsubasa‘s avex site.

via jnews1

Whether we admit or not, some fans are actually hoping that idol royalties from Johnny’s and AKB48 will produce a couple. Anyway, two JE idols are put into spotlight as they get involved with issues from 48 family. As for the other rumor, well, it isn’t too shocking. Involved parties, are: Tamamori Yuta, Abe Aran, and Nakayama Yuma.

(c)akb48matomemoryAKB48’s

• AKB48 Watanabe Mayu likes Tamamori Yuta?

Watanabe Mayu had her private instagram account hacked by whocares and shared some of her not so controversial pictures. One of which is Mayuyu posing beside a “Kis-My-Ft2‘s BUSAIKU!” signage with a caption : “In fact, it’s Kiss my Tamamori ota.” The said caption fuel rumors that she likes Tamamori Yuta.

Good riddance, I ship these two! BTW, the “whocares” mentioned above has suspended his/her account.

• HKT48’s Murashige Anna Calls Shukan Bunshun’s article a “fabrication”

Murashige have spoken and completely denies dating Johnny’s Jr. Abe Aran that was reported by Bunshun. In her so-called apology video, Murashige dismissed Bunshun‘s article as a “fabrication” and cited that she has “man phobia”.

For someone who is out with a guy at 2am, you call that a phobia?! I know that you’re trying to protect yourself and your career but your reasoning is just bullshit. 

• Nakayama Yuma is seen smoking

While there are no pictures for proof, Women’s Weekly reported that Nakayama Yuma was seen smoking during filming. According to the news, Yuma had cigarette breaks in between filming and even during one of his “High Five” events earlier this year. Nonetheless, Johnny is said to be tolerant to smokers as Yuma never goes smoking without being surrounded by staff.

I’m against smoking and Yuma is only 20 yrs old so a picture might cause a scandal. I hope he will stop smoking but it seems to be very common among Johnny’s so maybe it’ll be hard for him to stop after all. 

via Johnny’s-Watcher 1, 2, and Rakuten

Cheers to the past 3 decades…

Last Jan 22nd, the cast of PLAYZONE lead by Tackey&Tsubasa‘s Imai Tsubasa, Nakayama Yuma, and Yara Tomoyuki among other Johnny’s Jrs, bid farewell to Aoyama Theater. Titled as: “★Sayonara!～Aoyama Theater★ PLAYZONE 30YEARS ★1232 Performance”, PLAYZONE did their final performance and a ceremony was held after the final curtain.

PLAYZONE stage have evolved throughout the years since it started in 1986 with Shonentai as the chairmen until their kouhais succeeded them. PLAYZONE will be celebrating their 30th year next year once Aoyama Theater opens again. The said theater will be closed for repairs by the end of the month, and the place have been considered as a sacred place for  fans. So far, PLAYZONE performed 1232 times and had mobilized 1,730,000 people.

Tsubasa, who is PLAYZONE’s chairman for the past six years, gave a thankful speech. “There’s mixed emotions, I don’t want to be sad and I should not say goodbye either. The theater is packed with history to the extent that we performed 1232 times. Words is not enough but it’s the best treasure to have done it for six years. Thank you.”

Nakayama Yuma also commented, “There were many memories but what I can say is that PLAYZONE is the best!”

Shonentai’s Higahisyama Noriyuki and Katsuhide Uekasa were also present during the final curtain. Higashiyama commented that he found the theater amazing since his youth while Katsuhide said that he had seen the growth of juniors and he’s impressed. TOKIO‘s Yamaguchi Tatsuya also attended final day since he was also part of PLAYZONE before he debuted in TOKIO.

via jnews1, Nikkan Sports, and Sanspo

Image credits : kaysma

Since I’m too lazy to translate some of these stuff, here is a rundown of what’s happening in Johnny’s land collated from Feb 13th-15th. Involved parties, are: Nakayama Yuma, Arashi, Kamenashi Kazuya, and SMAP.

• NYC is a such a thing of the past and Yuma is getting by with his solo career. In fact, Nakayama Yuma will go on a solo tour titled “Nakayama Yuma First Solo Concert 2015“. There will be a total of 6 performances from 3 venues and more details can be found on Johnny’s Web.

