The Good and the Bad of the Johnny's Fandom

As a female fan of J-Pop, the Johnny's Entertainment groups were some of the first to hook me into the genre and soothe my heart with the fact that though America had largely abandoned boy groups following the golden age in the 90s and early millennium, they were still alive and well elsewhere in the world. NEWS was my first Johnny's group, and from there I picked up KAT-TUN and Arashi and majorly fell in love with Kis-my-ft2 when they debuted (I supported Hey! Say! JUMP at a bit of a delay, but better late than never). These days, I've been following along with the new groups Sexy Zone, ABC-Z, and Johnny's WEST, while visiting old classics who debuted before I discovered J-Pop-- SMAP, Kanjani8, V6, etc

Balancing being a Johnny's fan with loving other J-Pop acts and supporting the K-Pop industry has been a challenge (see my post on being an Asian Pop generalist-- the struggle is real), and there's definitely been high and low points of being in the fandom:

The Good

1. The groups all interact with each other
Johnny's is very organized as an industry, and the groups are an even more closely knit family than competing labels and agencies in both Japan and Korea. The groups show up together on Shounen Club, the juniors work together and pair up with debuted groups as support for concerts, they often end up on the same episodes of Music Station or act in the same dramas, and visit each other's reality shows. The inter-group friendships are rampant!

Chinen fanboys over Ohno, and even gets to hang out with him, too!

2. Johnny's Jr. makes it easy to support members before they debut
Most Johnny's idols spend plenty of time as juniors so you can get to know them before they debut (the exceptions including Sexy Zone's Marius and Matsushima who had a very short training period), and the juniors actually have quite a few of their own activities for fans to follow along with so they can learn about and root for them until they debut (or at the very least pick up an acting career from the agency).

You can still have your moment in the spotlight, even before you debut!

3. Not all the groups that debut are super young
Sexy Zone and Hey! Say! JUMP were both really young during their debut year, but that isn't always the case. Almost all of the members of Kis-my-ft2 were in their 20s when they debuted, and new group Johnny's WEST has several veteran members to offset the youth of youngest member Kotaki. If you're an older fangirl like myself, it definitely keeps you from feeling like a pedophile when you want to start supporting the new groups.

There are three members of the new group who are older than me! -Fist pump-

4. The boys all have strong personalities
If I have any complaint about K-Pop, it's that a member can cause a scandal simply by opening their mouth and saying something that could be construed as "inappropriate." In spite of all the rules Johnny's has, they allow the members much more freedom in speaking their minds and getting a bit dirty from time to time. Honestly, would Kanjani be half so entertaining if they had to watch their mouths 24/7?

Murakami will say what he wants!

5. They act like village idiots and it is hilarious
What idol image? From their PV makings to their variety shows, it's more difficult to find these guys acting like dignified, well-behaved men than complete nutcases. But we love them for it, right?

The inevitable always happens

6. Plenty of member-ai for the fangirls
Though skinship isn't as much a part of Japanese culture as Korean, absolutely no one lets that stop them from flirting, taking half naked pictures together, snuggles, and fangirl bait interview answers. Even if they didn't provide the ammunition directly themselves, the fact that they're a male exclusive agency would lead to it anyways...

We even have Tegomass, our own member-ai laden sub-unit!

7. Their concerts reach new levels of epicness
Backflips, gymnastics, roller skating, dog shows, high wire flights, tumbling, outrageous costumes, cross dressing, fanservice... welcome to a Johnny's concert

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's CHINEN!

8. Handsome men. Everywhere.
No words. 

9. Triple threats!
More like threats to the nth power when you factor in their special acrobatic skills, but almost all Johnny's members are ace at singing, dancing, and acting.

Even the Sexy Zone boys have started transitioning into dramas!

10. Lots and lots of realities
VS Arashi, Soukon, Hamakisu, Cartoon KAT-TUN, Sexy Channel, SMAP x SMAP, Gacha Gacha V6, Kanjani8 no Janiben...

