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GENERATIONS part 2

On November 13th 2013 the first studio album for EXILE TRIBE’s rookiest group dropped. se The self-titled debut album, compiled their first 5 singles: BRAVE IT OUT, ANIMAL, Love You More, Burning Up (the song with 3JSB, under EXILE TRIBE’s name) and HOT SHOT; the b-sides from all these singles,Go On, Ima Kaze ni Natte, LET ME FLY, My Eyes On You, ECHO, Kataomoi and Into You; and new songs, to the STAGE, Fallin’, BELIEVE IN YOURSELF and Itsuka Harewataru Sora no Shita de. The album was filled with that urban style that GENERATIONS took on from their first single, as well as a softer and mellow teenage side that highlighted their younger age (opposed to the other LDH’s male groups), targeting to a teenage audience. 

The new songs were written by:

to the STAGE, by Erik Lidbom (ANIMAL y LET ME FLY) and Jeff Miyahara, with lyrics by mk*.

Fallin’, by ZETTON, FAST LANE, CHRIS HOPE (Love You More) and J FAITH (Love You More), with lyrics by Maria Okada (Love You More), the same songwriters that produced Go On.

BELIEVE IN YOURSELF, by KASUMI and SOU.

Itsuka Harewataru Sora no Shita de, by Safari Natsukawa and Hitoshi Harukawa.

In the Blu-ray and DVD versions of the album the music videos for the singles plus the b-sides, Kataomoi and Go On, were included. As well as a short documentary that followed GENERATIONS’ process of debut, from their creation after the VBA2 to the Musha Shugyo they went through. The album debuted at #1 at Oricon with a total amount of 48.598 copies sold on their first week.

GENERATIONS spent the first months of 2014 promoting their album and didn’t come back with new music until April that year. The release of the single Never Let You Go, was announced on January, though, because the song would be also used for the VOCAL BATTLE AUDITION 4, as one of the songs the contestants should prepare. The single would also contain a song that would be used for the Original Soundtrack of MAKIDAI’s new movie, Oretachi no Ashita, the b-side Revolver.

It was also in January, when the upcoming single release was announced, when all the performers from GENERATIONS announced they were joining EXILE’s audition to find a new member: the EXILE PERFORMER BATTLE AUDITION. GENERATIONS members took the opportunity for members of EXILE’s PYRAMID to join directly the second round of auditions.

The release date for Never Let You Go was announced in February, as well as the tracklist: the song for MAKIDAI’s movie, REVOLVER, and the English version of their previous single, HOT SHOT. Meanwhile, the group would take part in events like the Tokyo Girls Collection 2014, and travel to Vietnam to perform on a promotional concert for the shopping mall’s chain AEON at Ho Chi Minh. At the end of March, the single covers and the short version of their music video (at avex’s youtube channel) for the upcoming title track, Never Let You Go, were published.

Never Let You Go launched on April 23rd 2014, only a few days before the final stage for the PBA took place. The song was written by SKY BEATZ (Into You, Love You More), FAST LANE, Chris Hope and J FAITH, with lyrics by Maria Okada. The b-side, Revolver, is a song written by SHIKATA (Echo, Love You More), Chris Hope, SKY BEATS, with lyrics by P.O.S. (Let Me Fly). Never Let You Go showed GENERATIONS’ mellow side, with a music video completely directed to a teenage audience, giving the feel of a real teenage boy-band, while the b-side Revolver was the opposite, an up-beat with a hard Hip-Hop beat that showed GENERATIONS’ toughest side. This single debuted at Oricon’s number 2, selling 73.537 copies on its first day, but it also fell quickly to the positions 7, 8 and 14. Even with that, the single did a decent first week on sells terms, with 86.442 copies sold, still surpassed by HOT SHOT’s first week sells (106.358).

On April 27th, the final stage for EXILE PERFORMER BATTLE AUDITION took place, resulting with GENERATIONS’ members Mendy and Alan as winners, which meant they were also joining EXILE, as well as continuing with GENERATIONS. They would participate of both groups’ activities, just like NAOKI and NAOTO had been doing with EXILE and 3JSB. These news were well received among their fans, it was the dream of EXILE’s Pyramid purpose becoming true, especially for Alan, whom had gone from member of Gekidan EXILE to leader of GENERATIONS and now was joining his dream group: EXILE.

Ryota (above) and Ryuto (below)

In April, the group’s two vocalists, Ryota Katayose and Ryuto Kazuhara, participated in a special concert during the days 24th and 25th, for the finalists and winners of all the VBA that had been celebrated by LDH (the male ones): VOCAL BATTLE AUDITION PRESENTS VOCAL BATTLE STAGE, at the Nippon Budokan. The other guests for this show were: NESMITH (EXILE, THE SECOND), SHOKICHI (EXILE, THE SECOND), Ryuji (3JSB), Omi (3JSB), TAKA (DEEP), YUICHIRO (DEEP), KEISEI (DEEP), RYO (DEEP), Satoshi Miyata (BREATHE) and Kazuya Tada (BREATHE). JONTE and others like WARNER were missing this time from the concert’s line-up, it seemed that only active members under LDH were selected this time, although the news on JONTE leaving LDH didn’t get out until 2015. They all sung special versions of their own group’s songs, like Pride, SPARK, Queen B, Love You More or Kimi Ja nai Dareka Nante, as well as form special duos like the one NESMITH and TAKA did to sing the song Wherever You Are by the group ONE OK ROCK, and they would also sing in bigger formations, like Ryuji, Omi, BREATHE, Ryuto and Ryota singing 3JSB’s Best Friends’ Girl.

At the end of May, it was announced that GENERATIONS would feature in the next single for DJ MAKIDAI’s upcoming remixes album, joined by SWAY with the song Organ Donor ~Off Da Hook~. This time, GENERATIONS would dress in a less edgy way, wearing black with White sneakers, as well as providing a more Old School dance. The theme chosen by MAKIDAI was the lights and the shadows that cover the world.

They would join the EXILE TRIBE PERFECT YEAR 2014 SPECIAL STAGE “THE SURVIVAL” IN SAITAMA SUPER ARENA 10DAYS in June, the tour that featured all members from EXILE TRIBE, during the days 15th, 19th and 20th (doing a Versus show against 3JSB), and 16th, 17th and 18th  (sharing the stage with TAKAHIRO and THE SECOND). On June 24th they would announce that their next single, Always With You, would be used for a drama that premiered that summer: Juui-san, Jiken desuyo.

On July 26th, they performed in Taiwan for the first time and it was also their first solo concert. GENERATIONS performed at the Family Theater in the Taipei City Hall.

On August 12th, the short version for the music video of Always With You, was uploaded at avex’s YouTube channel, it was a ballad that reminisced EXILE’s love songs but with a younger approach. 

The theme for the video was the end of summer as something melancholic.  This was one of the first videos to show less dance parts and more fan-service from the members. The son gis written by SKY BEATS and FAST LANE, with lyrics by Haruka Mizuguchi; the couple song was a cover of the infamous Orange Range’s hit, Hana. The single debuted at number 3 at Oricon charts with 23.498 copies sold on its first day.

On September 13th, GENERATIONS took part at Taiwan’s a-nation festival (organized by avex Taiwan).

GENERATIONS’ members have also their share on individual activities:

Alan, the leader that started as a member of Gekidan EXILE with dramas like Rokudenashi BLUES (an adaptation of a stage play produced by LDH), was selected to be part of GTO’s (Great Teacher Onizuka) new cast, starred by EXILE’s AKIRA, as one of the new students under the teacher. The new GTO premiered on July 2012, getting a Special Episode that same year in Autum, and in 2013 two more Special Episodes were aired. The last Special Episode was the graduation for Alan’s class. He also took part in 2012 in LDH’s joint drama with Watanabe Entertainment’s D-BOYS, Sugarless. On July 2014, he also appeared in the drama Bokura wa Minna Shindeiru and he also starred in that 2014 in the movie Seven Days Report. Alan was part of the variety show Wao (Fuji TV) too, along with Mendy.

Mendy, apart from the variety show Wao, joined the TV show Viking (2014), also aired at Fuji TV during noon time. He also was selected to be part of the cast of 2014’s DANCE EARTH PARTY, something we will see later.

Reo, also appeared in the drama Sugarless, he starred too in the drama aired on January 2014, Inpei Sousa, and he became part of the second season of GTO, aired in 2014.

Ryota would debut in the second season of GTO, becoming another one of the teacher’s students, the role that EXILE’s AKIRA stars in.

Image Sources:

https://www.facebook.com/GENERATIONS.official/photos

http://hubpages.com/entertainment/Japanese-Drama-Review-Of-Sugarless

http://topicks.jp/66667

http://www.exiletribestation.jp/realshop/date/2014/04

[ldhmania]

THE SECOND part 2

Despite only having 2 singles on the market, at the end of 2013 it was announced that the sub-unit THE SECOND would have their first studio album release: THE II AGE (February 5th 2014), to allow its members to get some activities while EXILE was on a hiatus to find their new member. The family had some big activities to fill the year 2014 with EXILE TRIBE, and THE SECOND would be in the first batch of members to do their own thing.

For this album, SHOKICHI kept involving himself with the making of most of the songs, like Missing You, BEGINNING OF THE SECOND AGE or his solo song, Signal Fire (featuring SWAY). Also, the previous songs from singles THINK ABOUT IT and Survivors feat. DJ MAKIDAI/PURAIDO, would be included. NESMITH would write for his own solo song Dear… as well, a track produced by FAST LANE and Mats Lie Skare.

Both vocalists, SHOKICHI and NESMITH would contribute with their writing into the album.

The music of this album was produced and written by their usual producers: BEGINNING OF THE SECOND AGE, music by SKY BEATZ, SHIKATA and Chris Hope, lyrics by SHOKICHI; Missing You, with music by SKY BEATZ, FAST LANE, SHOKICHI (whom would also write its lyrics);  Dear… , music by FAST LANE and lyrics by NESMITH; Signal Fire, SKY BEATZ and JEFF MIYAHARA’s music, lyrics by SHOKICHI and SWAY; BACK TO THE 90’S BASS, produced by DJ KIRA; and the song they chose to promote the album, HEAD BANGIN’, written by T.Kura and TAKANORI.

This last song, had a distinct rock sound, mixed with Dubstep rhythms, with a video shot on grayscale that played with the lights and shadows of the set, showing the members dressed in a sort of tribal meets leather outfits. The image, the choreography and the vocals for this song, have ones of the most daring concepts anybody has ever done in the EXILE family. Shaping that edgy but cool style THE SECOND wants to be known for.

The album has a well balanced selection of R&B/dance and slow jams, but with their unique sound that sets them apart from the rest of the family groups, darker and timeless on their ballads, less mellow than GENERATIONS, less dramatic than 3JSB and less emotional than EXILE, mostly thanks to NESMITH and SHOKICHI’s voices, that are both darker, of a deeper pitch and heavier, compared with the rest of the family’s male vocals (including JONTE, BREATHE and DEEP). The album debuted on the spot #1 on Oricon selling a total amount of 29.010 on its first day and staying on that position until the 6th day of release, when fell to #3.

THE SECOND continued having its own parts on the different shows the family got during this 2014 (like the EXILE TRIBE tour), but we want to highlight their participation on the 10 days tour, EXILE TRIBE PERFECT YEAR 2014 SPECIAL STAGE “THE SURVIVAL” IN SAITAMA SUPER ARENA (on the days 16th , 17th  and 18th of June) where they could showcase their album tracks better.

Image sources:

https://www.facebook.com/TheSecondFromExile/photos

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2140185553826748601/2140188512758987003

http://t-second.jp/

http://www.metrolyrics.com/the-second-from-exile-lyrics.html

[ldhmania]

3JSB part 2

The third generation of J SOUL BROTHERS wrapped 2013 with one more single after the release of the ballad Fuyu Monogatari (October 30th 2013). The song titled SO RIGHT (Ichiro Suezawa, Drew Ryan Scott, Devin Fox, lyrics by Maria Okada) was released on December 4th 2013 and would serve as a teaser for their fourth studio album that would be launched along their first greatest hits compilation. 

