Announced January 17th, 2018 Johnny's will be having a new group, King & Prince (Kinpuri for short), getting a major debut. There is no set date yet for their debut CD but the time frame that was announced is that it should be sometime in Spring. The group will be debuting with a new record label that will be a collaboration between Johnny's and Universal Music Japan, that will be named Johnny's Universe.
News Article Oricon (Japanese only)
News Article Arama Japan
Honestly the part of this debut that has me the most interested is the creation of Johnny's Universe. Universal Music Japan is one of the more international friendly Japanese music companies, with full music videos being posted on Youtube and music on iTunes outside of Japan for example. Things international Johnny's fans would love to have for any and all the groups they follow. With the presence of Johnny's on Netflix recently, with Johnny's West getting a drama on the platform and Marius Yo having a role in the Netflix produced sitcom Fuller House there are signs that Johnny's is starting to think about letting the rest of the world know that they exist instead of staying in Asia. And if they want to go international then a partnership with Universal would be a good idea, as I doubt they would have what they would need to have in place for a venture with their own labels.
Outside of that the only Juniors in this group that I am interested in are Hirano Sho and Nagase Ren, as liked them as members of KinKan and Naniwa Oji. I have to get back into watching Shounen Club again to get a feel for the rest of the members as it has been a long time since I paid any attention to the Juniors outside of SixTONES.
In the end it is going to depend if I like their songs if I will follow them, though if they do release songs on iTunes I might just get those as they would be far easier to afford than a CD import. Plus it might finally help bring Johnny's closer to the modern day if this group does well with digital sales, which I am all for. I could get back to following more groups if I had to pay the usual iTunes prices for songs than importing.
Also for anyone who may want to doubt if this is more than a one shot single debut I would like to point out that a new music label has never been created for one of those. Music labels have been created for new debuted units, like Kinki Kids and KAT-TUN, so it is safe to assume Kinpuri is here to stay.
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