The 関ジャニ∞ Boy Band Experience!

So as fate would have it, a friend of mine managed to get free tickets to see Kan-Jani-8 (Kan-Johnny-8?) in Osaka yesterday! I'd never heard of the group before, but they're apparently a pretty well-known 8-member teenage-heartthrob manufactured boy band. My friend Kern is quite knowledgeable about these things, and I learned a lot about this industry from him.

First, there are apparently two huge "talent" agencies that mass-produce these manufactured bands - one does only girls (Tsunku's operation, with Morning Musume, Aya Matsuura, Melon Kinenbi, etc.) and the other does only boys (I think it's called "Johnny's", and they produce bands like Arashi, SMAP, Kinki Kids, and this one).


So apparently their audition criteria when recruiting members for these bands is as follows: (1) Height, (2) Looks, (3) Coordination (dancing ability). Note that "singing" is not one of these criteria. Apparently singing is considered to be a "nice bonus", but since almost every song these guys do is sung completely in unison, it's no problem to discreetly fade out a mic or two.

The show was an interesting production - it had a bon-odori (summer festival dancing) theme, and the stage in the center of Osaka-jo hall was decorated with paper lanterns and surrounded by a crowd of probably 500 girls dressed in colorful yukata. The crowd was an interesting mix, too. Out of probably 10,000 people in the audience, I believe there were exactly 2 guys, Kern and me, surrounded by a sea of starry-eyed screaming girls with a median age of about 15, carrying their homemade uchiwa (Japanese fans) covered with glitter and declaring, in brilliant neon colors, their love for band member X or asking him to blow them a kiss.

So we were sitting there, waiting for the show to start, and suddenly a chorus of high-pitched screams came reeling through the crowd, building in volume like a jet engine warming up for takeoff! The hysteric fervor around us was reminiscent of Beatles or Elvis concerts, and I wouldn't have been surprised to see some girl pass out next to me. Assuming the band had come in, I looked around but couldn't find them... Then I saw what the screaming was about - On a video screen in the corner of the arena, they were showing a ramen commercial starring some of the members of the group... This much reaction for a ramen commercial? I shuddered to think of what might be coming next.

Then the lights went out. Across the arena, little colored lights came on, as all the girls broke out their electric glowsticks. The thousands of little colored lights were really quite beautiful, like looking at a Christmas tree from the inside. Anyway, soon the inevitable came. The music came on, spotlights stabbed through the dark, highlighting the band members standing in the crowd around the stadium, and the girls erupted into a frantic cheer that, well... I'd imagine that if a fleet of alien spacecraft had just energized demolition beams to tear apart the Earth, it would sound something like that.



So they sang a couple songs, and then the show settled into a pattern that seemed like a TV program. There was a girl acting as MC, asking questions to the different band members, and then they had several groups come up to do different dances. At first, they had all the yukata girls on the floor walking around the stage doing an obon dance while some guy from Kawachi sang some traditional Japanese song for the occasion. The various dances for the evening were diagrammed out in our programs, so a lot of the people in the audience were following along. It was kind of interesting because the rhythm was based on 10, not a multiple of 4.

After that, there were six different dancing groups. Elementary school, junior high, and high school kids came on stage and did different kinds of dances while the guys in the band stood in the raised center of the stage behind them. Occasionally one of the guys would pout and a whole section of girls would scream until they went sterile. Sometimes the guys went down and danced with the little kids for a bit. Some of the dancing groups were a little -yawn- and some of them were pretty good. The last group was from Kyoto, and they were billed as the "best amateur dancing group in Japan" - The Kan-jani-8 guys left the stage when they came on, and they put on quite a show - huge musclebound guys waving enormous billowing flags covered with Chinese characters, scantily-clad girls dancing in outfits that defied categorization - sort of a cowgirl thing meets 80's fashion but with Chinese-looking embroidered silk dragon capes. The music was reminiscent of a Dream Theater rock ballad, and the singer had this awesome grinding voice that sounded like he was born to be in a heavy metal band. It was great - halfway through, he announced that he actually teaches third grade at an elementary school!

That group is called "Kansai Kyoto Imamuragumi". Here's a pic from their website (the URL on the picture is the group's blog)


That group was really good, but it was actually the act before them that stuck in my mind. After all these high school kids dancing around on stage with their hip-hop moves and whatnot, this group of mostly older women (hard to tell - upper 40's / 50's? It's "oba-chan" in Japanese.) and a few older men came on stage. Before the show had started there had been a group of older women on stage in kimono, doing a traditional obon dance, and I was expecting something similar, but then the electric guitars kicked in... The song went something like "Osaka no obachan, rock! rock!" and indeed, they were gettin' down! It was sooo awesome to see these old ladies (and guys) shakin their thing and putting the youngsters in their place! めちゃ感動した！

So finally the band came on - not too much to say about that, it was about what you'd expect. Kinda funny, though, there were some guys who sang most of the time, and there were a couple guys who hardly ever sang. One of them only chimed in when they needed a blood-curdling "Yeah!!!" It was entertaining to watch. For one song, there were all these complicated hand motions that the guys were doing, and as I looked around, I realized that the backdrop of glowsticks around the arena was whirling and pulsating to the dance, in exact unison! さすが日本と思った！

Anyway, I had never thought I'd go to a show like this, and it was definitely a unique experience. :)