Both albums were sold as a pack, just like happened with EXILE JAPAN/ATSUSHI SOLO, under the title THE BEST/BLUE IMPACT, being the second title the one for the fourth studio album. The double album opened the sells for 2014, with the official release date set for January 1st (although it was already on sell on December 25th of 2013 and it also entered charts that same day) and it was immediately promoted with a tour that started on January 8th. 

The tour’s announcement was done earlier on October 2013, Sandaime J Soul Brothers LIVE TOUR 2014 “BLUE IMPACT”, and it made fans wonder what the words “BLUE IMPACT” would mean and to what those would be related to since at that time, the album hadn’t been announced yet. With that tour, the group travelled to a total amount of 13 towns and offered 34 live shows, the album was also their first DVD release to reach #1 at Oricon, making them the most successful generation of SOUL BROTHERS. 

As usual, the studio album compiled their previous singles (SPARK, Fuyu Monogatari, SO RIGHT) and the b-sides: Higher (SPARK), written by SKYBEATZ, Erik Ridbom and Jeff Miyahara, lyrics by P.O.S.; T.T.T. (Top To Toe) (Fuyu Monogatari), by STY; EXILE TRIBE’s single, Burning Up, in a new cut that only had the voices of 3JSB (the original VS song was in THE BEST coupling album), and its b-side, Waking Me Up; completed with four new tracks. The new songs were: JSB BLUE (by michico and T.Kura); Back In Love Again (FAST LINE, Erik Libdom, lyrics by Maria Okada); Forever Together (Ichiro Suezawa, Drew Ryan Scott, lyrics by KAMIKAORU) and PRIDE (Ryosuke Tanaka, lyrics by Imaichi Ryuuji). It debuted at Oricon’s #1, staying for 4 weeks in a row in that place, reaching a record that hadn’t happened in 3 years (and for 6 years for any male group), it also reached #4 in the first half of the year charts, reflecting the group’s increase of popularity.

3JSB faced the New Year 2014 becoming one of the key points for the EXILE TRIBE PERFECT YEAR 2014, with the goal of finding a song that would become an anthem for the general audience. What they wanted was to find their own Choo Choo Train (original by ZOO, but a song that everyone identifies as one of EXILE’s major hits) going beyond the CD sells and ranks factor. 

Ryouji, wrote his first song lyrics (following ATSUSHI and SHOKICHI’s steps) while ELLY kept working hard on creating routines like the one for Fuyu Monogatari, aiming to get a song that people would recognize as 3JSB’s.

With E-Girls and GENERATIONS, they had led the family releases of 2014, with a total of 4 released singles and the album we’ve mentioned above. 

On March 26th they launched their first single of the year, S.A.K.U.R.A., with a music video themed as a samurais versus ninjas fight, featuring Shuhei Nogae (Gekidan EXILE) under his MC name: SWAY. The songs’ title and concept is about the “sakura” (in Japan the cherry blossom is a synonym of the graduation month), just like their Saigo no Sakura. The music had the same sound as Fighters, but the way the vocal melodies were crafted gave a complete different feel to the song. 

The b-side for this song, Kaze no Naka, Arukidasu; was one of the songs for the EXILE Presents VOCAL BATTLE AUDITION 4 ~Yume wo Motta Wakamonotachi he~ written by h-wonder with lyrics by Shougo Kashida (an infamous TV and stage’s player writer whom has already worked on plays for Gekidan EXILE and lyrics for EXILE, DEEP and the already disbanded duo, LOVE).

Following up this single, while the EXILE TRIBE PERFECT YEAR 2014 SPECIAL STAGE “THE SURVIVAL” IN SAITAMA SUPER ARENA 10 DAYS (June) was held, a tour they also took part in; R.Y.U.S.E.I. was released as the second single of the year, an EDM song, more up-beat than SPARK or SO RIGHT, written by STY, with the b-sides Summer Dreams Come True (FAST LANE, Eric Lidbom, lyrics by Masato Kodake) and Wedding Bell ~Subarashiki kana Jinsei~ (by h-wonder, lyrics by Masato Kodake). 

This single debuted at #1 in the Oricon charts too, as well as in the digital Recochoku charts. The song would have a big impact on the general audiences, becoming their first real hit as well as granting them their first big prize (It was song of the year at the Japanese Recording Awards).

3JSB’s members continued promoting themselves individually. NAOTO took part on the movies Mango to Akai Kurumaisu (the mango and red wheelchair) and SAKURASAKU; Takanori Iwata (Gun-chan) launched a photo-book on March 6th, and took part on the movie Crows EXPLODE; Omi (Hiroomi Tosaka) debuted with the movie Hot Road; while ELLY acted again on the movie Crows EXPLODE (April 12th 2014).

Below, Takanori Iwata and ELLY onone of the promotional photos for Crows EXPLODE.

On October 15th they released the single C.O.S.M.O.S. ~秋桜~ (the kanji can be read and pronounced as “cosmos” as well as “akizakura” which is the song’s real sub-title), 

with music by Hiroki Sagawa and Ryousuke Saito, and lyrics by Masato Odake. The title followed with this trend of labeling their titles as those were corporation names and related to space stuff (Ryusei means shooting star) with the exception of S.A.K.U.R.A. (means cherry blossom), of course. At that moment, the group’s popularity had already sky-rocketed and their previous single was still selling strong and being played everywhere. 

The b-side for this single was the upbeat track Glory, that included lyrics by Amon Hayashi and EXILE’s SHOKICHI (whom had been increasing his activity on that department), with music of HIKARI, SIRIUS and BIG-F.

Before finishing the year, a new single with EDM style (almost a follow-up to R.Y.U.S.E.I. on terms of sound and the video visuals) was launched. 

O.R.I.O.N. kept this trend of using capitals and referencing elements from space that they related to the group’s own essence. The single launched on December 10th 2014, written by STY (the same who wrote R.Y.U.S.E.I.) and Maozon. 

The b-sides this time were remixes of S.A.K.U.R.A. –STY @ASYtokyo remix- and R.Y.U.S.E.I. –Maozon @ASYtokyo remix-, plus an unplugged version of C.O.S.M.O.S. ~秋桜~.

In the next chapter of this group, we will go deeper on their ascension to a group that was on top, competing with the likes of Arashi or even AKB48 on sells and chart positions. Sandaime J SOUL BROTHERS would start 2015 being the group with the song of the year for 2014 and a lot of activities programmed.

Image sources:

http://www.m-on-music.jp/0000071496/

http://www.littleoslo.com/lyj/home/%E4%B8%89%E4%BB%A3%E7%9B%AE-j-soul-brothers-from-exile-tribe-s-a-k-u-r-a-%E6%AD%8C%E8%A9%9E-pv-lyrics/

http://okmusic.jp/#!/news/32283

http://news.utamap.com/item.php?id=24239

https://eigapedia.com/movie/mango-to-akai-kurumaisu

http://www.akibastation.es/2013/04/cine-crows-explode-llegara-el-2014.html

http://www.asiafilm.fr/2015/02/03/critique-crows-explode-de-toshiaki-toyoda/

http://asianwiki.com/Crows_Explode

http://asianwiki.com/Hot_Road

http://firstview.heteml.jp/kg/2015/07/19/%E3%80%8C%E4%B8%89%E4%BB%A3%E7%9B%AE-j-soul-brothers%E3%80%8D%E3%80%80%E5%B1%B1%E4%B8%8B%E5%81%A5%E4%BA%8C%E9%83%8E%E3%80%80%E8%B6%A3%E5%91%B3%E3%81%AE%E3%80%8C%E3%83%90%E3%82%B9%E9%87%A3%E3%82%8A/

https://mii2.jp/articles-477

[ldhmania]

GLOBAL JAPAN CHALLENGE ~Sekai ni Habataku Yumemono Shugyou~

On September 2nd a new audition was announced. This time, the goal was to recruit new talent that would be trained in New York in order to shape acts that were able to take all over the world. There was a serious concern from HIRO about Japanese acts lacking the necessary to go global as well as making Japanese entertainment better. They chose New York as the place to mold this new talent because that has always been a big influence to EXILE.

This new Project was a joint adventure with avex. The winners of this audition would study in New York for a period of three years and a half, so they could get in touch with a culture that is already international as well as learn a new life style. They established an agreement with the schools Professional Children’s School and Léman Manhattan Preparatory School from New York and they also opened a new EXPG school in that city.

This audition had two separate categories: vocalists and performers. The ages of the contestants must be between the 9 years old and the 15 years old. For the first round, the singers had to prepare a song and the performers had to prepare a dance set. This first round took place on October 2013.

On the TV show Shuukan EXILE that aired on April 15th, the names of the winners were revealed. The chosen vocalists were Ryuusei Iwamoto, Kenya Fujita, Manato Hirose, Yuuto Yoshida, Kaito Morimoto and Masafumi Okamoto. The performers: Kazuki Asada, Ryoto Goto, Kanna Takami, Masahiro Sunada, Rikiya Okudari, Miku Fukahori and Shouji Katsumata. Two of the winners had taken part on both categories: Ayumu Imadzu and Taiki Iwamoto.

The selected winners would immediately fly to New York to start catching up with their English so in September they could start attending the schools that were focused on music and arts, while they attended New York’s EXPG on the afternoon. The new project would later take the name PROJECT TARO or JUNIOR EXILE, but that is something we will explain later.

From this audition four more contestants were chosen to become members of the upcoming group THE RAMPAGE. The boys were: Takuma Goto, Takahide Suzuki, Ryutaro Ata and Makoto Hasegawa.

The winners, now PROJECT TARO at New York.

Image sources:

http://www.unknown24.net/bbrk/20140415/gjc

http://ameblo.jp/happytori/entry-11829157777.html

http://team-ldh.tumblr.com/post/59984633216/exile-presents-vocal-battle-audition-4-yumewo

https://twitter.com/exnews24

https://twitter.com/RampageEXTfans

Source:

http://www.project-taro.jp/

[ldhmania]

VOCAL BATTLE AUDITION 4

On September 1st of 2013 LDH created a Facebook page to announce their upcoming VOCAL BATTLE AUDITION 4, with the main theme of Yume wo Motta Wakamonotachi he (For those youngsters that pursue a dream). This fourth edition of the VBA was again dedicated only to boys. With this announcement, there were questions about whether a new male group was on the making or not.  The audition started its first round in October and lasted until November, seeking boys from 15 to 25 years old. The first round was held in the cities of Tokyo and Osaka.

After the first audition round, where the contestants were selected by simply singing acapella, the second round consisted in testing the vocals skills with GENERATIONS’ song Never Let You Go. For the third round, the song they would be tested for performance was Kaze no Naka, Arukidasu by Sandaime J SOUL BROTHERS. The ones getting to the third round would join a training camp.

On December 19th, 163 contestants were selected for the second round and notified by e-mail, later announced to the audience through the TV show Shuukan EXILE.

The second round took place on February 2014, choosing only 32 contestants to get into the next round. On March, after the next round, 15 contestants were chosen: Ryuta Hidaka, Kazuma Kawamura, Rioske Asanuma, Riku Aoyama, Yutaro Itadoko, Kazuki Hayashi, Ryota Kanno, Kento Horita, Junpei Hashiba, Riki Yoshida, Kenta Shimizu, Ryota Tsurumoto,  Hakuto Yoshino, Ryouji Tanaka (he already got into VBA2’s semi-finals) and Kazuma Namisato (another VBA2’s semi-finalist).

The 15 finalists joined a training camp on April 7th, and they did a training very similar to the one E-Girls went through when they prepared the single Follow Me. 

During this camp, the contestants sung 3JSB’s selected song and another song of free choice, training their skills monitored by the vocal coach, Keiji Kimura. After the camp’s training, they performed the songs to a jury so the winners could be chosen.

On June17th 2014, the three winners of the audition were announced: Hakuto Yoshino, Kazuma Kawamura and Riku Aoyama. 

Hakuto Yoshino

Kazuma Kawamura

Riku Aoyama

Beforehand, the news on the new group that LDH was building called The Rampage had already been released. The winners of the VBA4 were expected to become the singers of the new group. 

