Jpop Boy Groups According to My (ex) Boyfriend

After showing some of my favourite Jpop boy groups to my boyfriend, I found he had some pretty hilarious reactions. Some groups (and particular members) he admitted were pretty good, while others he couldn't stand (what did Jean Kaito ever do to you?).  So I decided to compile some of his funniest reactions to a few of my favourite groups into this post. I may make a part 2 at some point with some different groups.




G=AGE

So first of all, let's start with my favourite group, G=AGE. He didn't like them at all. When I asked him why, he couldn't give me a good reason though. He then proceeded to give each of the members nicknames.

FUMITO: Girly Face/The Frickle Frackler
VASA: Mr. Fabulous
MAHIRO: To quote him, "I can't insult this one, he has a puffer fish face."
TASY: Weird/Creepy Chin
ROI: Pig-Nosed Monkey

He also commented that they looked like mannequins and he couldn't stop laughing at how VASA (or "Mr. Fabulous") would always appear at different times in the "Age of Future" music video with the same deadpan expression. He finds TASY creepy and really doesn't like FUMITO for some reason; he wouldn't stop making fun of his hand movements and facial expressions in the music video.


M!LK

Much to my surprise, he actually liked them. He didn't have much to say about them other than, "Terunero terunero terunero~" but the members were all lucky enough to recieve nicknames from him as well.

Haruki - Panda Boy (because of the panda he wears on his jacket in the "Shingakki a la Carte" music video)
Mizuki & Daichi - The Fabulous Twins (I have no idea)
Hayato - Guinea Pig Face
Jinto - Creepy Door Guy (because of the scene in the "Kanzen SSD" music video where he shuts himself in the shower)

He laughed a lot at Jinto's dance moves in "Kanzen SSD". According to him, "SSD" stands for "super small d***". He also found this part in the "Ternero Fighter" music video rather amusing. His exact words were, "He (referring to Mizuki) looks like he's enjoying that."



MAG!CPRINCE

He liked them too. For a while he was confused between them and M!LK so he referred to them as "Magic Milk". As far as he was concerned, Kengo was a girl. No matter how many times I said they're all boys, he still referred to Kengo as "the one girl in the group". For some reason Hikaru reminded him of Michael Jackson and Taishin was given the nickname "The Suspicious Spot" because of the mole on his cheek.


SUPER★DRAGON

SUPER DRAGON was the one group he hated more than G=AGE. He said it was because they try too hard. The first video I showed him was the music video for "Bad Boy" and to quote him, "Are they going to say anything else in this song besides 'bad boy'?!" I then showed him "Pendulum Beat!" which he wasn't fond of either and finally "Wacha-Gacha!". He said he liked this song and how crazy the music video was.

I showed him a few live videos as well and he admitted that Tsuyoshi was a good singer but he said that whenever Jean started singing he just ruined it. No matter what video or picture I showed him from then on he just kept ripping into Jean and calling him names. When I asked him why he didn't like Jean he said he just didn't. Being mean to my baby Jean-Jean T_T

He said Reo looked like he was too old to be in the group, he thought Hayate was cool because he had a cool name and a "samurai glare", and he thought all of the younger members looked like little girls.



My boyfriend is lovely and I'm so lucky to have someone who's interested in learning about things that I like, even if he does make a lot of sarcastic comments, haha. If you'd like to see his reactions to any other groups then feel free to comment below!

Introduction to EBiDAN

One of the main purposes of this blog is to shed light on Jpop boy groups outside of Johnny's Entertainment. One of the most popular agencies besides JE that produces a lot of boy groups in Japan (and also my personal favourite) is EBiDAN. I actually prefer EBiDAN to JE in a lot of ways as I feel like they're much more accessible to overseas fans (and fans in general) and they just have a lot more groups that appeal to me personally. The only downside really is that EBiDAN isn't as popular overseas so it can be hard for new fans to find information in English and other languages.

Nonetheless, I think that EBiDAN is a great agency to get interested in if you're someone like me who likes JE a lot but often gets frustrated at how difficult it can be to be a fan of its groups when you don't live in Japan. So I've put together a general introduction post. If, after reading this post, you've become interested in any of the groups and would like to know more about them then feel free to contact me. Also, stay tuned as I plan to make a few more in-depth posts about certain groups. I'm mainly interested in the younger EBiDAN groups though (cute idol boys are my weakness, haha) so I might not be able to give you much information on groups like PrizmaX and DISH//.