• In never ending rankings and because it’s V-day weekend, Oricon surveyed 500 women ranging from teens to 50’s on who among today’s actors they want as a lover. Arashi’s Aiba Masaki places 3rd among Johnny’s included in the poll. Other Johnny’s included, are: Matsumoto Jun (6th), Ohno Satoshi (7th), Sakurai Sho (8th), Ninomiya Kazunari (9th), and Kamenashi Kazuya (10th). I guess that Kame’s love scene from “Second Love” did wonders to voters imagination.

• Those papa-pics of Arashi’s Ohno Satoshi in Las Vegas and Matsumoto Jun aren’t some look-a-like. XD. Their journey together will be featured in “Arashi ni Shiyagare” as they drive around Los Angeles to eat hotdogs, ride helicopter for Grand Canyon’s sunset tour, and Ohno gets his try in fishing at Lake Mead.

(c)NASASMAP

• SMAP‘s “SMAPxSMAP” featured NASA‘s satellite, which is coincidentally called SMAP. Well, NASA’s SMAP doesn’t stand for “Sports Music Assembly People” but for “Soil Moisture Active Passive“. Still, it’s cool to have a satellite with the same name as yours.

That’s all for now, I’m leaving you with this creepy yet hilarious Kanjani8 gif.

(c)navybluetears

Its the middle of summer and before I melt from this intense summer heat, here are some news and not-so-news that I’m too lazy to translate fully. Involved parties, are: Nakayama Yuma, Yamada Ryosuke, Tamamori Yuta, Katori Shingo, and Matsumoto Jun.

(c)yatsuyoriimhotter

• There’s life after NYC and aside from promoting his single, “YOLO Moment”, Nakayama Yuma is off to his solo tour this May. The said tour will happened in three cities with six performances.

• Speaking of NYC, former NYC and still Hey!Say!JUMP‘s center, Yamada Ryosuke, is starring in the movie “Ansatsu Kyoshitsu“. The said movie have mobilized 2 million audiences and a movie reviewer have good words for Yamada’s first movie. The writer described him as “petite” and “coupled with woman features”, and also mentioned that Yamada shows no discomfort in playing a high school student even though he’s already an adult. Come to think of it, is the writer being sarcastic? haha. Well, high school student rank as no.1 among Johnny’s most popular role according to my survey. XD

• It was announced that there will be a live-action Death Note TV drama. Even though the movie had been well received, plans for the drama has been criticized for being placed in a late-night timeslot and the chance that someone from EXILE or Johnny’s will play the main roles, which is like scarier than the Shinigami.

• As reported earlier, Kis-My-Ft2‘s Tamamori Yuta will have his silver screen debut opposite of Nishiuchi Mariya in “Raintree no Kuni“. The movie will hit the theaters on Nov 21st and for his first movie, Tamamori underwent some speech training since his character is a Kansai native. Uhm, he can always ask Kanjani8 for help.

(c)yanie02

• The gorgeous cast for “Galaxy Kaidou” starring SMAP‘s Katori Shingo and Ayase Haruka had been revealed. Aside from the two stars playing an alien couple, Oguri Shun, Endo Kenichi, Akimoto Sayaka, Nishida Toshiyuki, Yuka, Yamamoto Koji and more will join them in Galaxy in this Mitani Koki movie.

• Speaking of gorgeous, Arashi’s Matsumoto Jun is back gooing babies and showing to us that he is a father material in his new CM for Goo. Check it out, here.

That’s all for now, stay hydrated and cool like Riida.

(c)shima551

Hi! I didn’t update this blog for almost a week and I feel so sad that I missed to translate a lot of news. Hopefully, I can resume and blog regularly starting this June but for the meantime, I just have to schedule most of my translations.

Anyway, how’s your summer? It’s extremely hot here that even though I gave up on soda, there’s nothing like a chilled soda to refresh me during summer. Speaking of refreshing, here are some trending Rants & Raves : #hashtag

• Takahata Mitsuki is Kamenashi Kazuya’s heroine for his stage play under Ninagawa Yukio. 