But, once again, LDH took advantage of the audition to select one of the finalists for a different group. After discussing it with its members, DOBERMAN INC. asked the finalist Kazuki Hayashi to join them on their next chapter.

Image Sources: https://twitter.com/vba4kashoudoga

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/majo3majo3/e/90d9882c7696141ffe9b1dc3404392f1

http://www.vba4.jp/sp/

http://www.vba4.jp/sp/finalist/11.html

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2139386706091166001

https://twitter.com/exnews24

https://twitter.com/mnaopi

[ldhmania]

EXILE PERFORMER BATTLE AUDITION

HIRO spent EXILE’s last tour EXILE LIVE TOUR 2013 “EXILE PRIDE” bidding farewell to EXILE’s audience with his role as a performer. His last performance would be the one at the New Year’s Eve special TV show, Kohaku Uta Gassen, in national TV. However, he would remain as EXILE’s leader, producing the group and directing the company LDH.

During HIRO’s last tour as a performer, EXILE LIVE TOUR 2013 “EXILE PRIDE”, on the final concert it was announced that EXILE would hold an audition to seek for new performers. The EXILE PERFORMER BATTLE AUDITION purpose was to find someone whom could fill the gap that HIRO would leave as a performer, as well as a good excuse to find new talent and give younger generations a chance at becoming part of the group.

The decision to hold such an audition came from one of the early 2013’s group meetings, when  HIRO discussed with them his upcoming graduation and the plans they wanted to make for that year. After a long meeting with each member exposing their view on the group’s future, their own hopes, dreams and aspirations, individually and as a group; they came to the conclusion that they wanted to grant the same chances they had being part of EXILE to the younger generations. ATSUSHI was one of the members to insist in the importance of sharing what they had achieved together and guaranteeing the group would survive in the future, even after all of them had graduated. HIRO highlighted the fact that he had gone this far as an entertainer thanks to the opportunities others had granted to him, so now he wanted to do the same for others.

Subscriptions for this audition started on December 2013 and, as always for these auditions, a website was settled for the contestants to communicate the rules and any other important information regarding the audition. The deadline for subscriptions was January 16th 2014, but they received so many entries that they extended it to the 22nd. For EXILE’s Pyramid members under 26 years old, it would be possible to join the audition after the first round (starting with the second round).  

GENERATIONS members that announced they would join the audition:

Above, Hayato Komori, Below, Reo Sano.

Above, Alan Shirahama, Below, Mendy (Mandy) Sekiguchi.

Below, Yuta Nakatsuka.

After this possibility for the Pyramid’s members under 26 years old was communicated, on January 20th the following members of GENERATIONS: Hayato Komori, Reo Sano, Alan Shirahama, Mendy Sekiguchi, Yuta Nakatsuka and Gekidan EXILE’s Kyosuke Harukawa (Halu) announced that they were joining the audition. 

Kyosuke Harukawa from Gekidan EXILE

On January 27th, another Pyramid member make public his participation on the audition, Takanori Iwata (Gun-chan) from 3JSB was also joining the competition. This caused a lot of excitement and expectation among the different fan-bases of EXILE’s family. For some of the Pyramid members, becoming part of EXILE was the reason they had started dancing and performing, so the anticipation on seeing whether they fulfilled their dreams or not was huge.

The first round of this audition took place during February 2014 in Tokyo (days 5th and 6th) and Osaka (day 13th). A lot of young talented dancers went through this first round, showing their skills on freestyle, just to get a chance to become a member of EXILE.

On March 4th 2014, they announced the second round requirements: the contestants would be split on groups of three people each and dance in front of the jury (that was composed entirely by the members of EXILE). The song they would dance was the song Like A Tiger (later its title would change to Craving My Soul), an unreleased EXILE song (like they used to do for the VOCAL auditions). From this round that would succeed to the third round were only 18:

Takanori Iwata (3JSB), Shogo Iwaya (support member of GENERATIONS), Shohei Urakawa, Likiya Eliot (3JSB’s ELLY’s little brother), Kenta Kamiya, Hayato Komori (GENERATIONS), Jin Sakamoto, Taiki Sato (support member of GENERATIONS), Reo Sano (GENERATIONS), Alan Shirahama (GENERATIONS), Mendy Sekiguchi (GENERATIONS), Kaisei Takechi, Yuta Nakatsuka (GENERATIONS), Kyosuke Harukawa (Gekidan EXILE), Itsuki Fujiwara, Shogo Yamamoto, Sekai Yamamoto and Rui Yonamie.

This last round would consist on splitting the 18 contestants in 2 groups that would dance to the song PERFORMER’S PRIDE (from EXILE PRIDE’s second single release), they would perform in front of the members of EXILE, to showcase their abilities to dance in a group as well as their Freestyle individual skills seen as a part of a group’s choreography.On April 10th 2014, the names of the 11 finalists that would participate on a concert held at Budokan were announced. The concert was a special one for the final round: EXILE PERFORMER BATTLE AUDITION FINAL in NIPPON BUDOKAN. The 11 finalists were: 

Takanori Iwata (3JSB), Shohei Urakawa, Hayato Komori (GENERATIONS), Taiki Sato (support member of GENERATIONS), Reo Sano (GENERATIONS), Alan Shirahama (GENERATIONS), Mendy Sekiguchi (GENERATIONS), Kaisei Takechi, Yuta Nakatsuka (GENERATIONS), Sekai Yamamoto and Rui Yonamie.

HIRO already announced to the members that didn’t make it to the final that they would become part of a new group they were working on, that group later on would be announced as THE RAMPAGE.

Above, The Rampage first selected members introducing themselves during the final of PBA.

On April 27th, a big concert with all EXILE TRIBE members, including E-GIRLS, was celebrated to hold the final round.

During the concert, the contestants danced a song with EXILE and they also had the chance to show their dance skills to EXILE’s audience in a solo number. While the other groups from EXILE TRIBE were performing, EXILE, HIRO too, met at the back-stage to deliberate and choose a winner. HIRO had been watching the whole final round from back-stage, through a TV screen. Once they had reached a conclusion, they called the contestants to communicate the final decision. The big surprise for them, and later for the audience that assisted to the event, was that instead of choosing 1 replacement, they decided to accept 5 new performers into the group. EXILE would officially become an 18 member group (19, counting the leader).

Above, the contestants dancing with EXILE’s performers the PERFORMERS’ PRIDE. Below, EXILE with the contestants performing BOW & ARROW

HIRO and MATSU (this last one on their Twitter) had already hinted to the possibility of having more than just one winner.

The new members of EXILE were:

Takanori Iwata from 3JSB. His special abilities focus on Krump dance style (he is also a member of EXPG’s dance crew Twiggz Fam, along with Mendy, NAOKI and REO, and other EXPG members)

Taiki Satou, a student from EXPG, whom had also been part of the support members of GENERATIONS; he had also been part of Kamen Teacher’s (drama) cast.

Sekai Yamamoto, he was one of EXPG’s dance instructors in Tokyo. Sekai also dances with the dance crew SLUGGER, he had also been a back-dancer for Miura Daichi (one of Japan’s top performers) and the DANCE EARTH SHOW (USA’s project) in 2013.

Mendy Sekiguchi, from GENERATIONS, another Krump skilled dancer (he is from the same dance crew Iwata Takanori belongs).

Alan Shirama, GENERATIONS’ leader and actor.

Image sources:

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2135331498747707801

http://team-ldh.tumblr.com/post/61846260820/hot-shot-profile-photos-1

http://ldh.wikia.com/wiki/Harukawa_Kyosuke

http://onehallyu.com/topic/110-the-official-exile-thread/page-137

https://twitter.com/exnews24/status/454534682483257344

http://pantip.com/topic/31905595

http://tumblr.straycat.me/post/90114391144/lets-learn-more-about-exile-tribes-new-unit-the

http://nihongogo.com/2014/04/the-exile-performer-battle-edition-adds-5-new-members-to-exile/

Source: This battle was followed by the TV show Shuukan EXILE.

[ldhmania]

E-GIRLS part 3

After the release of the first album, Lesson 1, E-Girls spent the summer preparing for the release of the single Gomennasai no Kissing You (October 2nd 2013). The song was used for a movie Original Sound Track for Shazai no Ousama (The king of apologies) and that gave the group even a bigger exposure than the previous CM and songs appearing on TV shows.

The song was first released digitally on September 25th. Thanks to the colorful video and catchy dance, it became a highly anticipated single and widely accepted song for fans and non-fans. 

The video not only features all the members from E-Girls (despite the reduced selection of vocalists) but also more than 500 girls from EXPG as back-dancers.Even those members with no lines, had their own highlights. Like Aya and Erie, who present the opening of the song.

Aya (above) and Erie (below).

This became their best physical release ever –even now, is still their top selling hit-, debuting at #2 at Oricon, with a first week sells of 73,332 copies and, despite falling off the top 10 quickly after, it remained 16 weeks on the top 100. The song reached those audiences that are non-fans, to the extent is their most popular songs on Karaokes (and one of the most-demanded to sing for the next year to its release) and is a song people whom are not too familiar with E-Girls instantly recognize them for.

MAYU from Happiness came back just in time for the October single release. It was also the first time that Anna Suda and Ruri Kawamoto appeared as Happiness members, both in the promotional photos and some video segments.

BUNNY members and EGD members were still displayed as a whole group without any name to design them.

The members without group: Misato Hagio

Risa Ikuta

Rio Inagaki

Anna Ishii

Momoka Nakajima (she was the little girl from THE NEVER ENDING STORY video)

Yuzuna Takebe

Kyoka Takeda

Nonoka Yamaguchi

Since Reina Kidzu had left, a new girl joined from EXPG, Momoka Nakajima. This time, the dance track was an interpolation of the music video, coming as a dance break in the middle of the title track:

Dream acted as the organizers, with Erie introducing the segment, while Happiness and FLOWER held a dance battle, just like they went against each other in the Musha Shugyo. The rest of the girls with no group assigned would appear at the end of the battle, in a different set, dressed as a drum-line and doing their own dance skit.

Above, Shizuka and AMI from Dream, the vocalists of the title track along with Reina Washio from Flower (below)

The vocalists for this song were Shizuka, AMI and Reina Washio. The single completed with Flower’s Hatsukoi song (the prize for winning the Musha Shugyo) and the b-sides Fancy Baby, with Ruri Kawamoto and Yuzuna Takebe as vocalists, 

and Koi no Boogie Woogie Train, that featured Shizuka, Aya, AMI, Erie, Ruri Kawamoto, Reina Washio, Chiharu Muto and Yuzuna Takebe. Except for Ruri, there was no vocal presence of MAYU or Karen, whom had been specifically treated as performers for this release.

Ruri Kawamoto was the only vocalist representing Happiness for this single.

On October 11th 2013, a new member joined the mega-unit: Marina Watanabe. Since no member had left yet, everything indicated that someone may go on a hiatus or leave E-Girls were preparing a new single, and having and extra-member made no sense, according to how they had been working till the date.

Above, the new member Marina Watanabe. Below, Erina Mizuno, Flower’s leader with her last E-Girls promotional photo.

On October 18th everything made sense when Erina Mizuno from Flower published a communicate announcing she was leaving both groups to focus on her career as an actress, at the moment, her career was taking off with her participation in movies like RunWay Beat and a drama like 35sai no Koukousei.

That same day, the release of the next single was announced. The song KuruKuru, would drop on November 20th. But we will see that release in a different chapter, to explain with further detail what E-Girls achieved by the end of 2013.

Image Sources:

http://www.logsoku.com/r/2ch.net/morningcoffee/1381908222/

http://e-girls.tumblr.com/

Charts source:

http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Gomennasai_no_Kissing_You

[ldhmania]

HAPPINESS part 3

On May 27th 2013, two new members joined Happiness: Anna Suda and Ruri Kawamoto, members from E-Girls and EGD. Ruri would join mainly as a vocalist, something that made fans wonder whether MAYU would never come back from her long convalescence. After the disappointment fans had with MIMU, whom finally left the group, they feared that having another vocalist could mean MAYU’s departure.

Both girls had taken part at VBA3, for the spots of Flower’s new performers and vocalists.