VS Arashi counts as a game show, too!

The Bad

1. No PVs on Youtube :(
Japanese PVs are scarce on Youtube to begin with, but Johnny's is particularly notorious for blocking their videos from appearing there. Try hunting them down from a livejournal community or alternate music site like Jpopsuki instead.

2. Navigating Livejournal communities for subs
I love the generous fans who donate their time and energy to subbing things for other fans, I really do. It's really the fact that Japan blocks attempts at streaming that makes things difficult. Subbers want to protect their work from being stolen or streamed, so to be allowed into their communities you have to rewrite the rules, sing Arashi's entire catalog, and write an essay on why you love KAT-TUN (I'm exaggerating a bit, of course. A bit.) Doing this once can be a necessary pain, but to access the bulk of the videos out there, you're going to have to go through this process with multiple Livejournals. Some of the ones with the content you're looking for are inactive, too, and they won't answer to your membership request, and in many cases the links are dead thanks to the loss of megaupload.

3. Losing members
Jin Akanishi. Koki Tanaka. Hiroki Uchi. Ryutaro Morimoto. Hironori Kusano. Johnny's doesn't provide much leniency towards rule breaking and illegal behavior, and of course some people like Yamapi and Akanishi eventually want to go solo. It can be pretty darn heart breaking for die hard fans to take.

The four member NEWS is still awesome, but they broke our hears a little bit to get here

4. The amount of media makes it difficult to fully follow multiple groups
Yeah, just watching Arashi's entire body of work including varieties, music show appearances, and dramas would take a few years off of your life. Add all the other groups to that, particularly long term veterans like SMAP and V6, and you may never emerge from your lair. It's best to either develop loyalty to a certain group or else sample a little bit from each fandom.

They've been around for awhile, and have left a lot gems along the way!

5. Getting quality scans from Japan
If you're doing a quick Google search for images, a lot of them will be on the small and blurry side. You'll have better luck digging around livejournal and tumblr, so it's worth it to make the effort

6. Being able to afford to actually buy all the albums and singles
As I mentioned in my post of CD packaging strategies, those singles contain B sides and photos, so if you're die hard, you'll want to get them. And then the bands that have been around for forever have a gazillion albums. Johnny's manages to top the Oricon charts about every other week or so, so they're VERY prolific.

Collect them all= spend lots of $$

7. Keeping everyone straight
It's not too difficult to tell the members apart given their distinct facial features, but it gets complicated when you want to join the extended Johnny's fan communities or join fanfic communities. Some fans call them by their last names, some by their first names, some by their nicknames, and of course, there are members with the same surnames or the same first names, which can add to the confusion because they don't use stage names when names repeat, like with K-Pop. And then when shipping factors in, I don't even know how people understand pairing names. They wind up looking something like YaJimaYamaKamePiChiiMaruTegoFujiShige whuuut?

These guys are my favorite since their couple name is the same as their sub-unit

8. Never being able to see them in concert as an international fan
I think my best shot of seeing them will be to go to Japan one day. Even though Arashi is coming to Hawaii, their fan club still gets priority ticketing, and New York is a wee bit too far from there for me to afford it.

I just want to see these hunnies live

9. Not having easy access to merch as an international fan
God bless Yesasia, CD Japan, and other merch stores for simplifying this process, but it still isn't the same as being able to browse like Japanese fans are able to do. And how cool would it be to be able to read all those Johnny's magazines without waiting for subs?

Is this a bookstore, or heaven?

10. Shipping wars. Everywhere.

I don't really ship Johnny's, just enjoy all the member-ai coming from all directions, but since there's so many Johnny's members, they pretty much get shipped with everyone under the sun, and people with loyal OTPs can get a bit... perturbed... by competing ships. That's what happens when these guys fanservice indiscriminately!

Is this real love?

Or is this? CHOOSE OR DIE