Johnny's WEST 4 debut!

It was announced at Johnny's Countdown (which I sadly missed because of work) that we are indeed getting a Kansai Junior debut in 2014. The group will be called Johnny's WEST 4 and will have four members, Kiriyama Akito, Nakama Junta, Shigeoka Daiki and Kotaki Nozomu. No date has been given for their CD debut but it will most likely be in the first half of the year to go with the initial announcement for a Kansai group debuting from about a month or so ago.


I first off want to say that I am beyond happy that we are finally getting a Kanjuu debut. It has been about ten years since Kanjani8 debuted so this debut feels like it is long overdue. Especially for Akito and Junta who have been around for so long as Juniors. I am not surprised that Shigeoka made the cut, and with how he has been pushed recently Kotaki makes sense.

I am curious to how the group will shape up. As it is there is a large age gap between the eldest member, Junta, and the youngest, Kotaki, of nine years. But Kotaki will be turning eighteen in 2014 so the gap should not be too bad as they are all around adulthood, in fact Kotaki is the only under 20 member of the group.

Of course I see Akito as the leader of the group with Shigeoka as the face, though I would not be surprised if Kotaki eventually replaces him for that. But then again with only four members it probably will not matter too much as it is not like a member can be easily overshadowed when there are so few.

I just hope Akito and Junta are the lead vocals, as the other two are not nearly as song as vocalists. But I do expect this group to have all four members get solo lines, if partly because of size and partly because the younger members are probably going to be used a lot to bring in fans.


Now after getting the flailing out and hopes I will admit that this news was bittersweet. I really hoped that there would be more Kanjuu debuting with this, like the rest of 7WEST and perhaps also Hamada Takahiro and Hamanaka Bunichi. There are just so many Kanjuu that I feel are ready for debut and while I love the four that are getting this chance I just wish there were more with them.

A part of me hopes that maybe the CD debut is actually a one shot thing and they will have a career debut with other Kanjuu added onto the group afterwards, but I am filing that under "fool's dreams" for now.

I can only assume that perhaps with the smaller number of members for this group that perhaps Johnny's wanted to make sure this group would be seen as different than Kanjani8. And it would be nice to have a group that will not be able to shaft members when it comes to screen time and being on the jackets for the group's releases among the newer groups. I am just going to feel divided about this for some time.

But in the end I am still really happy, especially for Akito and Junta finally debuting, and together no less. So you expect me to be a Johnny's WEST 4 fan.