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Thursday 3 November 2011

The Dark Era of Arashi (2000 – 2005)

Who does not know Arashi?
The Japanese boyband which currently its name resound throughout the universe. They almost never absent from the singles, album and tour of their annual concert which was held at the dome in every major cities in Japan. Arashi Became the first male artist to Achieve a six number-one singles in a year.

Another achievement was when they be the only artist which hold a concert in Kokuritsu National Stadium during the 4th years in a row that lasts for 3 days.

Become Arashi also became the first group to host the show on NHK's annual event for 2 years in a row.

Arashi currently reliable to be the ambassador of Japan who served tourism in promoting back this country since the earthquake in Tohoku the 11th March 2011 in Japan Discovery program - Visit Japan 2011 that the ad aired in 133 countries around the world.

The number of awards and achievements made ​​Arashi popularity can not be doubted.

But do you know ....?
Behind the success of their career there was grievous stories before they eventually become super idol and greatest storm ...


source : akirahajime

  • Their CDs were not sold well, so their previous record-label changed investment to W-inds.
  • They didn’t have many movies, radio shows, tv shows and their shows all aired only in Kanto region, so Arashi  was called “Kanto region artists”.
  • There was time that their only fixed show was a 5 minutes radio show.
  • McDonald terminated their advertising contract ahead of time with the reason: “changing strategy”
  • Their first TV show on FujiTV was “Nama Arashi”, when the rating was only 1.5%, the show was cancelled.
  • They used to do mid-night shows on NTV, with the corner that they had to solve complains (C no Arashi) and interview men who like to dress as women ( G no Arashi)… and many other corners (D,G no Arashi). They worked very hard in those corners, but at that time many people said them “not-like-idols”
  • Since they worked hard but didn’t get any good results, in 2002 tour, five of them had a serious discussion about Arashi’s future in Ohno’s room.
  • 2004 is the darkest era year of Arashi. 2004 Olympic Athens was very famous and it got attention from public, at that time, all television stations spent 70% broadcast time for Olympics news. Many people predicted that year’s 24h TV program will fail, so Arashi was appointed to be the main personality supporters (maybe they thought it would fail so they didn’t care who take this job). Kitagawa Julie accepted that project in the effort of promoting Arashi. When Aiba cried and read the letter he wrote for other members “We will definitely fullfill our dream to be the top”, fans of other groups sneered.
  • In 2005, they had plan to do the concert in Yokohama Arena ( 17,000 seats), but had to gave that Arena to KAT-TUN (not debut yet) and moved to Yoyogi (10,000 seats). Arashi also had concerts in small and old arenas, they even fell off stages.
  • In 2005, they filmed “Subarashiki Sekai” PV but after that JE didn’t release it because the company was afraid “no one will buy it”. Until now we still don’t have the full PV. JE also didn’t release “One” concert DVD with the same reason, even though Jun insisted them to release it. In the end of 2005, Jun accepted the role in Hana Yori Dango, one of his reasons was it’s the chance for Arashi to release new single. Other members joked “ Thanks to Matsujun’s Hanadan that we get work to do” (in Wish single’s secret talk)
  • Arashi said “The priority of Arashi in the company is 8th”.

1 comment:

  1. Thank you for the summary. Didn't realize it was this hard for Arashi back then.

    ReplyDelete