I know this information has been around for awhile, but I wanted to make this a rather lengthy post when I talked about because I am just so happy about this news. I had hoped that Kis-My-Ft2 would get a solo concert sometime while I was in Japan so this is a huge highlight for the year for me. So without a doubt I'll be going to one of the concerts at least, though I'm going to aim for attending more than that.
I am just so happy for Kisumai. I really thought they would just get a few concerts in the Tokyo and maybe Osaka areas like most Junior groups get. A national tour is a big thing for any Junior group, as it's pretty rare for Juniors to have concerts away from Tokyo or Osaka, the two main cities and biggest in populations in Japan. So I think this really shows that Johnny's has faith in Kisumai to be able to bring in people from all around Japan to see them live. Even if most of the venues aren't large they still have more shows scheduled than the usual Hey! Say! JUMP tour and will be going to more cities than HSJ has gone, even though HSJ is a debuted group. Though I'm thinking a reason behind this is that Kisumai no longer has any members under 18 or in high school so they can do the longer and more time consuming tours that HSJ can't do yet with about half it's members still being minors.
In any case with the current list of dates and times for the tour shows the estimated number of attendees right now is just a little more than 100,000. This number can go up easily depending if there are more dates/shows added to the tour. And in my opinion for a group that hasn't had its members star in dramas or movies and have just had their fanbase built from being on the same shows most other Juniors are shown on as well for the most part, I think it's pretty impressive. Not to mention it shows they could have great potential if given those kinds of chances they haven't had yet.
And when it comes to this leading to a debut, I'd definitely say it's possible. Especially looking at the past debut patterns of Johnny's groups. I think it's pretty much established that the volleyball debut groups are given the young and cute image as their base when they debut. It takes years for that image to really be shed even if they ramp up on things like sex appeal as the members get older, like how Arashi was the group of cute and rainbows right up until they really began to take off in the past couple of years. Looking at the kinds of groups that Johnny's tends to debut between those volleyball groups they tend to be older and don't usually share the same image of young and cute.
Like after Arashi debuted there was Tackey & Tsubasa's debut when they both were 20 years old. Then after NEWS there was the Kanjani8 debut, which was a very different group with much older members than the youngest in NEWS, as well as KAT-TUN later, which was another group that debuted when it's members were older and went for the sexy image to contrast with NEWS' young and cute.
I think maybe Johnny's might have been trying to see if they could have two young and cute groups debut back to back with Nakayama Yuma w/B.I.Shadow after HSJ, but realized that it wouldn't work out. I say this because the NYC boys LE version of the YuBIS single is near impossible to find, and has been pretty much since the 1st week of the release. The other LE version of the single that mainly features YuBIS on the other hand is still easy to find in stores in Japan. So I think Johnny's was afraid that the group would not be able to sell to the levels they would expect without the support of a group like NYC boys. Which is a pity for the boys of YuBIS but Johnny's is first and foremost a business and if they felt they wouldn't be able to get the group to sell then it's understandable from a business perspective. Though it seems rather cruel for the boys as Johnny's has had groups that didn't start out strong but raised themselves up over their careers, like SMAP and Kanjani8 being the best examples of this.
In the end though there's little use arguing with what's happened. But I think this has given Kisumai a better chance at debut. The next volleyball debut should be in 2011 to keep the every four years schedule Johnny's has been keeping for these debuts and there hasn't been an instance yet where there was no group debut between the volleyball debuts. Since YuBIS seems to have fallen through the next likely candidate looks to be Kisumai. They seem to be the most popular Junior group with the amount of uchiwas I've seen for them at the KAT-TUN concerts I attended, plus they have been given some great oppurtunities to draw in more fans such as Tamamori being a Gokusen boy and the group taking over PLAYZONE from Shounentai. And of course they wouldn't have the same group image as HSJ, as they play up the sexy image just as KAT-TUN does. So it's quite likely that Johnny's would go back to the formula that's worked before and debut a group like Kisumai next, probably in 2010 as it will be a late 2011 debut for the next volleyball debut to go with the tournament held at that time.
Of course with Johnny's nothing is written in stone until it's already happened and they could still chose to do something else, like just not debut another group until 2011 or create a new group to debut instead. But I know me and other Kisumai fans are hoping that won't be the case and all the activities Kisumai has been doing recently are all leading up to a major debut for the group finally.
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