Ebisu Gakuen Danji-bu (EBiDAN for short) is an entertainment school for male idols that was formed in 2010. Like Johnny's Entertainment; EBiDAN consists of singers, dancers, and actors. It is associated with the agency, Stardust Promotion (You may know Stardust as the company that manages the female idol group, Momoiro Clover Z). For more information on EBiDAN's overall history then you can check out this post.

Current Groups


 PrizmaX

PrizmaX were actually active as a group since 2002 but were added to EBiDAN in 2010. They made their CD debut in 2013 with the single, "Mysterious Eyes / Go!". The lineup of the group has changed several times since their debut but the current members are vocalists Tim Kurokawa and Win Morisaki, rapper Shimizu Daiki, and dancers Fukumoto Yuki and Shimada Tsubasa. The interesting thing about PrizmaX is that a lot of their earlier songs are in English as both of the vocalists are hafus. Tim is from the US and Win is from Myanmar. 


DISH//

DISH// were one of the first groups to actually debut from EBiDAN. They debuted at the same event as Chotokkyu in 2012 with the indie single, "It's alright". Their music is in more of a rock style and they do actually play their instruments but they dance while performing on stage. Their major label debut was in 2013 with the single, "I Can Hear". They are so far the only EBiDAN group that isn't under the Stardust Music Label; they are represented by Sony Music Records. The members are vocalist and guitarist TAKUMI, back-up vocalist and guitarist MASAKI, bass guitarist and rapper RYUJI, DJ and rapper To-i, and drummer DAICHI.


Chotokkyu

Also known as Bullet Train, Chotokkyu made their debut in 2012 with the single, "TRAIN". They are probably the most popular EBiDAN group overseas. Each of the members of Chotokkyu have a colour that represents them; Koichi - black, Kai - blue, Ryoga - purple, Takuya - green, Yuki - red, Yusuke - yellow, and Takashi - white. Koichi and Takashi are the singers of the group, the rest are dancers. I love Chotokkyu for the somewhat crazy style to a lot of their songs. All of their songs are available to purchase on iTunes (even outside of Japan!).


Sakura Shimeji

Sakura Shimeji are a duo who made their CD debut in 2015 with the single, "Ikujinashi / Kino no Yume". The members are Takata Hyouga and Tanaka Gaku. Both of them sing and play the guitar. Hyouga also plays the tambourine. All of their songs are available on iTunes as well.



MAGiC BOYZ

Now for probably the most er...unique EBiDAN group. MAGiC BOYZ (sometimes called Majibo for short) are a "rap" group who also made their debut in 2015 with the single, "MAGiC SPELL ~Kake Chau Zo Pippippi~". The lineup has changed quite a lot over the years but the current members are MCs Ryuto, Touma, and Mahiro, and DJ Joe. Some of their older songs are available to purchase on iTunes. A lot of Majibo's songs are actually quite catchy, it's just that the members themselves are pretty awkward and don't really fit well with the group's concept in my opinion.



M!LK

Now for my personal favourite group! M!LK made their CD debut also in 2015 with the single, "Coffee ga Nomemasen". The title track was used as the ending song for the anime, "Pankisu!". I'm totally not extremely bitter about the fact that M!LK are the only 39&KiDS unit whose songs aren't available on iTunes outside of Japan, nope. M!LK is a group with a very cute image and all of their songs are super upbeat and catchy so if you're into groups like that then definitely check them out! The members are Sano Hayato (pink), Itagaki Mizuki (orange), Yamazaki Haruki (green), Shiozaki Daichi (blue), and Yoshida Jinto (yellow).


 SUPER★DRAGON

SUPER★DRAGON's first widely available single was "Pendulum Beat!" which was released in 2016. The title track was used as the opening song for the anime, "Yu-Gi-Oh! Arc-V". SUPER★DRAGON have a more cool, bad boy kind of image (which I find kind of funny sometimes because members like Raku for example are way too adorable to pull off that kind of image) and their music tends to have a lot of rapping and dubstep-like sounds. The group is split up into two subgroups; FIRE DRAGON - which is made up of the four oldest members - Reo, Tsuyoshi, Jean, and Hayate and THUNDER DRAGON - which is the five youngest members - Sougo, Koki, Hyoma, Tomoya, and Raku. Tsuyoshi is the main singer of the group, Jean mostly raps, while the other members mostly just dance but this sometimes changes depending on the song. Also Jean is half-Turkish. All of their songs so far are available on iTunes.