I don’t really know her, she looks like that girl from AKB who shaved her hair after a scandal. Well, she might be Kame’s heroine but let’s all comfort ourselves with the mentioned of “tragic love story” in this play’s synopsis. #mean #bitterfan #toolazytolookforthenameof AKBgirl

• Arashi’s new single, “Aozora noshita, Kimino tonari”, PV was filmed at HOUSE646. After Arashics/Arashians learned about the house’s location, some fans bombard the house with inquiries for a tour and some fans loiter outside of the house even with the absence of the owner. So, the owner issued a really nice apology to fans that a tour is out of the question since the house is a residential property and they want their neighborhood quiet.

Some fans are really scary, like sick. It’s not like they (Arashi) might have left something in the house and touching the house wouldn’t be “feel like” you’ve touched the members in person.  #learnyourboundaries #youreonestepawayfrombeingastalker #sorryforpostingtheaddress

• Writer Nojima Shinji praised Yamapi and Masataka Kubota for their respective portrayal in the drama, “Flowers for Algernon”. Nojima said that Yamapi showed “purity” and gives “healing effect” in the drama.

I still haven’t seen this drama, but hearing the comment of the scriptwriter is either he’s genuinely impressed with Yamapi’s acting or he’s just promoting the drama that he wrote. Well, whatever it is, the ratings for the 3rd episode went UP sp Yamapi might be doing something good. #hesobviouslyimpressedwithMasatakaKubota

• In Goo ranking, people were polled on which celebrity they were surprised to learn that he/she is from Osaka. Two JE made the poll and they are NEWS’s Shigeaki Kato (7) and Nakayama Yuma (9).

Ehhh….I have no idea! Yuma looks so Tokyo-ish, not that I know how determine who is from Tokyo and who is not. haha #whyisShigenotinKanjani8 #sorryIdidntknowthis

• On another Goo ranking, people were polled on who they want to perform at Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Two JE groups made the list and that’s Arashi (3) and SMAP (7).

I’m sure they would choose a westerner or anyone with solid US career for this. #wellwecouldhope

Okay, that’s all for now! #StayHydrated #Thankyouforreading

Yehey for Yuma! This talented kid deserves it.

Nakayama Yuma made two special announcements during the first day of his solo concert at Tokyo Dome City Hall where he performed 22 songs including his latest single, YOLO moment. Johnny’s Jrs. showed their support with Yuma as well his senpai, SMAP‘s Katori Shingo, who sent him letters and whiskey.

Nakayama will star in a stage play this August in Japanese adaptation of Oscar Wilde‘s masterpiece, “The Picture of Dorian Gray“. Nakayama will play Dorian Gray, a man who remains young and handsome. In addition, Nakayama will star in Kushiki Rio‘s occult series “Haunted Campus” where he will play the role of a college freshman who can see ghosts. Haunted Campus is Yuma’s first movie. Nakayama commented that he’s inspired to be doing a stage play and movie and says that he will do his best even though he’s nervous.

Nakayama’s first solo concert tour will continue until May 9th in Osaka where he is expected to mobilized 15,000 audiences in 6 performances.

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” will run from August to September at Tokyo New National Theater while “Haunted Campus” will hit the theaters in 2016.

via Daily Sports and Nikkan Sports

Why have one when you can have two?

Kis-My-Ft2‘s Tamamori Yuta have been taking the lead in the stage play, “DREAM BOYS“, which he succeeded from his senpais, KAT-TUN‘s Kamenashi Kazuya and Tackey & Tsubasa’s Takizawa Hideaki. For the past two years, Tamamori is also sharing the stage with his fellow Kisumai members, Senga Kento and Miyata Toshiya. For this year DREAM BOYS will have two version, one stars Tamamori while the other stars Nakayama Yuma.

Tamamori and Nakayama have starred together in the drama, “Pin to Kona“, so this is like a reunion. However, they won’t be sharing the stage together since they will be performing separately. Tamamori will still co-star with Senga and Miyata while Nakayama will be with Sexy Zone‘s Kikuchi Fuma and Marius Yo.

There have been circulating rumors why there will be two versions of DREAM BOYS this year, one is that Kis-My-Ft2 will be extremely busy this September since they’ll be having a tour. The second one is that this move is like Tamamori passing on the torch to Nakayama.

Well, Nakayama have been active in stage plays particularly with PLAYZONE so I guess that DREAM BOYS will be easy for him. As for “passing on the torch”, I guess this will be a trial run for Nakayama seeing how the performance dates for Yuma’s version is shorter compared to Tamamori.