Below, Anna Suda, one of the permanent members from EGD for E-Girls, ever since she joined on their second single: One Two Three.

Below, Ruri Kawamoto, whom joined ever since THE NEVER ENDING STORY the E-Girls mega-unit, and whom had been singing on b-sides mostly, now new member of Happiness.

When on June 3rd the Musha Shugyo was announced, the battle that would made them face their sister group FLOWER, fans felt relieved to know that MAYU was featured in the promotional photo teaser, the first one the group had took in a long while, with the addition of Anna and Ruri.

The 8 members’ profile photos:

Anna Suda

Kaede

Karen Fujii

MAYU

MIYUU

Ruri Kawamoto

SAYAKA

YURINO

However, when everything was ready to start the battle, MAYU made an official communicate at Happiness’ blog to announce she wouldn’t take part on those activities because she felt she wasn’t 100% at her best yet and she didn’t want to “bring the group down” when she was still lacking some energy to face such a challenge.

That’s how the song Sunshine Dream ~Ichido no Natsu~, ended up having only Ruri and KAREN as vocalists. Although she would join them on the last round, the final concert that was held at the Shinkiba STUDIO COAST, to sing during the Encore.

MAYU’s official return would be for E-Girls’ single, Gomennasai no Kissing You (September 25th 2013). Although she kept doing promotions after that, fans never got to see her in a Happiness’ studio release again. As we will tell in a future chapter, she would leave before that could ever happen.

Image sources:

http://e-girls.wikia.com/wiki/Sugieda_Mayu

http://team-ldh.tumblr.com/post/52052502625

[ldhmania]

E-Girls’ Musha Shugyo: Happiness VS Flower

After the release of E-Girls’ first album (Lesson 1), the mega-unit presented a challenge that involved two of their younger groups: Happiness and Flower would compete with their next single releases through a special Musha Shugyou (a challenge) that would evaluate which group was the winner and grant them a special prize.

We’ve already talked about other acts from LDH going through Musha Shugyou, like Dream, GENERATIONS or Sayaka Shionoya. The words Musha Shugyou come from the Samurai’s vocabulary and means exactly to go through a challenge.

This time, both groups would start a promotional tour of free concerts on July 2nd 2013 that would go all over Japan, beginning just three days after both singles would drop. The groups would do this separately (Happiness had their tour, Flower too) although they shared one of the venues during the tour (in Tokyo).  Both groups toured using vans to reach different locations that were also decorated with their own names and images as another promotional tool: Happiness’ van highlighted them (appearing their name and image bigger) and the same happened with Flower’s van.

The promotional tour was evaluated through the amount of people attending their lives, the response from the audience and their performances. But this was just one of the factors that would count for the final result. One of the things the winner’s prize contained was performing at the Tokyo Girls Collection Autum/Winter 2013.

Happiness title track for that battle was the song Sunshine Dream ~Ichido kiri no Natsu~, while Flower’s was the song Taiyou to Himawari.

Since the release of Lesson 1, E-Girls’ logo had incorporated the use of the Diamond symbol, as a characteristic associated to E-Girls’ group that was used on the individual groups for the first time in this Musha Shugyo. Despite Dream’s single release Only You being a previous one to these other two sister units’ singles, this was the first time ever the symbol of the Diamond was applied to the individual groups as a distinctive of them belonging to E-Girls’ family of groups.

Both singles would include as a b-side a version of the song Boyfriend that had been one of the songs used during VBA 3 for Kana Tachibana’s project, written by Kiyoshi Matsuo. Happiness’ version of the song was titled Sunshine Version while Flower’s was titled Moonlight Version.  Both titles clearly reflected the different images each group had: Happiness being the cheerful and joyful group (using sunshine as a metaphor) and Flower showing their nostalgic but also romantic side (using moonlight as a metaphor for those traits).

The winner of the promotional tours was Happiness, gaining a larger audience than Flower’s.

A second factor for the battle’s evaluation was to count the views and comments on both YouTube’s channels. It was exactly when the channels for both groups were created, Flower’s channel included their previous singles’ videos, but those were geo-blocked for non-Japanese residents with the exception of the song they were promoting for that battle. Most of Sony Music Japan’s videos are geo-blocked for a few exceptions, while it doesn’t happen for Universal Japan’s acts (the label for Happiness at that time), so despite the older videos couldn’t be watched from outside Japan, they didn’t apply the ban for that one in particular so the battle could be fair. Flower won on the views’ count Happiness won the comments’ count.

Of course, another important stage of evaluation was the singles’ sells and charts positions. Flower’s single charted higher at Oricon, reaching #5, while Happiness just reached #7.  Although the general opinion was a little bit disappointed with Happiness’ choice for a title track, it’s also true that the fact they had been out for a longer period of time might had decreased their chances with the general audiences (those whom can also purchase the single but not go to their lives because they aren’t essentially fans). 

Musically speaking, Happiness’ song felt flat to the listeners because it was too generic and it didn’t had that catchy factor their previous singles had and, compared to Flower’s song and PV, the final result failed to reach that extra-factor that are the non-fans. Flower’s song, on the contrary, was immediately praised for their use of traditional musical elements and the spectacular visuals for their music video, as well as the key factor of using the voice of the three singers. It was the first time Kyoka Ichiki got to join Reina Washio and Chiharu Muto on a title track and the harmony game changed to a richer level of possibilities that were, indeed, explored during the track.

For Flower, the Oricon’s chart results were the highest (and the same) ever since their debut single. Their previous 3 releases after their debut had been #12, #13 and #10, respectively. Seeing it from Happiness’ perspective, it became their best chart position ever, being their highest the one reached with the first studio album Happy Time, #10, and the second best, the one reached with Wish, #12.

One of the factors that might have influenced Happiness’ lower sells and disappointment on the song, might had been the fact that their fans were highly expecting to see the return of MAYU as a vocalist. As we will see in a future chapter, MAYU ended up not participating from the battle (although she had resumed her activities) due to lack of training and poor health (still not fully recovered physically), and the introduction of a new vocalist (along with another new member) had caused hype but, at the end, it wasn’t enough to satisfy those fans whom might had lost track with the group due to their long hiatus. However, we will explain better this situation with Happiness in a different chapter. 

Despite on appearing at the first promotional photos for the battle and having her profile up at the official website for Happiness, MAYU didn’t took part from the single promotions and she doesn’t appear on the photos shoot for that.

The last round took place at Shinkiba STUDIO COAST on August 11th 2013. Both groups had their own set list of previous songs and then they performed together the song Boyfriend, in a performance that showed both versions of the song through a mash-up. At the end of the show, they were gathered backstage to receive the announcement of which group had won the whole battle, counting the results for all the previous rounds too. This whole process, was released later with Flower’s first studio album (showing Flower’s perspective), including their part of the live-show and the performance of Boyfriend along with Happiness.

The winner for the whole Musha Shugyo became FLOWER, despite both groups were pretty close on their scores before the final round. Being the winners, the girls from Flower took part on Tokyo Girls Collection Autum/Winter 2013 with their performance as well as getting a spot on the next E-Girls’ single  (Gomennasai no Kissing You) with a b-side of their own, just like Dream, had been highlighted in E-Girls’ debut single (Celebration!) with the b-side Dreaming Girls. 

This may sound a silly prize but, considering E-Girls’ audience was still bigger than Flower’s (and Happiness’) as an individual group, it was a good strategy to promote the group and introduce them to those fans that the mega-unit had gain on its own but still didn’t know (or didn’t know that much) the individual groups. 

Besides, the song was also launched as a digital release. The song chosen for Flower’s b-side prize was HatsuKoi, written by Chris Meyer, Takumi Tsukada, Grace and lyrics by Narumi Yamamoto. 

At the moment of the release, the song didn’t upload a promotional video on their YouTube channel, however, it would appear later with their next physical single release (Shirayuki Hime), although the song appearing as a b-side (for that next single) was its Acoustic version, because the video had been already release on the CD + DVD type of E-Girls’ single Gomennasai no Kissing You. Another bonus of releasing that song was that it served as a theme song for both, Samantha X Kawaii X Art (Samantha Thavassa’s brand) commercial and the TV show from TV Asahi, musicru TV, being the ending theme song.

The last part of the big prize was for Flower to appear as a-nation guests, avex’s summer festival that consists mostly of their label’s acts, even when Flower is from Sony. Since the battle was under one of E-Girls’ activities (and they are signed under avex), this was also included as part of the prize. Without any doubts, this was a key step on Flower’s career, a group with already increasing popularity and sells but that needed another push forward to get onto the next stage to become more recognized and gain a certain celebrity status. Although, still nowadays, there are still walls they need to surpass, after this Musha Shugyo, Flower would take advantage of the tools acquired thanks to becoming the winners of the battle.

Image sources:

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2137292142378235101

http://gree.jp/flower_g/blog/entry/669455275

http://gree.jp/dream_g/blog/entry/670318637

http://gree.jp/happiness_g/blog/entry/669459484

http://ameblo.jp/21906991-hinano/entry-11566734701.html

http://blog.livedoor.jp/ajarain/archives/7963896.html

http://page.mixi.jp/recent_page_feed.pl?page_id=198587

http://ameblo.jp/8152274/entry-11578130217.html

http://sp.natalie.mu/music/gallery/show/news_id/96665/image_id/208253

http://www.generasia.com/wiki/File:Flower_-_Hatsukoi_cover.jpg

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2143593554698894401/2143607682219589303

http://nihongogo.com/2013/10/review-e-girls-gomenasai-no-kissing-you/

Additional video sources:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x121es6_%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%81%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%93-%EF%BD%96%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%8C%EF%BD%8F%EF%BD%97%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%92-7%E6%9C%88%EF%BC%92%E6%97%A5-%E6%AD%A6%E8%80%85%E4%BF%AE%E8%A1%8C-%EF%BD%84%EF%BD%81y%EF%BC%91_music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-DNOmdtxyY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFA6zdoh2ow

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12r65t_%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%81%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%93-%EF%BD%96%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%8C%EF%BD%8F%EF%BD%97%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%92-7%E6%9C%8826%E6%97%A5-%E6%AD%A6%E8%80%85%E4%BF%AE%E8%A1%8C-%E5%90%8C%E3%81%98%E3%82%B9%E3%83%86%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8-%E6%9D%B1%E4%BA%AC%E3%81%A7%E6%BF%80%E9%97%98%E3%81%99%E3%82%8B_music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8SX9UwtZhw

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11p02f_%EF%BD%85-%EF%BD%87%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%92%EF%BD%8C%EF%BD%93-%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%81%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%93-%EF%BD%96%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%8C%EF%BD%8F%EF%BD%97%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%92-%E6%AD%A6%E8%80%85%E4%BF%AE%E8%A1%8C-1%E6%97%A5%E7%9B%AE%E3%81%AB%E5%A4%A7%E5%AF%86%E7%9D%80_music

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x127qwu_%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%81%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%93-%EF%BD%96%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%8C%EF%BD%8F%EF%BD%97%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%92-%E6%AD%A6%E8%80%85%E4%BF%AE%E8%A1%8C-%EF%BD%84%EF%BD%81y%EF%BC%92_music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x42mfdnJHrw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9NwwFGS9Cc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSvl5j7hWjc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI_0N8HgreA

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x13de0r_%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%81%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%93-%EF%BD%96%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%8C%EF%BD%8F%EF%BD%97%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%92-%EF%BD%82%EF%BD%8Fy%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%92%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%84-perf-%E6%AD%A6%E8%80%85%E4%BF%AE%E8%A1%8Cfinal_music

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x12tfee_%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%81%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%93-%EF%BD%82%EF%BD%8Fy%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%92%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%84-%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%95%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85-%EF%BD%96%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%92_music

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x11ozim_%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%81%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%93-%EF%BD%96%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%8C%EF%BD%8F%EF%BD%97%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%92-%EF%BD%90%EF%BD%922-%EF%BD%82%EF%BD%8Fy%EF%BD%86%EF%BD%92%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%84-%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%95%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%93%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%85-%EF%BD%8D%EF%BD%8F%EF%BD%8F%EF%BD%8E%EF%BD%8C%EF%BD%89%EF%BD%87%EF%BD%88%EF%BD%94-%EF%BD%96%EF%BD%85%EF%BD%92_music

[ldhmania]

DREAM part 3

Dream‘s activities were all integrated into E-Girls’, ever since Sayaka had left the group, no new attempts to launch the group had been done. Along with Happiness, they were focusing on E-Girls’ promotions and had no releases like Flower had during that period. Despite being AMI one of the most popular members and using her into TV variety shows, everything was only benefiting E-Girls. 

