Arashi & Kinki Kids new releases

New release announcements have come out for two different groups, Kinki Kids and Arashi.

For Kinki Kids they will be releasing a new single called Time. It will come in two editions, a LE with a bonus DVD with music video and making of and a RE that will come with two B-tracks not on the LE.

Time [Regular Edition] / KinKi Kids

Time [w/ DVD, Limited Edition] / KinKi Kids

Arashi has announced two new releases a concert DVD, ARASHI 10-11 TOUR "Scene" - Kimi to Miteiru Fukei - DOME+, and a new album, Beautiful World. The DVD will come in two editions but like their last album the new one only has one edition, but it does have a first press version.

ARASHI 10-11 TOUR "Scene" - Kimi to Miteiru Fukei - DOME+ [Regular Edition] / Arashi

ARASHI 10-11 TOUR "Scene" - Kimi to Miteiru Fukei - DOME+ [Limited Edition] / Arashi

Beautiful World / Arashi

So it looks to be a great time to be an Arashi fan.

I only hope that June still has another single announcement that still has to be made. The Hey! Say! JUMP information hasn't been added to Johnny's net's New Release page and there's the week of June 22nd that is still free for a Johnny's artist to release a single.

New Hey! Say! JUMP single

I know I'm a bit late reporting this but mid-terms kinda got in the way.

But it was announced at one of Hey! Say! JUMP's concerts that they will be releasing their 7th single, Over, on June 29th. On Johnny's net they have some information about the single under Hey! Say! JUMP's section of the page. From that we know that the tracks of the CD will be be A-side Over, with the B-sides being Ai-ing -Aishiteru-, SCREW (Hey! Say! BEST song) and You got more (Hey! Say! 7 song).

Personally I'm guessing the CD isn't up on the new release page or for pre-order yet is because there are other releases for June that haven't been announced yet that Johnny's wants to put up first. I'm hoping one of of those releases would be Kis-My-Ft2's debut single as I would like to finally have a release date for that, not to mention to finally have it in my hands.

Higashiyama to be a father.

It has been announced that Higashiyama Noriyuki, who got married last year, will possibly become a father this year. A due date was not announced but it was mentioned that at earliest the baby will be born at the end of the year.

Tokyo Graph article. (English)

Congrats to Higashiyama and his wife.

Akanishi Jin to release Eternal digitally for charity

It has been announced that Akanishi Jin's debut song Eternal will be getting a digital release this Mother's Day (May 8th). This will be a new version of the song.

The song will be used as part of the Marching J charity project where every sale donating 100 yen to the relief effort.

natalie (Japanese)

Ikuta Toma to star in Bokura ga Ita films

It has been announced that Ikuta Toma will be starring in the Bokura ga Ita movie adaptions. The two films are adaptions of the shoujo manga series by the same name.

The filming for the films will begin in July and both will be released in 2012, with the second film being released into theaters only a month after the first.

Tokyograph article. (English)

Marching J baseball match

As it was announced earlier the next Marching J event will be a baseball game at the Tokyo Dome. It will on May 29th and while it will mainly be the Juniors there's quite a few of the debuted Johnny's participating as well.

List of participates:

V6: Sakamoto Masayuki & Nagano Hiroshi
KinKi Kids: Domoto Koichi
Tackey & Tsubasa: Takizawa Hideaki & Imai Tsubasa
NEWS: Koyama Keiichiro, Masuda Takahisa & Tegoshi Yuya
KAT-TUN: Kamenashi Kazuya, Taguchi Junnosuke, Tanaka Koki, Ueda Tatsuya & Nakamaru Yuichi
Juniors: Kis-My-Ft2, A.B.C-Z, B.I.Shadow, Morimoto Shintaro, Hip Hop JUMP, Sanada Yuma, Nozawa Yuki & other Johnny’s Jr.
Kansai Juniors: Uchi Hiroki, Nakayama Yuma, B.A.D., Shigeoka Daiki & other Kansai Johnny’s Jr.

Because it's not Johnny's if it isn't recycled.

I was searching through clips of the Johnny's groups of the 80s and 90s when I found this clip and noticed something familiar about this group, Shibugakitai, and the more recent group NYC.



I had always thought of NYC as a retro group, or at least a group that was paying homage to the groups of those decades. Their B-sides have a sound that is similar to the Johnny's groups of the 80s and 90s, which makes sense with their first single being a cover of a Hikaru Genji song. But it's a sound that has stuck with them since that single.

Finding this video also points towards NYC being styled after these older groups with the similarities of a teenage trio color coded with the three base colors. Shibugakitai wasn't the first to use this scheme either and I wouldn't be surprised that if searching through Shounentai videos I found them in those three colors.

It makes me wish I knew more about past Johnny's groups as I feel like I can appreciate NYC more because of this connection to groups of the past. They're not the only group that has such a connection either as Kis-My-Ft2 was created to be like Hikaru Genji, from the use of roller skates to having an older and younger set of members.

So I think it's rather unfortunate that there seems to be so little information about these older groups in English seeing as Johnny's has proven that while they keep trying to find ways their groups can be the first in something they are also always looking back to find what worked in the past so to try to see if it can also work in the present.