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The story
Odyssey, the company that runs Hello! Project’s concerts, announced it would open the parking lot ahead of the scheduled time after a string of complaints that Tsubaki Factory fans were illegally parking at nearby facilities. On 5ch, opinions clashed: some questioned the organizers (“If the instructions were unclear, they should’ve just opened it from the morning”), while others fired back at the fans (“Don’t get defensive when you’re the one who showed up early and parked illegally”). The thread eventually spiraled into comparisons of fan etiquette across other Hello! Project groups.
Odyssey
@ODYSTAFF
[Notice]
Source: x.com / Original post here
What people said
This is the part that really stings
You can tell from how few followers they've got
Re: #28
Nice tantrum, nuisance otaku (lol)
That's exactly the reason they can't disband Tsubaki
You mean Tsubaki and OCHA NORMA ("Ocha")
Rosy Chronicle barely even has fans to begin with
A lot of them are fans of both groups anyway
Heatstroke deaths
Groping incidents
https://stellartheater.jp/kouen/11119/
Sounds like they weren't handling it this way until last year
They can't exactly open that up first thing in the morning
The guy getting defensive is mad about other stuff too
Is that really the reverse case though?
Instead of posting on X that they're "done as an organizer," couldn't they just say "could you move the smoking area away from the merch stand"?
I think it's that the guy who got defensive is also mad about other things — the post itself isn't necessarily the "getting defensive" one
Tsubaki's cranking out merch like it's a Budokan show
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HQjV9Raa4AAAm6a.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HQjV9Rda0AAJWmu.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HQjWPhza0AAtJjE.jpg
https://imgur.com/Ss1fLrN.jpeg
Meanwhile Juice=Juice had nothing but leftover MORE T-shirts and unsold Pia merch even at a huge festival
https://imgur.com/viSrUt7.jpeg
Guess you'd better get there early then
That's on the organizers for not bringing enough stock and not predicting fans would show up early
Instead of complaining here, go reply and tell them directly lol
Oh hey, it's Dewa-san 😁 (apparently a nickname for a regular poster)
https://imgur.com/NwrfiwD.jpeg
Background and Key Points
Hello! Project is Up-Front’s idol-group umbrella (Morning Musume, Juice=Juice, Tsubaki Factory, OCHA NORMA, Rosy Chronicle among others), and Odyssey is the affiliated company that runs its concerts and event logistics. Tsubaki Factory’s “Summer Festival 2026” was staged at the Kawaguchiko Stellar Theater/Round Hall in Yamanashi, near Mt. Fuji — a regional venue, not a Tokyo arena, and the “parking lot” in question appears to be a repurposed school yard rather than a purpose-built lot. That mismatch between a small local venue and a fanbase willing to queue for hours is the root of the incident: fans parked illegally at neighboring facilities to stake out early spots for merch and entry, prompting complaints from those facilities and forcing Odyssey to post a public notice on X moving up the lot’s opening time — an unusual, faintly embarrassing step for an organizer to take publicly.
The thread’s actual fault line wasn’t fans-versus-organizers so much as it looked; posters agreed the parking was a problem, but split over blame — whether Odyssey’s vague instructions invited the rule-breaking, or whether fans who arrived hours early and parked illegally had no standing to complain afterward. That argument then drifted into a separate, longer-running dispute about which H!P subgroup’s fanbase behaves worst, with Tsubaki and OCHA NORMA singled out.
What outside readers will likely miss: this reflects on the fandom, not the idols themselves, and the “Kōhaku” jab (NHK’s New Year’s Eve broadcast) is fan shorthand for reputational stakes — a public scandal like this can hurt a group’s odds of an invite. The merch tangent (sold-out towels, blind boxes) also isn’t a random detour; it explains why fans felt pressure to arrive absurdly early in the first place.
*This article was compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “Odyssey: ‘Numerous cases of Tsubaki Factory fans illegally parking at nearby facilities have been confirmed, so we are opening the parking lot now, ahead of the scheduled time’”.
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