DREAM BOYS Tamamori version will run starting Sept 3-10, 15-16,and 22-30. While DREAM BOYS Nakayama version will run starting Sept 12-14 and 18-20.

via Johnny’s Times

It’s July, half a year has passed-by and jnewseng.com is two years old! I was having doubts whether I should renew the jnewseng.com or just stick with jnewseng.wordpress.com. After all, the latter is free. However, I got scared that all my posts under .com will be for nothing if I revert back to .wordpress.com since it’s highly likely that they will not redirected, so, okay, another $18.00 charged to my credit card.

Anyway, in lieu with my 2nd anniversary, here are some things that are worth raving or ranting.

• Kimura Takuya to Appear in “BUSAIKU?!”

For sure, Kimura will not be voted last. In fact, he doesn’t have to say anything or be and act COOL for that matter since women will automatically cling to him. Kisumai should take notes and learn a thing or two from him.

(c)kiyosumisengoku

• 100 stores will open for Arashi’s BLAST in Miyagi

100 stores with Arashians flocking the venue will surely give the prefecture enough money for their residents to go by. This is a really nice gesture from Arashi and I hope that those who will open stores won’t be ask for rental fees so they can take home all the goodies. 9.3 billion Yen is the estimated revenue that the prefecture can get in these four days affair. Who knows, you might see Sho or Matsujun buying some of the goods, in disguise of course.

(c)umast0113 The photo used here is for his “Dorian Gray” stage play

• Nakayama Yuma reveals PV for his single, “Tokoton Got it!”

What is with Yuma and those random English words in his song? Is this part of his English lessons? Anyway, Yuma shared that one scene he enjoyed while shooting the PV is playing football with a local football club. Oh and about the photo above, unfortunately, the six-pack is just airbrushed since I’ve seen the “before” photos.

• Mr. King VS. Mr. Prince aka Kinpuri debuted a song, “Summer Station”, during Mazda All-Star Game 2015 at Tokyo Dome

Congrats to them that they get to performed at Tokyo Dome as a new group. Will an official debut automatically follow? Hmmm….I think that JE is just testing waters, see who will be more profitable for the company, whether it’s Kinpuri or SixTONES. Name-wise, I prefer the latter.

• One of the most talented actors, Yamamoto Yusuke, revealed that he wanted to enter Johnny’s during his elementary days. The reason? It’s the Takizawa Hideaki effect. 

I once read Kanjani8’s Shibutani Subaru’s 10,000 words interview from MYOJO where he revealed that his mom sort-of pushed him to apply to Johnny’s because his mom likes Takki. Takki is surely popular during his junior days that even Yamamoto Yusuke is longing to be in JE just by seeing Takki. Anyway, Yusuke’s talents might be eclipsed by other Johnny’s favorites so it’s a good riddance that he never entered or tried to enter the agency.

That’s all for now, thank you for all the support and hopefully, I’m still blogging two years later.

(c)mobigyaan

It’s my 20th Bits & Pieces, a blog post that I started out of laziness to translate everything. Oh well, here are some news and not-so-news that I’m too lazy to translate or were too short. Involved parties, are: Yamada Ryosuke, Tegoshi Yuya, Inagaki Goro, Nakayama Yuma, KOKI, and Machida Shingo.

(c)NTV

• Shimizu Fumika will play as Yamada Ryosuke‘s heroine for his upcoming 24 Hr TV special drama, “Okasan, Ore wa daijoubu“. Okay, she’s not really the heroine but she will play as Sasaki’s (Yamada) classmate who has a crush on him and as expected, it will be an unrequited love.

(c)channel-ai

• NEWS‘s Tegoshi Yuya mentioned in his radio program that he wants to go back to Sweden for TegoMass’s 10th anniversary. Together with Masuda Takahisa, the duo will be celebrating their 10th anniversary next year and going to Sweden is Tegoshi’s wish. Tegomass, who debuted in 2006, released their first single “Miso Soup” at the said country and even made a promotional tour. I’m sure that Tegoshi and Massu have fond memories of Sweden and I’m sure the Swedish fans won’t also forget Miso Soup’s jacket cover.