Even with the lack of activity as Dream, on June 20th 2012, LDH would create an official Facebook page for them, being the first and only female act in the company with an official Facebook page (at the time, now Leola has one too).

This seemed to be a move directed to the remaining international Dream fans, some of whom had been following the group for longer than their LDH’s days, considering that Facebook is still a network that is not that much used for official promotions as much as LINE, Ameblo and others.  Despite of their new candy image for E-Girls, the photos they shot to renew their profile and set the Facebook page had a more adult look.

That year, they also had a series of promotional lives. They performed as Dream at Samantha Thavassa Girls Collection Ladies Tournament in July, they held a Dream Live in October, and held a concert with male vocal duo BREATHE at the Shirokita Festival also in October (from Osaka Industrial University).

Above, the Dream Live; Below, the festival they attended with BREATHE.

In May 29th 2013, after more than two years without an official Dream release (that hadn’t been included in an E-Girls’ release), LDH tested the audiences by granting the group a chance to drop a new single. Only You, written by Jam9, ArmySlick and NA.ZU.NA. was still a bubbly song, although they toned down the fluffiness of Dreaming Girls and the constant cheerfulness shown also on the flashy colors E-Girls had been using for their releases ever since Follow Me.

The single arrived at a moment that it looked like Dream would stick just to E-Girls’ releases. They had just released E-Girls’ first album Lesson 1 (April 17th 2013) and that was clearly a challenge for them, to see whether they could profit from E-Girls’ increase of popularity by promoting a single of their own. 

The title track was also used for one of Samantha Thavassa’s commercials.

When the title track was revealed through the short version of the video at YouTube, fans weren’t as much excited as they could’ve hoped. The factor that seemed to annoy the older fans, whom still wanted a edgier image and sound for them, was the bubblier sound and the pastel colors image, besides the fact the new line-up used AMI as a clear front-girl. However, not breaking too much from the new image they had gained with E-Girls, was still an element that could attract those new fans that had been dragged by E-Girls’ cheerful and candy image. 

There was also the fact that, despite using AMI as a core, the other members all had lines in the song and they still tried to display the 4-line balancing the members’ presence on the choreography. Although some saw it as a negative factor, the group had come a long way from focusing the main vocals into just 2 members (Shizuka and Aya) and still sharing that spotlight between the 4 of them.

AMI

AYA

Erie

Shizuka

Also, even when the image for the video was still showing the girls in cute but classy pastel colored clothes and screen filters, the image for the booklet was portraying an edgier Dream, with fluorescent colored clothes and a less cheesy image.  

The single would also complete showing a varied selection of sounds. There was place to show an up-beat dance sound (BOOM!! BOOM!!, by NA.ZU.NA and EMYLI) as well as a mid-tempo electronic song (Catch A Wave, by H.SU, NA.ZU.NA and Shoko Fujibayashi).

One of the b-sides, the cheerful mid-tempo, MY DAY, ONE WAY, was released as a digital single on May 15th 2013, since it was also a theme song for the drama Monsier! The song is written by Jin Nakamura with lyrics by MIZUE.

The results of this new chance that LDH granted them, weren’t too bad, considering the group had been failing to chart above the #10 ever since 2003, being their last #10 single I love dream world (when they were still 8 members). Irony or not, 10 years after, with half the members from back then, Dream managed to chart at #7 at the weekly charts (with 20,745 copies sold) with Only You. 

They even charted at #6 on their second and third days of release, getting back at it on the fifth day of release, after dropping out the top10. Against all the predictions from those whom didn’t believe E-Girls’ could do them any good, the group benefited from the hard work they’d put into it and re-gained some attention. However, the #7 for the weekly Oricon charts, didn’t last and the single still failed to become a real hit.

Instead of granting them a follow up physical release, Dream would drop a digital single on October 9th 2013, the song Wanna Wanna Go!, that was also the theme song for the CM of the fashion bran Honey Bunch by Paris Hilton. Although their physical releases and group activities couldn’t compare to Flower’s, during 2013 Dream started to have more endorsements and chances to promote as Dream over E-Girls’.

The song chosen for Paris Hilton’s brand was an up-tempo electro-dance bubbly track that suited perfectly the new line-up of 4. It was cheerful and had a catchy hook and chorus. Although it wasn’t released physically, this song seemed to be better received among the oldest fans who still decided to tag along. Perhaps it was due to the fact it tried to suit better the current group’s line-up but, sadly, the lack of a promotional video for this song and a physical release, decreased Dream’s chances at getting releases more often. Even if it’s a guess, judging by the first week’s good results of Only You and how E-Girls’ were stable at the time, if they had tried to provide a physical release and a promotional video for the song, it wouldn’t done worse than their Hands Up! Era songs.

Facebook’s page | Twitter | Aya’s Instagram | AMI’s Instagram | Erie’s Instagram | Dream’s Official Website | DJ Erie | DJ Erie’s Facebook | DJ Erie’s Twitter

Image sources:

http://gree.jp/dream_g/blog/entry/666956846

http://p.twipple.jp/user/Dream__LDH/3

http://www.kaskus.co.id/thread/53ccd0371cbfaaf6148b46c9/sudah-bosan-dengan-kpop-coba-new-wave-jpop-group-ini/

http://shop.mu-mo.net/a/st/event/dreamlive1307/

http://ameblo.jp/burnedest/theme17-10065225853.html

[ldhmania]

E-GIRLS LESSON 1 SP chapter

Just a month after the release of E-Girls’ fifth single, CANDY SMILE, their first studio album was released in April 17th 2013, granting the mega-units their first #1 position at Oricon’s charts, and being one of their best-selling releases, staying for 4 weeks in the top5 (1,2,4 and 5 respectively), 13 weeks without falling from the top100, and reappearing into the charts even after having fallen for a few weeks for more than two times during that year. Their first monthly sales placed the album at #3 (April, 93,973 copies sold) and at #12 the next month (May, 23,234), something that clearly stated the whole E-Girls’ project hadn’t been a mistake at all.

The group had been catering not just to younger audiences, but also tested the idol markets by attending a festival like the Tokyo Idol Festival in 2012, as well as a wider audience by attending the likes of MTV ZUSHI FES of 2012.

Despite building a clear front-line of vocalists, their first album was still providing songs for the rest of the group’s singers, beyond those b-sides that had been selected for the final track list.

The new songs: Loving Bell, Shiny girls and Take it Easy! Featured a varied combination of vocalists, while two of their previous b-sides, love letter and Tadaima! , were re-recorded with some changes on the vocal lines.

E-Girls usual A-list singers: Shizuka from Dream, Reina Washio from Flower, AMI from Dream, KAREN from Happiness and, sometimes, Yuzuna Takebe from BUNNY.

The album was completed with the previous title tracks: Celebration!, One Two Three, Follow Me, THE NEVER ENDING STORY ~Kimi ni Himitsu wo Oshieyou~, JUST IN LOVE and CANDY SMILE, without being re-record (which meant that MAYU’s vocals still featured in some songs despite her long absence). The rest of the album tracks, were the b-sides (also un-touched), READY GO, Suki Desuka? And Himawari (E-Girls Version).

The vocalists from the B-Line that got better chances at the album tracks: Chiharu Muto from Flower, Ruri Kawamoto from EGD, Aya from Dream and Erie from Dream.

As we’ve seen the title tracks and the other songs that weren’t re-recorded for the album, we will see now the songs that were new or re-done for the album.

*Rhythm is a little slowed on this video*

Loving bell (Jam9, ArmySlick) showed one of the oddest combinations (as it isn’t seen often) with Erie from Dream, Reina Washio from Flower and Ruri Kawamoto from EGD. The candy and cute mid-tempo song had a smooth R&B/Pop rhythm that allowed interesting harmonies on the song’s chorus between the three girls. The song would’ve been one of those to side with Happiness’ distinctive soulful but bubbly sound but, surprisingly, it didn’t feature any of its current vocalists at the moment (although it was only possible for Karen to record for the album).

The next track, Shiny girls (Kohei Yokono, ULO, Yu Shimoji) featured all the active vocalists minus Kyoka Ichiki. The song is a funky-electro-disco up-beat one, with that bubbly sound that would quickly become E-Girls’ trademark of songs that aim to “cheer the audiences up” and “lift their spirits”.

Another up-beat and cheerful track, was the song Take it Easy! (ArmySlick, NA.ZU.NA., Emyli) that allowed the combination of vocalists Chiharu Muto from Flower, Yuzuna Takebe from BUNNY and Ruri Kawamoto from EGD. The song’s vocals had a funky vibe that went perfectly with the selected girls, but still kept that bubbly and cheerful touch characteristic from E-Girls.

The new version of love letter only changed the arrangements for the instrumental but still featured the same vocalists: Shizuka and Aya from Dream, plus Chiharu Muto from Flower and Kawamoto Ruri from EGD. The low range from the verses fits perfectly the voices of Aya and Chiharu, while the high pitched chorus allows Shizuka and Ruri to shine at their best.

Tadaima!, included for this album version all the vocalists from the group minus Kyoka Ichiki (without erasing MAYU’s parts), meaning that Ami and Erie from Dream, Yuzuna Takebe from BUNNY and Ruri Kawamoto from EGD had joined the rest.

Despite of having been inactive for a year, MAYU’s vocals still featured in the songs Celebration!, One Two Three, and the last mentioned, Tadaima! (Album special Version). She even had one song more than Flower’s (then) sub-vocalist Kyoka Ichiki, whom was featured at both Celebration! And Himawari (E-Girls Version).

The bonus for the iTunes Pre-ordered version of Lesson 1, was an acoustic version of love letter, highlighting 3 vocalists from the B-line (Aya, Chiharu and Ruri) over the likes of Reina, Ami and Karen, although Shizuka (from the A-line) still sung on that track.

Still, with so many chances to listen to the other vocalists, the fact that those songs barely got performed live and didn’t have a music video to back them up, didn’t help the likes of Chiharu, Ruri or even Aya to catch the attention of the general audiences and fans as much as the A-line listed singers.

3 of the most popular performers, SAYAKA and YURINO from Happiness and Shuuka from Flower.

To be able to know the rest of the members, the performers, to purchase the DVD version of the album was mandatory. Luckily, girls like SAYAKA or YURINO from Happiness, as well as Shuuka Fujii from Flower, were popular enough to guarantee the sells for that version would be as good as the regular ones. Just like happens with EXILE, to enjoy the whole package, getting the music videos is necessary, especially with E-Girls’ featured Seifuku Dances that were attached as the intro for most of their music videos.

For Lesson 1 promotional profile photos for the first time showcased both BUNNY and EGD girls mixed in a whole group, at the time, without any label. Although this had already happened for the previous single (THE NEVER ENDING STORY), the images were still tagged under “bunny” for the members of BUNNY and “egd” for EGD members. From this moment on, the wonder about whether the middle-schoolers group had been totally erased and blended into something un-labeled with the rest of EGD became stronger.

The album booklet also separated the groups with Dream, Happiness (showing their shortest line-up ever after debut), Flower, and the whole bunch of BUNNY/EGD. 

This would be the last release to feature EGD’s performer Reina Kidzu (she is currently a fashion model)

Sources for charts positions:

http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Lesson_1

Reina Kidzu’s Social Networks: Twitter | Ameblo | Instagram | avex’s management page

[ldhmania]

Sayaka Shionoya

Shionoya Sayaka, one of the finalists from VBA3, joined Fukuoka’s EXPG right after the contest and in a year (2012) she took a new audition that the label KING RECORDS had organized: KING RECORDS Presents Dream Vocal Audition. From 10.000 contestants, Sayaka Shionoya was chosen as the winner.