EBiDAN 39&KiDS

As well as the debuted groups, EBiDAN also has its own trainee members similar to Johnny's Jr. in JE, known as EBiDAN 39&KiDS. EBiDAN 39 (pronounced 'sankyuu') are the older trainees while EBiDAN KiDS are generally the under-13s. Sakura Shimeji, MAGiC BOYZ, M!LK, and SUPER★DRAGON all started out as 39&KiDS units so a lot of the time they will still appear in the 39&KiDS live events and TV shows. EBiDAN 39&KiDS has six different locations; Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sendai, Okinawa, and Fukuoka. There is also EBiDAN THE STREET for groups that mainly focus on performing street lives.



If you're interested in any of these groups, you can head on over to Stardust's official YouTube channel to check out their music videos and other cool videos. Also if you'd like to watch any of their concerts or EBiDAN's weekly TV shows, they can be found on Stardust Channel. If you'd like any more information then feel free to comment below!


G=AGE Disbands


This post is awfully late, considering G=AGE disbanded almost half a year ago. I won't go into what took me so long here as I've already explained it elsewhere but since this group was so important to me, I thought they deservered a kind of "farewell" post. This post will basically just explain what was going on at the time of their disbandment, the supposed reason for it, and I will also keep it up to date with links to what the members of the group (as well as G-BOY'S) are doing now for anyone who wants to continue following them.


G=AGE "disappeared" around the beginning of October 2016, shortly after announcing the upcoming release of their second single, "Ijigen DRIVER". By this I mean they started cancelling events and their social media accounts, blogs, and website weren't being updated. Many fans sent concerned messages to the agency but unsurprisingly, received no response. Little by little, several of the G-BOY'S members began appearing on Twitter; confirming that they were no longer working with the agency.

After a while some rather questionable rumours regarding the group's disappearance began to circulate. There was talk of money issues within the agency, some kind of incident with the Johnny's Jr. member, Abe Aran, and even a sexual abuse scandal. Since it's been a while since all this occured, most of these posts have been removed now and there was no actual proof of any of these things happening anyway (accept for one that I won't go into here *cough* but if anyone wants the details then they can message me or something) so it's up to you whether you believe all of that or not.

After almost two months with no official word, member TASY (Tajima Shogo) opened up his own Twitter account. There he posted a link to a blog post that finally revealed that the group had disbanded. This blog post has since been deleted but I remember it contained statements from each of the members regarding their "decision to leave the agency", stating the reason as the agency putting heavy demands on them which made it difficult for them to balance the group activities with their school work and other responsibilities. (As you can probably tell I don't think this is the whole truth, haha)

Without getting too sappy, this group really meant a lot to me. I thought they were quite unusual and had a lot of potential as well so I think it's such a shame that they would disband after less than a year of activity. Of course I wish they'd stayed together but I'll still support all of the members with whatever they decide to do now. On the upside, a few of the members have opened up social media accounts now and they still seem to be keeping in contact and supporting each other which I think is really sweet. I'll leave the links down below and I'll update this post if any more pop up.



TASY, the airhead who's awesome at dancing
VASA, the skinny one who loves food
FUMITO, the very cute and exciteable one
MAHIRO, the squishy faced one who probably loves cats more than he likes people
ROI, my little troll prince who steals people's food and makes cute silly faces at the camera 
G-BOY'S, I wish I'd gotten to see them more, especially my son HIROYUKI <3

Future Order
G=AGE大好きでした



Social Media Links


G=AGE
G-BOY'S

In 2021, Shogo and Hikaru took part in the second season of PRODUCE 101 JAPAN (prior to this Shogo was also active as a trainee in South Korea). Hikaru was sadly eliminated in the second round but Shogo went on to debut as a member of the group INI.

Shortly after G=AGE disbanded, ALO and Fumito brieftly went on to form a duo called Karuizawa Handoutai Club but they later disbanded. In 2019, ALO then went on to work as an actor for a while and announced that he would take part in the first season of PRODUCE 101 JAPAN, but then pulled out before the show began filming. As of 2020, he currently works as a model and has expressed having no interest in returning to the idol or acting industries.

In 2017, Takanori, Tsukasa, Kazuma, and Takuya went on to form the group X.E.N.O. Project but they later disbanded. Kazuma and Takuya then left the agency but the remaining members stayed as talents with ONE PIECE Entertainment alongside Fumito. Check out the website here.

As of 2020, Takuya is a member of the group Mr.LOVER.

Sho is an actor and frequently performs in stage plays.

Takumi is now a model and as of 2019, a member of the group AXXX1S.

As of 2018, Hiroyuki is a member of BOYS AND MEN Kenkyusei Tokyo.

Yuuto went on to join the group TERCERA TRAPs but later graduated. He then went on to take part in the second season of PRODUCE 101 JAPAN in 2021 but was met with controversary due to questionable videos he posted online before being accepted onto the show.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...