• AKB girls have been a favorite guest in SMAP‘s variety shows and now, Inagaki Goro and former AKB center, Oshima Yuko, will be starring in a stage play titled “No. 9 Fumetsu no Sinretsu“. Goro will star as Beethoven in the said musical. In the picture above, Goro is already 41 and it’s either he really looks that young or it took a large amount of Photoshop to make him look like he just debuted.

• In another musical, Nakayama Yuma attended the production announcement for his first solo stage play “The Picture of Dorian Gray“. Yuma will play as the always youthful Dorian Gray and for his first solo stage play, Nakayama had 50 t-shirts made with picture of Dorian Gray at his own expense. Now that is generous.

• In the world of “Former Johnny’s”, KOKI, who have gotten another imechen, got the taste of his first overseas live performance with his band INKT at Brazil.

(c)machida shingo

• Another “Former Johnny’s”, Machida Shingo of Johnny’s Jr unit, MAD, opened a twitter account after resigning from Johnny’s and he’s also an aspiring designer. The close friend of Arashi‘s Ohno Satoshi and one-half of the “Omachi Combi” seems to be one of the designers behind the accessory brand called “LOL“. It’s cool that not only Ohno and Machida are BFF but they are also both artists. Not sure if this is his official IG page for LOL but do check it out, here. Who the heck is Cindy?

That’s all for now, I won’t be blogging this coming weekend since  I’m going on a vacay! To give you a clue where I’ll be going and because I want to brag…

Forget about rivalry between Nakayuma Yuma in this year’s double lead “DREAM BOYS“, Kis-My-Ft2‘s Tamamori Yuta says that his rival is his very self.

As reported earlier, Kis-My-Ft2 is back as the lead of popular stage play “DREAM BOYS”. The long-running stage play will have their 500th performance this year and this is the third consecutive year that Tamamori is the stage’s chairman. Joining Tamamori is fellow Kis-My-Ft2 members, Senga Kentoand Miyata Toshiya. Also, a first in DREAM BOYS history, there will be two versions this year that will be headed by Nakayama Yuma and Sexy Zone‘s Kikuchi Fuma and Marius Yo.

Tamamori shared that he was never satisfied with this past performances, he said that even though he stood onstage with all his strength, he always think how he could have done it differently after each performance. For that reason, Tamamori always look for a room to grow, aside from stage, he also does drama and movies. Lastly, he’s also not worried about the double cast since he consider himself as his only rival.

Stage-wise, I think that Yuma has more experience since he has done more stage plays than TV. As for TV, Tamamori has done more of it. Acting-wise, I’ll go with Yuma.

via Post Seven

Last Aug 15th, Nakayama Yuma attended the public dress rehearsal of the stage play, “The Picture of Dorian Gray“. The said play is Nakayama’s first starring role.

In the Japanese adaptation of Oscar Wilde‘s classic, Nakayama plays Dorian Gray, a man who sold his soul so his beauty would never fade. Nakayama joked that he felt like an actress for getting all made-up and added that despite the pressure, he remains confident.

In the play, Nakayama also has a shirtless scene and shares that he did strength training with dumbbells and a 2 km run. Even though Nakayama didn’t get to develop abs, he’s quite happy that he was able to developed his chest muscle. Where is that chest muscle?

(c)ringonokimi

Fellow Johnny’s Jr and co-star for the play, Nakada Hiroki, shared that he also did the same strength training as Nakayama, unfortunately, he didn’t get to develop any muscle.

“The Picture of Dorian Gray” will run from Aug 16th to 18th at New National Theater in Tokyo as well as additional performances on Sept 1st to 6th.

via Yahoo!Japan | Image via jameskiller

Nakayama Yuma and Yasui Kentarou has been announced as the lead roles of the new horror movie, “Haunted Campus”.

Based on the popular youth horror novel by Kushiki Riu, it is the story about a university research study. AKB48’s Shimazaki Haruka will also be be starring in the movie.

Yuma will be playing Yagami Shinji, a student who is easily frightened since he can see ghost. Haruka will be playing the heroine, Nada Koyomi, Yagami’s love interest. And Yasui Kentarou will be playing a student in the occult circle.

Plus, Yuma will be releasing “Feeling Me Softly” for the movie.

via jnews1