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The story
It was revealed via JASRAC (Japan’s music rights organization) credits that the composer and lyricist behind BEYOOOOONDS’ new song “Shoshi Sengan” is Asahi Tazaki (nicknamed “Hoshibe”), a former member of Bitter & Sweet — sparking discussion on the Hello! Project board of 5ch.
Beyond dissatisfaction with the song itself, the thread’s discussion expanded to questions like why this direction was chosen for the group’s first release after adding new members, as well as the imbalance in how often Hoshibe gets tapped to write songs and differences in treatment between groups.
What people said
3,400 days — Momohime Seino (since 2017/05/05)
3,330 days — Kurumi Takase
3,000 days — Shiori Nishida, Saya Eguchi, Kokoro Maeda, Minami Okamura (since 2018/06/09)
2,823 days — Miha Hirai, Moeka Kobayashi, Utano Satoyoshi (since 2018/12/03)
2,557 days — Rika Shimakura
2,492 days — Reina Ichioka
2,210 days — Yuha Yamazaki
*,*71 days — Hana Kojima, Mano Otsubo, Yuna Sugiyama (since 2026/06/16)
If anything, Bitter & Sweet used to put out self-written songs when they were indie, but from their major debut all the way to their breakup they were basically parasitized by Hoshibe.
But that costs money…
Just confirms Tsubaki Factory is still the real favorite.
Then again, if even "Ai = Un + En + On" doesn't sell, maybe they should just disband.
However you look at it, that song sounds way more like a BEYOOOOONDS track than a Tsubaki Factory one.
What is that ridiculous title lol
Personally I like Kohira-san's dark, mellow (non-upbeat) songs.
I think she'd get a shot if she just asked nicely.
Assuming she's okay being treated like this, anyway.
It'd be a dream come true if Asakura-san's debut track turned out to be a Kohira-san composition.
Hope it actually happens.
Kodama Ameko became such a big-name lyricist that she now writes for M!LK — her fee clearly went up, which is why she stopped writing for Hello! Project.
Be my guest.
If we're replacing Hoshibe, AI would do just fine.
the issue is why they went with this direction for the first release after adding new members.
With "Shoshi Sengan" it feels like: "What is this garbage song? → Oh, Asahi Tazaki? …Ah, that explains it."
Even the BEYOOOOONDS fans who were excited for the new song were saying no to this one.
say what you will, this agency is pretty easygoing on people.
For the Hello! Project members though, it's basically a punishment game.
If Oda's solo song turned out to be a Hoshibe track there'd be huge boos.
Akiyama doesn't even have a solo song.
in the end, landing a genuinely good song is basically a miracle.
Juice=Juice's mediocre songs still beat other groups' career-best tracks, as always.
Are Takui's songs even good though?
Trust in the Juice=Juice brand itself has basically peaked at this point,
so once the live footage goes up it'll rack up views regardless of the song.
I asked if they're actually good, though.
it's just one ad hoc song after another.
"Huh, this song sounds like it belongs to that other group" has always been a thing.
Only Moemi ever invites her as a guest.
Tsubaki Factory's "Ai = Un + En + On" ("Love = Luck + Bond + Gratitude").
Background and Key Points
Hello! Project (H!P) is the umbrella agency/franchise behind idol groups like Morning Musume, Juice=Juice, Tsubaki Factory, and BEYOOOOONDS; songwriting and composition credits for these acts are often not announced with fanfare but only surface later through JASRAC, Japan’s music-rights registry, which is why fans treat a JASRAC listing as a “reveal.” Asahi Tazaki, nicknamed “Hoshibe,” is a prolific in-house-adjacent writer who has supplied songs across multiple H!P units; Bitter & Sweet was a now-disbanded H!P group whose catalog, once it went major-label, was almost entirely written by Hoshibe rather than by its own members, despite writing its own material as an indie act. BEYOOOOONDS itself just added three new members in June 2026 (Kojima, Otsubo, Sugiyama), making “Shoshi Sengan” effectively their post-addition reintroduction single.
The thread wasn’t really united in blaming Hoshibe personally — one poster explicitly reframes the issue as not “who wrote it” but why management chose this direction for a lineup-refresh single, and another accuses critics of only disliking the song after learning the composer’s name (bandwagon judgment rather than judging the track on its own merits). Alongside that, there’s a side debate about whether relying so heavily on one writer is sustainable at all, versus giving more chances to alternatives like Risa Kohira or letting AI generate songs instead.
What outsiders may not grasp: this reflects a real structural pattern in H!P, where a small pool of external writers (Tazaki, Kodama Ameko before her fees rose and she moved to M!LK, Hyadain, “Takui”) get shuffled across many otherwise musically distinct groups, so H!P group identities are often less about consistent in-house songwriting than about production packaging.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “[Shocking] BEYOOOOONDS’ Latest Song “Shoshi Sengan” Turns Out to Be Written by Former Bitter & Sweet Member Asahi Tazaki lolololololololololol.”
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