06 April 2010

KAT-TUN's Going! without Akanishi

It has been announced that KAT-TUN's upcoming single Going! will only feature the vocals of the 5 members of KAT-TUN that will be doing their world tour. Or more simply put Akanishi Jin will once again be left out of a KAT-TUN single. The last time this happened was back when he left to go the U.S. for six months and he was not on the Bokura no Machi de single. Of course he had little to no presence on the album cartoon KAT-TUN II You either because of his absence.

This has caused a stir and of course rumors that Jin may be leaving the group as he starts up activity in the States. Especially with reports that there is nothing scheduled for him to do once he ends his activities in the U.S. in October. Johnny's has denied this rumor and has insisted that he will still be a member of the group but has not let out any other official confirmation.

Tokyo Graph article. (English)

Honestly I don't think there's enough information that anyone outside of the agency is privy to that can confirm or deny the rumor. I'm sure if Jin's solo concerts prove to be incredibly successful Johnny's may try other attempts to break in to the U.S. market, but they aren't an agency that does things haphazardly or without making sure they have a good chance of success. While they may like to surprise the fans I don't think they enjoy surprises much themselves.

Plus this isn't the first time Jin has taken a leave of absence from the group so the chances of him eventually coming back to rejoin with KAT-TUN are probably just as good as him not, if not better as at least with KAT-TUN he has job security and something to do as it has proven very difficult for an Asian artist to break in to the U.S. so I'm sure if Johnny's wants to have him try it will be after they know they have the right connections to do so successfully.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

so he's not left the group right.
i bought this months issue of Duet Magazine.
it showed 5 members and then on the next page it showed the five together
without Jin.
then it showed jin on a seperate page.
any idea why that is?

Thennary Nak said...

Nope, he's still with the group. And unless Johnny's comes out and says otherwise he will remain a member of the group.

As I haven't seen the magazine myself I can't really give anything close to a definite answer. But as Jin is in the U.S. and has been for about a month now I would guess it may be because any photo shoots he does there won't match the ones the rest of KAT-TUN are doing and since they tend to use themes they may have thought it better to have Jin off on his own to not throw whatever photo theme they have for the group that month off.