07 October 2011

And then there were four.

It has been announced that NEWS is now set to become a four member group as Yamashita Tomohisa and Nishikido Ryo are withdrawing from the group. The group will continue with the other four members, Koyama Keiichiro, Masuda Takahisa, Tegoshi Yuya and Kato Shigeaki.

Yamapi stated that he will be leaving to pursue a solo career. Ryo on the other hand has said his decision comes from the fact that he can no longer keep a schedule to include both Kanjani8 and NEWS activities and did not want to hold the group back because of this.

Yahoo! Japan News (Japanese)

To be completely honest this is something I have felt has been coming for a couple of years now. The slow down of releases from the group being the biggest indicator as well as Yamapi picking up his solo career and it doing well for him. Yet even so it's a big blow to me as a fan, especially as NEWS was what made me a Johnny's fan and it was with their comeback single Hoshi wo Mezashite, where they were cementing the fact they were six members, that made me a fan of them.

One thing I had predicted if something like this would happen that I'm glad I was wrong about was that the group would be disbanded. I am happy that it will continue but it's just so bittersweet right now.

The small bit of silver lining for me was that the remaining four are my favorite members of the group. It's not that I didn't like Yamapi and Ryo but the other four just interested me more. So if we get releases for this new four member NEWS I'll support them fully and I'll be happy if I can finally make my dream come true with the group as it is now and see NEWS in concert one day. It may not be the same but unless they completely change out all the members of the group or they disband to me NEWS continues on for me.

Expect me to post a lengthier post later about the news. It hasn't been an hour since I found out so this is all pretty much a knee-jerk reaction so after I get to thinking about it some more I'm sure I'll have more to say on the matter. I think I'm only now really beginning to feel the heart break from it.

5 comments:

Amai Yume said...

0_0
Reading this...I'm shocked...not angry or upset...just shocked...

Like you, Yamapi and Ryo were my two least favorite members so my 4 favorites are left, which is good...ups the chance of Koyama and Shige getting more lines XD

As long as they have Massu, this group can still shine :P

The one thing I do worry about is their popularity...hopefully losing Yamapi and Ryo won't take too hard a hit on the group's popularity...

But I'm looking forward to the new NEWS...it makes sense that their releases were at a bare minimum if this was going on in the background...hopefully we'll be able to get a semi-regular release pattern from them

Jackie said...

I´m shocked but... didn´t we all expect something like this even a little bit?
Still, didn´t Yamapi always say that he won´t ever leave NEWS and that fans shouldn´t worry when he did solo stuff?
But it can´t be helped.
I feel that Ryo felt more comfortable around K8 than in NEWS and Yamapi seems to be really confident in his solo work.

It was long time very quiet around NEWS,I guess Pi and Ryo planned to withdraw since longer time.
I wonder how the other members felt? I think they also did see it coming.
I´m not sure if they´ll be successful as a 4 member group. It´s just that Pi and Ryo had many many fans but I hope that RyoPi fans will still continue NEWS.

Anonymous said...

I´m not a NEWS fan but this is sad.
so many people give the fault to Johnny-san, but it´s not his fault.
Yamashita and Nishikido are all grown up men and they know what they want to do or what they don´t want. It´s their own decision but I wonder if they thought of the other members. Both know that they have a bigger popularity than the rest of News.
Somwhow I think they are acting egoistic, especially Yamashita.

Anonymous said...

Yamapi was the leader of NEWS but what kind of leader is he , who betrays and leaves his own group behind..........???!!!

Thennary Nak said...

@ Amai Yume

It was pretty shocking for me too. I felt like it could happen but even so I don't feel like I was ready for it to actually happen.

I'm sure they'll take a hit to the popularity of the group. Yamapi and Ryo were the two most popular members but I hope even so this new NEWS does well.

I hope they regularly release things again as well. It will be interesting to see in what direction the group goes now.


@ Jackie

Even if it was expected it still hits hard. I guess it would be worse if there hadn't been any signs for this.

He did and I think that's why a lot of NEWS fans are angry at him.

I'm sure there was a lot of talk about things before the public got the announcement, in fact in Koyama's statement he mentions that the group discussed this many times so I'm sure they knew that this was going to happen some time ago.

I'm not sure how successful they will be either but I plan on supporting them no matter what.


@ Anonymous #1

I actually see more people blaming Yamapi for this than anyone else. But I do agree that Yamapi and Ryo are the ones who made the decisions and if anything management just agreed with them.

I wouldn't say Ryo has made his decision because of his ego. Out of the two I think his reasons are pretty understandable and with K8 having gotten as popular as they did it makes sense he wouldn't be able to keep up being in both groups anymore.

I won't argue about Yamapi though.


@ Anonymous #2

He may have been called leader but in most recent years I've felt Koyama was much more of a leader than he was. Which I guess is yet another example of his poor leadership skills.