Johnny's wants a Junior Kouhaku & reveals JaPAnese HI!

Well the Junior concerts at NHK Hall with both Tokyo and Kansai Juniors have rapped up but not without a couple of big announcements. The first is that this concert will be aired on New Year's eve on TV Asahi and that Johnny's wants to make the concert a yearly program to be like a Johnny's Kouhaku citing how difficult it is to get young groups on Kouhaku.

The other is that they have selected 52 Juniors from recent auditions to be a part of a new Junior group JaPAnese HI! (ジャＰＡニーズ HI!).

Tokyo Graph article. (English)

I did some digging and it looks like JaPAnese HI! is a bit of a recycled name as there was an old Junior group called JaPAnese that was active from 1978 to 1982.

Wikipedia (Japanese)

There's definitely things I want to say about these turns of events, especially JaPAnese HI! , but I think I'll make other posts on the matter latter once I've gotten my thoughts more straightened out and the homework I need to finish done.

Johnny's school calendars 2011-2012

Well it's that time of year for the Johnny's school calendars to be listed. In the end after debating it I decided to order the Junior calendar this year, though I had at first wanted to get the NEWS one. But I figure there's still three or four years before NEWS will stop releasing a calendar and the bonus that the Junior calendar had was probably something that they wouldn't do again another year. Though I do wonder if NYC will ever get a calendar but I guess they would have to take Nakayama Yuma out of Junior status to do that.

Onto the calendar listings. According the CDJapan the NEWS calendar is: A4-size page-two-week calendar / 64 pages + 8 pages with 32 photo cards] Includes an original masking tape with logo.



The Kanjani8 will be: [Spec: A2-size] Includes an original masking tape with logo.

2011-2012 Johnny's School Calendar: KANJANI8 Calendar "2011.4 - 2012.3" Johnny's official calender / KANJANI8

KAT-TUN: A5-size (the size should be the standard wall size calendar)



Hey! Say! JUMP: Book-shaped.



And the Johnny's Junior calendar: Johnny's official calender of April 2011 - March 2012 featuring Johnny's Jr. such as Kis-My-Ft2, A.B.C-Z, B.I.shadow, 7WEST, Shintaro Morimoto, and more for 100 people total (subject to change). [Spec: A4-size calendar] It can be displayed as a desktop or a wall calendar. Includes an Yuma Nakayama calendar.



Of course being the big Nakayama Yuma fan I am there really was no way I could pass that up.Though I do hope next year he'll be in a calendar with group mates, whether it be NYC or a new debut group.

Fujigaya Taisuke & Kitayama Hiromitsu in Misaki No.1 drama

I believe a couple of weeks ago there was an announcement about a new drama for the winter season on NTV called Misaki No. 1. At the time the only cast member revealed was for the main character Misaki, a #1 hostess that is asked to teach a class of trouble students. What really caught my attention about the series was that in the article for the announcement it brought up that a few of the main people that worked on the Gokusen drama series was working on this drama. Of course it seemed like an easy fit as the overall plot of the two dramas seems pretty close so I began to hope that it would mean that we would be getting some Johnny's as a part of the cast.

In my mind if there were to be Johnny's that would be a part of this drama they would either be from Hey! Say! JUMP or Kis-My-Ft2 and it turns out I wasn't too far off. Though I don't think I would have guessed the ones who got the roles would be the ones.

But it has been announced that Fujigaya Taisuke and Kitayama Hiromitsu will be the two lead students in the drama.

NTV official site with cast list. (Japanese)

I'm really only surprised at Fujigaya and Kitayama getting these roles because of their ages, but if my gut instinct is right, and this is the big sign of Johnny's getting ready to debut Kis-My-Ft2, it makes sense. Even though they've promoted Tamamori a lot the two main vocals and leads of the group are Fujigaya and Kitayama so having the Japanese public know them the best would make sense so they can be the face of the group. Or the ones that get people's attention at first and will hopefully make them fans of the rest of the group over time.

So I'm hoping that this drama will be able to be as successful as the Gokusen series and we'll be hearing about a Kis-My-Ft2 debut in the first half of 2011.

Upcoming winter drama news

As the Winter drama season approaches there of course cast announcements coming out.

This season Masaki Aiba will be the member of Arashi starring in a drama. The drama is based off of a popular manga series called, Bartender. It will air on TV Asahi in January and Aiba is the only known cast member so far.

Tokyograph article. (English)

I honestly will be surprised if there isn't a new Arashi single coming out that isn't tied to this drama. But we're still a ways off from Johnny's making release announcements for releases in 2011.


In other drama news, Tegoshi Yuya will be a part of the main cast for the upcoming drama, Deka Wanko. The drama will air on NTV beginning in January.

Tokyograph article. (English)

61st Kouhaku Johnny's

Well I've been without power for about two days from the snow where I live. It was miserable but I am quite enjoying warmth and the wonders of electricity now.

While I was without internet NHK put out their list for the performers participating in the 61st Kouhaku program. There's a lot of old faces returning which includes the Johnny's groups that performed on the show last year, SMAP, TOKIO, Arashi and NYC.

Official NHK Kouhaku website artist list.

Personally I would rather see Hey! Say! JUMP on the list instead of NYC but I guess that may not happen anytime soon. I just hope NYC has something just as completely ridiculous this year as they did last year. Those belts were pure Johnny's costuming epic-ness. XD

'Tis the season for concerts

As this year starts to near its end it means there is a slew of concert announcements for the Holiday season and for early next year. To catch up on the most recent announcements I'm just going to a quick run down of them. More information can be found on Johnny's net.

Hey! Say! JUMP will be having their annual winter concerts. The first will be on Christmas day in Nagoya and they will finish up January 16th in Osaka.

Kis-My-Ft2 will be having another solo tour beginning at the end of December and will go through February. Which explains why they won't be doing Takizawa Kakumei this year.

And speaking of which, A.B.C.-Z, Mis Snow Man and other Tokyo Juniors in January plus Nakayama Yuma will be in this year's Takizawa Kakumei.

The most surprising of concert announcements has been Yamashita Tomohisa's upcoming solo concert tour in Asia. He will be doing concerts in his home country as well as Taiwan, Hong Kong and Korea. The tour will have several breaks in its run and will begin on January 29th and end on April 24th.

For this tour he will be releasing a solo album which should come out in January, 2011.

Tokyograph article. (English)

New drama for Kusanagi Tsuyoshi & Akanishi Jin wants you (to attend a taping)

This month is full of Johnny's related news and I feel bad that I've been so busy I haven't been able to update with it to keep up. But out of all the problems to have this is one I don't mind much at all.

First off SMAP's Kusanagi Tsuyoshi will be starring in a new drama series for this upcoming winter drama season. It will air on TBS and is titled Fuyu no Sakura (which translates to Winter Cherry Blossoms). It is said to follow the same kind of plot as the mega popular Korean drama series Winter Sonata.

Tokyograph article. (English)

Then Akanishi Jin will have a live performance, which will be broadcast by MTV Iggy, that was issued a 'casting call' for 50 fans to be in the audience for it. It will be in New York City on the 20th of November.

For more information you can check out MTV Iggy's application form for the event.

Tokyograph article. (English)