She won the prize Dream Vocalist Loved by ViVi (promoted by the magazine ViVi) in the final that took place on May 26th at the Akasaka BLITZ. 

Later in August that year, Sayaka performed in front of 30.000 people at the Saitama Super Arena, during the Tokyo Girls Collection as a reward from the prize that she won. 

This event she performed is one of the most prestigious fashion shows in Japan that also showcases promising and established talents from the music industry. She was also selected for the Tokyo Girls Collection by girlswalker.com 2012 Autum/Winter The Best Vocal Audition, and in October 13th she would get the recommendation to be in the plan for new music acts that the Tokyo Girls Collection offers, being labeled as an upcoming star to look forward to. The TGC Best Vocal Audition chooses singers from the auditions that are celebrated all over Japan to give them a special recommendation on their website, being one of the most influential websites, that is followed by young and teenage audiences.

Sayaka Shionoya had a digital single release, ONE, a ballad song with some R&B/Pop flavor, that showcased her vocal skills that had already brought them to the finale of VBA3, which got her into LDH even after failing to win that competition. 

The song was written by Tai Sho, Erik Libdom and Kanata Okajima (lyrics). The single dropped in October 24th 2012 as a teaser to introduce EX FAMILY’s newest singer.

Her Major Debut would follow in January 23rd 2013, with KING RECORDS, she released the song Dear Heaven physically. 

The song is written by MATSUCO TASHIROU, whom has also written songs for DEEP, with lyrics by Masato Odake.

The same month she launched her major debut song on January 18th she embarked into her own Musha Shugyo, in order to find a way to communicate with the crowd as well as to polish her vocal skills and show her talent, touring the 47 Prefactures while promoting her first single and other songs. The name for her own Musha Shugyo was Uta Shugyo. As the other challenges LDH acts had done, it was followed by Shukan EXILE’s TV show, as well as reported by Sayaka herself on her blog.

In May 15th, she released a double A-side single, Katakoi/Smile Again, showing two different sides of her with two ballads, one that had a sad feeling and slow tempo (Katakoi), and the other that had a happy feeling into it and a more cheerful mid-tempo (Smile Again).  

Katakoi is a song by Jin Nakamura and Juri Ono, while Smile Again is a song by the same people that wrote the song ONE.

To commemorate the release of this second single, she held her first One Man Live at Tokyo, at the Shinagawa Stellar Ball (June 15th )

She was surprisingly chosen the most promising rookie act by digital charts site RECOCHOKU with the “Breaking Act to Look For” prize.

In August 21st her third single, Ocean Blue, was launched. This time, the song was a mid-tempo but still containing some nostalgic flow into it, a sound pretty close to FLOWER’s songs, written by Erik Libdom and Jeff Miyahara, with lyrics by Kanata Okajima. 

The b-sides for this new single had two different styles that hadn’t been approached by her yet: Sign and True Love, weren’t the typical ballads that she usually offers. Sign is an electro-dance up-beat song written by FAST LANE, Erik Libdom, with lyrics by P.O.S., that is original by singer JUJU; while True Love is a cheerful track, that reminds us from the type of lively songs that the vocal duo LOVE used to sing, the song is written by SKY BEATZ, SHIKATA and Lisa Desmond, with lyrics by MOMO”mocha”N.

In November 6 2013 she launched another double A-side single, Snow Flakes Love/Ichirinbana. The first one, a mid-tempo nostalgic song that reminds of FLOWER’s style again, while the second one is a slow R&B song with some Latin flavor on the chorus. 

Snow Flakes Love is a song by Erik Lidbom, Charlie Mason, with lyrics by Kanata Okajima, and Ichirinbana is written by Hiroki Sagawa from Asiatic Orchestr and produced by Jin Nakamura. 

The single was released in two different types: A and B, containing two different b-sides depending on the Type. Type A’s b-side was the song GET SET, GO by FAST LANE, while Type B’s was the song to you, a song where Sayaka herself contributed to the melody and lyrics, written with Jeff Miyahara and SKY BEATZ.

Before 2013 was over, Sayaka Shionoya held her second One Man Live concert, with two different dates for Osaka (December 11th at Abe no ROCKTOWN) and Tokyo (December 13th at Roppongi’s Nicofarre).

Despite not being a top artist and one of the LDH acts that still has a long road to go, Sayaka has always managed to chart her single releases at Oricon, with increasing results (going from a modest #32 with her debut single to a #16 on the last one we’ve listed in this chapter). Although she is a very competitive market, filled with female vocalists from the same type of style (from veterans May J, Tiara, JUJU, BENI, etc. to more recent acts like Kana Nishino or Ms Ooja), she still has a lot of room to improve and explore herself. With the right support, she could surpass the likes of Yuna Ito (whom has been missing for years now, but an act she got often compared to on her first steps) or even get more on the creative side like Miliyah Kato or JASMINE. By now, she’s been using similar styles to LOVE, FLOWER and JONTE, but from her first year to now, she has evolved a little bit.

With all the single releases from 2013, she paved the path to her first album, but that is something we will leave for a future chapter.

Sources:

https://www.ldh.co.jp/artist/musician/shionoya_s/

http://www.musicman-net.com/artist/23885.html

http://www.musicman-net.com/artist/29105.html

http://www.musicman-net.com/artist/32557.html

http://www.vanitymix.jp/music/shionoya-sayaka/

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2137613085840292901

http://mfound.jp/news/2012/05/011835.html

http://okmusic.jp/#!/images/news/48235

http://okmusic.jp/#!/news/26899

http://www.barks.jp/news/?id=1000095242

http://okmusic.jp/#!/i/collections/1995781

Official links:

Website | Twitter | Ameblo | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

[ldhmania]

E-GIRLS part 2

In April 18th 2012, E-Girls launched a second single One Two Three, still keeping the concept of the three sister groups that come together to do music. At the moment, Happiness was about to launch their first studio album and had great plans for the group, despite they were now a 6 member group since MIMU had announced she would temporary stop her activities (January 2012). Flower had just wrapped promotions for their second single, SAKURA Regret (February 29th 2012), with plans for a new release on summer; while Dream, had just become a 4 member group and were completely at the mercy of E-Girls’ potential success.

The new release added the instrumental track for E-Girls’ Anthem that had been performed at EXILE’s 2011 tour, plus the intro to the main song’s video featured the first Seifuku Dance segment where all the members, minus Dream girls, performed their dance. 

The title track, One Two Three, is a song by ArmySlick had a softer side and transitioned from a slow ballad-tempo rhythm for the song’s intro to an up-beat disco-flavored sound giving the girls a catchy chorus that stayed with the listener longer than their first release.

This was the first single when the idea of just the three groups disappeared. At first, the aim to add two girls that were in any of the debuted groups, was to cover for the vacancies of MIMU and Sayaka, so they just decided to add two girls from EGD, Anna Suda and Reina Kidzu. 

Above, EGD member Anna Suda, below, Reina Kidzu.

EGD stands for EXILE DANCE GIRLS, and is a unit of the girls that train at EXPG. 

They were displayed together in both, the dance intro and the main song part of the video. Then, we still had the other units’ presentation, but without separating them by colors or clothes’ styles. They all wore white outfits with glittering jewelry and black outfits for the separate units’ dance segments.

Above, Dream’s parts. Below, Happiness’ introduction and dance/vocal segments.

Below, Flower’s intro and dance/vocal parts.

This would also be the last single released conceiving E-Girls as a special unit and as just a joint of three individual groups. Also, for the vocal parts, from Dream only Shizuka and Aya got to sing. Contrary to what would happen later, LDH still saw in them the best tandem for Dream’s vocal lines, they were the two singers to lead the track (in fact, the video starts showing Dream as the leaders for the whole group), while the main vocals were the Flower’s tandem: Reina/Chiharu, and Happiness’ vocalists, MAYU and Karen, acted as the sub-vocalists for secondary verses and the song’s hook.

The first original b-side (not a cover, not a Dream recycled or unreleased track), Tadaima! (UTA, Tiny Voice Production) still excluded Erie, AMI and this time Kyoka too from the vocals. Kyoka Ichiki, from Flower, did feature on the vocals for both Celebration! and CAT’S EYE, although it didn’t provide her of the same exposure as the other vocalists. (avex provided later a music video with images of E-Girls’ live performance on their channel).

This was also the last single to feature images of the separated groups at the official website (although those images were in a low quality and we won’t display those here).

During the summer of 2012, E-Girls (as a recording act) changed its structure with the addition of un-debuted group BUNNY, becoming the 21 members unit into a 31 members’ one. The new group had already joined the mega-unit on the performances for EXILE’s 2011 tour, but once the 4 groups plus the two EGD selected girls were all in one recording unit, it was obvious that they needed a better system than just the display of joint forces to promote better. The fact that the likes of AKB48, Super☆Girls or other larger idol units were using the “senbatsu” (selection) system for music promotions, and that worked for the groups as a way to engage the audience to them, probably helped the team behind E-Girls’ production to try something similar. On that summer, all the girls joined a boot camp where they trained and auditioned to become the selected members to promote E-Girls’ next title track: Follow Me.

Although it seemed as a bad move for the fans back then, truth is, in order to gain new listeners and viewers, the idea of an A-line or selection helped create a more homogenous group, as well as to give it its own personality and color, not as a joint of 4 groups but as a group of its own. The music was also distinctive of this new aim to give E-Girls a personality of its own that could agree with the different groups’ individual colors. Although they went for the obvious eye candy, they still tried to keep a balance between mature and young/cute members. The biggest problem with this new strategy was dissatisfying the fans of the girls that would be left out (often) from the title tracks and everything that goes with it: album covers, screen time exposure, promoting events, etc.

When BUNNY got to finally be integrated into E-Girls’ as recording acts, Runa Yamamoto was already gone from the group. Also, for this new single, instead of EGD’s Reina Kidzu, Risa Ikuta would join representing the girls from EXPG.

Follow Me was launched in October 3rd 2012, becoming the group’s first hit, the song was first released digitally (being also their first digital release) and then physically. It charted #2 at Oricon and lasted for 16 weeks.

The members selected through the boot camp to promote the title track were:

Vocalists Ami (Dream), Karen Fujii (Happiness), Reina Washio (Flower) and Yuzuna Takebe (BUNNY) (Below, in order)

Performers (below, in order) SAYAKA, KAEDE and YURINO from Happiness; 

Shuuka Fujii, Mio Nakajima, Nozomi Bando, Harumi Sato from Flower;

Kyoka Takeda, Anna Ishii and Nonoka Yamaguchi from BUNNY; 

Anna Suda and Risa Ikuta from EGD.

Secondary songs served to showcase other vocalists, although the lack of promotional videos was a factor that started the regrets among fans towards the way LDH was handling things.

READY GO was the song were Aya and Erie from Dream, along with Chiharu Muto from Flower could have their lines, although they shared it with A-list members, KAREN (Happiness) and Yuzuna Takebe (BUNNY).  While Shizuka from Dream got a better spotlight with the ballad Suki Desuka? That she shared with Flower’s Reina Washio.

To the lack of Dream’s members (minus AMI, whom suddenly became the center of E-Girls), the addition of their songs being released on E-Girls’ singles, didn’t felt as probably the management desired to the fans. For this release, they took Dream’s newest anthem, Himawari and re-did it to fit E-Girls’ new designed image. They also added the vocals of all the remaining singers (all the groups’ singers) to the song, and that felt like Dream had been completely lost into E-Girls’ but hidden behind AMI and, a little less, Shizuka. What it might’ve been an attempt to engage Dream fans into the new project, was still a little bittersweet (more bitter than sweet) for the remaining original fans, whom saw all their chances to keep alive as an individual group go to waste. However, those fans didn’t predict that the new strategy would actually work in the market and the idea of choosing AMI as the new front girl, would bring them further than expected. Still nowadays, Follow Me is one of E-Girls’ best-selling singles and one of the songs that non-fans easily recognize.

