Beating the Odds.

There's been a topic that's been milling around in my thoughts for a while but only recently become prominent enough that I feel that it's worth it to really look into. And that is simply the odds any Junior in the Johnny's Jimusho has in reaching the treasured goal of debuting. I'm still in mid-thought about it but I wanted to write what I have so far so I wouldn't forget about these points later.

For me I like finding patterns, so I look to the past to try to find my answers for the future. I can't say I am all too familiar with the older JE groups so I am only going off with what information I can find for them. So to help myself out I made a list of all the groups from SMAP onwards and noted which ones were Junior groups before debuting and how many were in the group when they debuted.

SMAP (Junior group debut) (6)
Tokio (Created at debut?) (5)
V6 (Created at debut) (6)
Kinki Kids (Junior group debut) (2)
Arashi (Created at debut) (5)
Tackey & Tsubasa (Created at debut?) (2)
News (Created at debut) (8)
Kanjani∞ (Junior group debut) (6*)
KAT-TUN (Junior group debut) (6)
Hey! Say! JUMP (Created at debut) (10)

From the list the only group I could not find a reference to about whether or not they were a Junior group or not was Tokio. Out of the other nine groups four of them were Junior groups before debuting and four (the volley ball groups) were created for the debut, while Tackey & Tsubasa is an odd one as they were meant to be solo artists but because of Takki and the fans ended up debuting as a duo so I'm not 100% on what to list them as.

I honestly have to confess I originally thought there wouldn't be so many Junior groups that ended up debuting as a unit. Perhaps it's because Hey! Say! JUMP was the most recent debut. But seeing as about half of the current Johnny's acts were together as Juniors before hand, gives me a bit more hope for the current Junior groups to be able to debut together. Of course I don't think they all will do this, but at least it seems more possible than it did before to me.

Looking at the numbers it can be seen that since 1991, out of all the hundreds of Juniors that have come and gone from Johnny's only 56 have managed to debut (two of them twice with Ryo and Uchi debuting with News and Kanjani8), over half of them in just the past five years. Of course there have been a few loses since then, but right know I'm focusing on debuting not what happens after.

For Hey! Say! JUMP's debut concert it was reported that about 200 Juniors participated. I knew I was shocked to learn that there were that many Juniors. It was also then that I began to wonder about what chance does any Junior have to reach the final goal of debut. And it really does seem small even when you look at a large group like HSJ and compare it to those 200 Juniors that participated at their concert. That's 5% of the Juniors of that year (assuming that 200 is the actual total of all the Juniors at that time) of the Juniors that were able to finally debut.

If you estimate that the number of Juniors that actually perform on Shounen Club, as in both singing and dancing, regularly is roughly about 40, that's about 20% of 200. Which leaves 80% of the Juniors as only back dancers, most nameless faces to viewers. Out of that 20% performing on SC are the ones that get picked to debut. Even Keito, who had almost no time as a participating Junior, performed at least once on Shounen Club before HSJ was debuted, so I'm pretty sure this observation holds true. And while people gripe about HSJ having too many members I don't think the Juniors do, as with that debut about 25% of that 20% was taken out of SC, allowing others that were nameless back dancers to move up. And while I don't think we're going to see another huge group like HSJ for some time there's no doubt that the numbers are looking better for some of those 20% on SC. And of course they're all much better off than the other 80% of the Juniors.

Age of course is something that needs to be taken into consideration, so I decided to make the list again, this time listing the age range between the eldest member of a group and the youngest of the groups at the time of their debut.

SMAP (19-14)
Tokio (23-15)
V6 (24-14)
Kinki Kids (18-17)
Arashi (18-16)
Tackey & Tsubasa (20)
News (19-15)
Kanjani∞ (23-17)
KAT-TUN (22-20)
Hey! Say! JUMP (17-12)

Looking at this I wish I could find all those people that kept complaining about there being such a big age gap with HSJ, as their 5 years has nothing on the ten year gap V6 has. In fact a five year age gap seems quite normal, I think it was the ages that really threw people off as it was the first time a preteen debuted.

With the eldest person to debut at 24 most of the older Junior groups are actually okay age-wise for a year or two more. Yara of Butoukan and Yodogawa of Question? are 25 this year though, but I think with the younger members of their groups to balance things out a bit they still have a chance at debuting. But it will have to be soon for all the groups with members nearing 25, as Johnny's seems to like to debut younger than older. So I really wouldn't count the older Junior groups out just yet. Actually by going by age Toma could feasibly still have a chance at debut as he only turns 24 this year. I personally don't see it happening, but I wouldn't put anything past Johnny's.

So while it helps to be a teenager and performing on Shounen Club it hardly ensures that you'll get a debut. But even making it that far is pretty impressive to me as it means the Juniors on SC have been selected out of over a hundred other Juniors to be able to get a taste of a spotlight that they may one day attain. I'd like to think that it's a good deal of hard work that gets them selected, but I'm sure some of it comes down to luck and having the right kind of look/talent/attitude that JE is looking for as well.