Although the third single’s success was good, the next single didn’t arrive until February 20th 2013. THE NEVER ENDING STORY, a cover of the 1980’s theme movie’s song by Limahl arranged and produced by h-wonder, was the chosen track. For this occasion, the main video would feature all the members (and even showcase better the likes of Aya, Chiharu or even Erie), but the idea of the A-line didn’t go away for good. The coupling track, JUST IN LOVE (another bubbly techno-pop song) would serve to promote the selected line of members.

Mizuki Hanayama

Miyuu Oishi

Mira

When this single was released, BUNNY had lost three members: Mizuki Hanayama, Miyuu Oishi and Mira, becoming a 6 member group that was still listed under BUNNY at E-Girls’ website. Again, to fill some of the gaps, Reina Kidzu and Ruri Kawamoto from EGD joined the mega-unit.

Above, Reina Kidzu, below, Ruri Kawamoto from EGD.

This release’s second title track, JUST IN LOVE (ArmySlick), featured Shizuka and AMI from Dream, KAREN from Happiness and Reina Washio from Flower as the vocalists for the a-line plus the performers, SAYAKA, YURINO from Happiness, Erina Mizuno and Mio Nakajima from Flower, Yuzuna Takebe, Kyoka Takeda, Misato Hagio and Rio Inagaki, Anna Ishii and Nonoka Yamaguchi from BUNNY, Anna Suda and Risa Ikuta from EGD.

In order, the new additions to the A-line: Shizuka,

Erina Mizuno, Flower’s leader,

Misato Hagio, from BUNNY,

Rio Inagaki from BUNNY,

It featured, again, the dance segment video titled as Seifuku Dance, added into the main video as an intro. All the, back then, current Happiness’ members, Flower’s performers (minus vocalists Reina Washio and Chiharu Muto), BUNNY’s remaining 6 members (including Yuzuna Takebe) and EGD’s members, Anna Suda and Reina Kidzu, appeared on the Seifuku Dance intro. Despite of being added as performers, Ruri Kawamoto and Risa Ikuta didn’t take part in this dance segment.

The little girl in the intro for the video, would later become a member of E-Girls (Momoka Nakajima).

Despite taking that long to release a new single, E-Girls’ increasing presence in media (magazines, television and such) ever since Follow Me’s success, granted this single another #2 at Oricon, although it stayed for less weeks (8) and fell quickly under the top30, it helped to keep the door open for their rising popularity and new endorsements.

That is how the next single, CANDY SMILE, came quickly just a month after the release of THE NEVER ENDING STORY (on March 13th 2013), as the theme song of a candy brand’s CM (e-ma). This new song produced by CLARABELL reduced the A-line selection even more, as the goal was to capture the audience’s attention quickly with the CM. 

Above, the single’s line-up, below, the even more reduced line-up for CM promotions of e-ma’s candies.

However, they kept a balance with both the Seifuku Dance Intro for the main music video and the b-side, love letter (Jam9, ArmySlick) that showcased the voices of Shizuka and Aya from Dream, Chiharu Muto from Flower and Ruri Kawamoto, one of the EGD girls that had been added on the previous single to E-Girls.

The reduced A-line for CANDY SMILE was composed of vocalists Shizuka and AMI from Dream; Karen Fujii from Happiness and Reina Washio from Flower.

The performers were SAYAKA and Kaede from Happiness; Erina Mizuno, Shuuka Fujii and Harumi Sato from Flower; Anna Suda and Risa Ikuta from EGD and Anna Ishii from BUNNY.

This became mostly the A-line/Front-girls vocalists’ basic selection for further E-Girls’ songs. If, at first, from eldest group Dream only AMI had been granted the position of vocalist (ironically, up till then the member with less solo lines in the group), Shizuka had quickly gained more exposure and lead lines with E-Girls, thanks to her higher range notes probably, and Karen was the only possible choice from Happiness (with MAYU still on hiatus, since before Follow Me was released). Although fans still questioned why Aya and Erie were put that much aside as vocalists (especially Erie, although she’d never been a main nor a sub-vocalist until the Hands Up! era), perhaps the most obvious decrease on exposure became Chiharu Muto’s, whose role also decreased into her own group (Flower). 

Above, Dream less featured members in E-Girls’ title tracks, Aya and Erie. Below, Chiharu from Flower, whose role as a main vocalist eventually shortened on her own group.

The fact is, up to E-Girls’ first album, there were plenty of tracks to showcase all the vocalists, but not all those tracks got fairly promoted or selected to be released as title songs. At the end, the vocalists’ A-line reduced to the same names all over again. Even more, on a secondary b-line side, vocalists that didn’t even have enough exposure or none at all on an individual group were left a little bit aside: Ruri Kawamoto, Yuzuna Takebe and Kyoka Ichiki. 

(Below, in order)

The last one, had got fewer occasions to get b-side songs to perform in Flower, and at the time, she had only been featured at Himawari’s E-Girls’ version with the rest of the vocalists at the time.

The Seifuku Dance, that would become a distinctive for E-Girls during the period from the first to the second album, featured Erie from Dream but playing her role as a DJ (as well as featuring her MC’ing voice) all the members from Happiness, BUNNY’s members (Yuzuna too), Anna Suda and Ruri Kawamoto (Ruri’s first time) from EGD, and Harumi Sato from Flower.

*Note: This is the only Seifuku Dance that wasn’t uploaded at avex’ youtube channel, you must click on the above link to watch it*

Above, DJ Erie’s first music video appearence. Below, one of the rarities from E-Girls is to see Ruri in a performers’ video.

Despite receiving more airplay on TV, thanks to the candy CM, the single charted at #3 in the daily charts and didn’t get higher than #6 on the weekly Oricon charts. It managed to remain 5 more weeks but below the top30, and it came back after one week off the charts, to disappear again one week later.

Soon after this single was released, the upcoming first album was announced: Lesson 1 would be launched on April 2013, but that is something we will see in a new chapter.

Sources for images and charts data:

http://www.generasia.com/wiki/E-Girls

https://www.atpress.ne.jp/news/33819

http://girlschannel.net/topics/131128/

http://www.shokosei.com/works/cd/20140406152040.html

[ldhmania]

HAPPINESS part 2

During MIMU’s hiatus, Happiness released their fourth single, We Can Fly, written by UTA and lyrics by NaNa★MUSiC (former LDH’s NaNa). 

It was launched on May 16th 2012 as an advance to their album, Happy Time (June 20th 2012), which contained all their previous singles, some new tracks and a cover from 1990’s infamous group, SPEED: Body & Soul, a more contemporary upgrade to its sound, produced by ArmySlick.

In August, while they were performing their first solo tour: Happiness LIVE TOUR 2012 “Happy Time”, MAYU got sick with mononucleosis, forcing them to cancel their tour and stop all their group activities. This fact helped to E-Girls increase of activities and popularity, becoming Flower the only group from E-Girls that would continue their releases during that year. MAYU took a whole year to recover, staying out of any activity for both, Happiness and E-Girls.

I’m for You, one of the album tracks for Happy Time.

In October that same year, MIMU would finally leave the group to focus on her studies, with a last message apologizing to all the fans that had looked forward her return. Later, she re-appeared with a Twitter account and as the member of a new group called ITI. She sings in that group (that went quickly from 3 to 2 members), giving a little bit of credibility to some rumors that claim MIMU wanted to sing in Happiness but wasn’t allowed. Those are just rumors that go around the Japanese fandom and that have never been confirmed. However, nowadays, MIMU is pursuing a career as dance music group singer.

Alive, one of the Happy Time’s up-tempos.

This was the moment when Happiness lost their biggest chance to climb off their “promising” status and become actually popular. Instead of going along with E-Girls’ increase of success, their activities got cancelled and they had stop a barely started tour (that would’ve been a huge step for them to become better known). Since no releases followed their first studio album, nothing could continue the success of the album that managed to chart at #10 at Oricon and stay for 5 weeks in a time when AKB48 and its sister groups (along with Arashi and few other acts) were dominating the charts and the K-Pop wave was decreasing with only a few acts remaining strong on sells. Instead, some of their members got popular as E-Girls’ members (SAYAKA, YURINO and Karen Fujii), but this wouldn’t be such an important factor once the group could re-start their activities in a future. 

Until the moment they went on hiatus, Happiness had it the best among the E-Girls’ groups to take on the next stage and become a more stable group in sells terms. But everything went to waste when they couldn’t even continue with the promotional tour for Happy Time. We will resume Happiness’ story in a future, to see how they overcame this whole period of inactivity and without releasing music of their own.

Magic Na... Love, another of the Happy Time’s album tracks.

Image sources:

http://frefre-akagumi.asablo.jp/blog/2012/05/20/6451333

http://www.expg.com.tw/diary_detail.php?N_ID=20120727001

http://www.generasia.com/wiki/We_Can_Fly_(Happiness)

http://es.drama.wikia.com/wiki/MIMU?veaction=edit&redlink=1

http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Happy_Time

Sources:

http://www.universal-music.co.jp/happiness/news/2012/08/20120823live

MIMU’s social network links:

ITI’s Twitter | Instagram | Youtube

MIMU’s Twitter

[ldhmania]

DREAM part 2

Once Kana had left the group, Dream went through a re-vamp of image and music style that could fit the remaining five members, all in their 20’s. During 2011, Dream also became the chore of a new super-group they formed with their performance sister units (Happiness and Flower), to represent the female version of EXILE’s DNA.

Since they had joined LDH, the group’s dynamics changed a little bit by giving less main vocals and spotlight to Kana, while Shizuka’s lines increased. Sayaka’s main vocals also decreased, when Aya’s grew longer (and she even got to lead a couple of title tracks along with Shizuka). 

Breakout shows perfectly the new dynamics with Shizuka and Aya as main vocals. This was one of the first title tracks lead by Aya, whom used to be more a dancer and a sub-vocalist for shorter lines.

Reality is one of the songs that the 7-members line up re-did from the 3-members line up that included Sayaka in the main vocals, replacing Mai Matsumuro.

Ever since Mai Matsumuro graduated in 2002, the main vocals had always been Kana and Sayaka (and until she left, also Yu). Even when they got vocal roles assigned, under the management of LDH they became more similar to EXILE, however, with the new version of 5 members, it seemed there was an intention to equal the lines a little bit more.  

Lady Soldier is one of the up-beat songs that places the weight of the main vocals on Shizuka and Aya, while the other members provide harmonies for both, the chorus and the lead verses.

Their style would also suffer a renewal as 5 members. Opposed to the edgy and cool image from the Hands Up days (that was like an upgrade from their DRM era), the new line-up would offer a softer, bubblier and cuter image, still trying to keep it glamorous, taking on the fashion most young Japanese female wore at the time, as well as reminding of the Hime-Gyaru style (Princess style for Japanese street fashion urban tribes known as Gyaru).

Above, the edgy image they had when they were still idols and 7 members. Below, the transition to a more mature look for their DRM days.

Below, the image created for their re-vamp as 6 members, for the Musha Shugyo that started the path for the Hands Up! era.

The music for their Hands Up! Album had productions by the likes of ArmySlick (Ev’rybody Alright!, Naked), Miki Watanabe (My Way ~ULala~, Breakout),UTA (Perfect Girls), or STY (To The Top), almost all the songs had a Hip-hop/R&B sound mixed with some electronic and dance elements. Although the album also had bubblier and softer songs like HIMAWARI (by Jam-9 and ArmySlick, produced by h-wonder), Dear My Friend (by Masaaki Asada) or GLORY (by Tooru Watanabe), the song that had been chosen for their re-vamp as a 5 member group, Dreaming Girls was even bubblier and cuter, although it tried to keep some Bubble Gum R&B in the instrumental production.

Dreaming Girls was an attempt to find them a new audience, but the single’s release date kept being pushed back till November 2011, while their fans kept questioning the potential of the song and the new image.  

At the end, the single got cancelled but got added as a b-side to E-Girls’ debut single Celebration! (December 28th 2011). 

Although the song was used for a Samantha Thavassa (a purses and accessories brand) commercial, the attempt of re-launching them got dismissed and switched by the debut of the mega-unit, E-Girls. This was something that didn’t felt quite well with most of their fans that questioned the girls being used to help promote the newest groups; while others were skeptical but acknowledged the trouble Dream had about getting themselves back in the entertainment world with relevant sells and results.

The video even had a secon version with images of the girls recording.

What we know nowadays, from the remaining members’ interviews at different media (Gekkan EXILE magazine, Another Sky TV show by Nippon TV, etc.) is that for the girls themselves it was a tough decision to make. Discarding the attempt to be re-introduced as a 5 member group, girly and attempting to target younger audiences, to start doing activities as E-Girls with their sister (and way younger) units, was a huge decision to take and something they didn’t feel right with most of the times. 

Shizuka

Aya

Sayaka

Ami

Erie

At the end, all what they wanted was for the group to succeed as Dream, however, this was just the beginning of a new chapter for both, LDH and the female groups. Despite all the hesitations, the girls went along with it and sacrificed the opportunity to try to re-start things just as Dream.

Nowadays, one would say they had it easy. But taking Dream’s own trajectory from a group that wasn’t at the top but was promising (not even the 3 member original line-up was that successful and popular, they had a couple of hits and a large enough fandom) to a group that decided to take on the streets to avoid being dissolved; Swallowing in the fact the results of Hands Up! Weren’t enough to continue from there, deciding whether to push for another chance as 5 members or just accept the proposal of joining forces with two younger groups, mustn’t been easy for them. Is not like they hadn’t experienced something similar before, as with Girls’ Box, all what they got, was having just one member being pushed forward: Yu Hasebe, when the vocal and dance girl units’ trend died (and they failed to transition to a mature group), the group was dropped from the label.

The beginning of the journey with E-Girls’ seemed to keep presenting each group as an individual piece, but with no releases of their own to look forward, while both Happiness and Flower were having singles scheduled, the future as Dream didn’t look that promising to them.

That fact was probably one of the last reasons that Sayaka needed to take the decision to leave the group. She had barely regained some lines to sing, but probably facing a period when they would just work as E-Girls, wasn’t what she wanted. She chose to graduate in March 31st and later on joined a stage company to work as a musical actress.  Her graduation wasn’t pleasant for most of the older fans, seeing it as the result of LDH’s neglecting of her vocal talent. Sayaka leaving didn’t help much with the fans accepting the whole E-Girls’ plan once the second single for the mega-group was announced.

Truth is, even if she’d stayed, she’d spent a while just doing activities with E-Girls, but no one can guess how the next re-launching attempt would’ve been. We can’t even know for sure if she wouldn’t be picked to become one of the mega-group’s main members, although LDH pushing her aside on the previous releases for Dream must give us the idea she wouldn’t. But then, we’d like to remind our readers how Ami wasn’t even granted main lines (in title tracks) during the whole Hands Up! Era.

Image sources:

http://lovedreamhappiness-fans.info/en/forum/forumdisplay.php/26-Dream

http://ameblo.jp/dream-ldh/archive2-201111.html#mainhttp://es.drama.wikia.com/wiki/Archivo:DREAM_-_Dreaming_Girls.jpg

http://es.drama.wikia.com/wiki/Archivo:DREAM_-_Dreaming_Girls.jpg

http://www.colourfield.jp/2011/12/dreaminggirl-dream.html

http://mforum.cari.com.my/forum.php?mod=viewthread&action=printable&tid=557482

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2137947467383485901

http://ameblo.jp/hirohirohirohirohiro/theme-10041250069.html

http://www.generasia.com/wiki/Yamamoto_Sayaka_(singer)

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2144715681463891401/2144715752664420403

http://rigato.blog.so-net.ne.jp/2015-04-30-2

http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2139391171714708701

http://es.drama.wikia.com/wiki/Takamoto_Aya

http://es.drama.wikia.com/wiki/Nishida_Shizuka

http://www.jpopasia.com/celebrity/aminakashima/

http://yamamotosayakaofficial.tumblr.com/archive

Sources for Sayaka Yamamoto:

Official profile | Ameblo | Instagram

[ldhmania]

E-GIRLS part 1

E-Girls concept started kicking off with a series of free mini-live concerts that EXILE’s sister units, Love, Dream and Happiness gave between the years 2009 and 2010. It was that same year (April) when the girls got their own fan-club, aside from EXILE Family, called simply: Love Dream Happiness FAMILY.

Those concerts that were labeled under the name of the three groups (Love, Dream, Happiness) extended into the year 2011 transforming into E-Girls’ Show. It was then when the group LOVE withdrawn from the show and the dance unit Flower stepped in.  The name also changed into E-Girls, as more direct reference to being EXILE’s sister groups –as well as the fact that, without LOVE, they couldn’t represent the letters of LDH anymore-. The beginning of this new project –continuing from the series of lives they’ve held before as a family of groups- also coincided with the period when Dream became a 5 member group, now without Kana Tachibana.

After the VBA3, Flower became a full performance group and continued touring with the E-Girls’ Show preparing to debut with 9 members.

Soon in October 2011, the groups landed a TV show under the label E-Girls at TBS channel: E-Girls ga! MONKU no Sakebi.

That same month, the debut of E-Girls as a special recording unit was announced. For a start, fans didn’t expect the mega-group to become something permanent and basic for the other three groups to function. The news about their record deal stated that it was a special occasion single. However, soon enough, the situation changed from what fans –that at the time where focused on each individual group- were expecting, and E-Girls activities took over the individual ones, with the exception of Flower. However, this is something we will discuss in future chapters.

E-Girls’ debut song, Celebration! (December 28th 2011), featured only the (still now) debuted groups: Dream, Happiness and FLOWER. Back then, vocal duo unit LOVE, was still active but out of the E-Girls’ picture. Guesses are it was their own choice, as later we’d come to know that even Dream members had to be convinced all over again to confide in this project when all what they seem to want was to pursue activities just as Dream. Other guesses are that LOVE was left out because they weren’t a dance group (although both members were trained in that department).

Dream

Happiness

Flower

Whatever the real intentions to debut this group were, the realistic guess was the need to keep promoting them all together, since their fan-bases weren’t big enough at the moment and they needed higher sells to survive. It’s probably the reason why, instead of blending the three groups in one new, the first E-Girls’ singles shown the individual units’ colors and presented them as such on their music videos.

Dream members: SAYAKA, SHIZUKA, AYA, AMI and ERIE

Happiness members: SAYAKA, MAYU, Karen Fuji, YURINO, Kaede, MIYUU and MIMU.

Flower members: Erina Mizuno, Shuuka Fuji, Mio Nakajima, Manami Shigetome, Reina Washio, Chiharu Muto, Kyoka Ichiki, Nozomi Bando and Harumi Sato.

Celebration! Music video has a short introduction that showcases each one of the groups and its members, giving them different images and styles before mixing them all on the same stylized outfits (although keeping some individual touch for each member).

The single was completed with a cover of legendary dance group MAX, CAT’S EYE, as well as it served to finally release 5-members Dream cancelled single, Dreaming Girls.

Celebration! Is a song written by ArmySlick and Shoko Fujibashi, the song has some funky disco rhythm mixed with a bubblier sound that brings back memories of Paradise Go!! Go!! ‘s songs.

The first attempt of launching E-Girls as a whole was to show them as a group that could cater to young audiences but that might attract the likes that would go for idol large groups but didn’t have problems to also welcome foreign waves such as the K-Pop wave that hit Japan around that time. Still, they found a mid-term between sexy and cute that would represent the three units all along. 

Although Dream had tried to transform into a cute but classy image group, representing youth –as opposed to the fierce image they’ve had during the Hands Up era-, they were introduced as a more colorful but sexier version;

while Happiness kept that cheerful and cute but cool image they’d shown after their major debut, 

and Flower were just as blooming and nostalgic as they had been during their 4-member dance group days.

Colorful but sexy Dream.

Perhaps, the following, is one of the last images that Dream shown similar to the one of E-Girls’ first PV introduction.

Rather than the following re-vamp of style LDH had planned for 5-member Dream with the cancelled single, Dreaming Girls.

Cheerful (but a little bit matured) and cool Happiness.

Just the image in between their major debut days 

and what they would offer on their upcoming releases.

Young, blooming and nostalgic Flower.

Right just like the dancing unit

and the first year of releases.

To find a similar attempt at putting different groups with some similarities together, we would have to go back to avex’s Girl☆s Box projects. 

In fact, E-Girls’ different colors are just a more modern version of the groups that were around during the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s. Even the b-side chosen for the occasion was a nod to that era.

Image sources:

http://s498.photobucket.com/user/glacial07/media/LDH.jpg.html

http://ameblo.jp/hirohirohirohirohiro/theme-10041250069.html

http://tieba.baidu.com/p/1268033760

http://www.suruga-ya.jp/product/detail/220000125001

http://xoverload.com/getfile/flower-sakura-regret-single

http://gree.jp/dream_g/blog/entry/623668080

Sources:

http://lovedreamhappiness-fans.info/en/forum/showthread.php/432-LDH-free-mini-lives

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/michinao/touch/searchdiary?word=*%5Bhappiness%5D&of=5

For a compilation on some group names from the era we’re referencing in this piece, we currently only have this post in Spanish, however, you have the groups listed, some music videos and images.

[ldhmania]

KANA

Kana Tachibana graduated from Dream on February 20th 2011, being the last original member to finally leave the group, while passing the baton to the second generation members that remained. She had a ceremony concert and former member, Yu Hasebe, attended to gift her with a flower bouquet at the end of it. She gave as a last gift to the remaining members, a special pendant to each one of them that, put all together, formed a star.

She launched a Project that used the VBA3 to seek new vocalists with potential that would participate in a recording sesión of the song written by Kiyoshi Matsuo, Boyfriend. The prize also included the performance of the song during the final concert for VBA3 on May 14th 2011.

Winners, Chihiro (left) Ayano (right)

The winners were Ayano Tsuchimoto and Chihiro Hishinuma. The purpose was to showcase them to major labels, but still nowadays the girls haven’t done any major step on their music careers. Both girls trained for a while (around 2011-until 2013) at EXPG, and then parted ways.

Kana didn’t do much during the year 2012, although she participated in Yuu Shirota’s album UNO (March 7th 2012) with the duet song, Obstinacy, and she also guest starred in his tour Love & Peace Tour 2012. 

She was supposed to stay as an LDH act, but at the end of 2012, her profile disappeared from the agency’s website. 

Starting 2013, she started doing some music activities again. She even embarked in a One Man Live (concert), but it wasn’t until 2015 that she released music of her own. 

She dropped through iTunes in April 10th 2015 the songs HIKARI and Ano-Hohoemi-Wo, two jazzy styled songs that had nothing to do with anything she had previously done with Dream. 

The song HIKARI was written by fellow Dream former member, Mai Matsumuro. She is signed under TOKYO (w)REC(k)ORDS.

Aside from her music career, Kana keeps in good terms with her the other former members and the current members of Dream. 

Kana with former Dream member, Sayaka Yamamoto. Below, both attended EXILE TRIBE’s 2014′s tour together.

She even went along with Sayaka Yamamoto and Yu Hasebe to one of E-Girls’ tours (in 2014), 

and she also keeps a good relationship with Chiharu Muto (ex-Flower), whom she’d helped promote her own online fashion mall.

Kana with Chiharu, whom she hung out often during 2014 and 2015.

Sources:

http://ameblo.jp/chichammmm/entry-10966892087.html

http://ameblo.jp/chichammmm/entry-11506357423.html

https://twitter.com/Kana19851020

https://www.instagram.com/tachibana__kana/

http://www.e-clutch.com/kana_tachibana.html

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ano-wei-xiaomiwo-single/id983923444

http://www.tunecore.co.jp/artist/kana-tachibana?id=95452&lang=en

*Unfortunately, all footage from Kana’s section of VBA3 has disappeard from both YouTube and Dailymotion channels that had it uploaded. The same happened with the reports on Kana’s graduation concert and the moment she gave her gift to the remaining members. This is the reason why sources cannot be provided, although everything was covered by Shuukan EXILE TV show*

Ayano Tsuchimoto Social Networks:

Instagram | Ameblo

Video from Miss Universe Miyazaki

Ayano singing

Chihiro Hishinuma Social Networks:

Twitter | Instagram | Ameblo