Fuji TV NEXT’s ‘Odaiba Folk Village NEXT’ Adds Juice=Juice’s Ruru Danbara and Sha Ran Q’s Taisei

Background and Key Points

Fuji TV NEXT is the network’s premium satellite tier, sold separately from regular Fuji TV for about ¥2,000 a month and known to general viewers mainly as Japan’s home for F1 broadcasts — which is why several posters read this new variety show as a thin excuse to push subscriptions rather than a marquee program. Juice=Juice is one of the idol groups under Hello! Project, the umbrella talent agency that has produced Morning Musume and its sister units since the late 1990s; Ruru Danbara is a current member. Sha Ran Q, by contrast, is a rock band that debuted in 1987 and is best remembered outside idol circles for its frontman Tsunku, who went on to become Hello! Project’s chief producer and songwriter — the architect behind Morning Musume, Juice=Juice, and most of the group’s catalog — before throat cancer surgery in 2014 forced him to step back from performing. Taisei is a longtime Sha Ran Q member who has kept the band’s name alive in recent years even as its lineup has thinned.

The thread’s actual disagreement wasn’t over the casting itself so much as whether it justified the ¥2,000 paywall, with the F1-channel comparison used to imply Fuji TV is monetizing a low-effort pairing. A secondary thread of doubt centered on Taisei’s current form — his appearance and whether he can still play.

What the post never states outright is the reason a Hello! Project board would care about Sha Ran Q at all: it’s Tsunku’s old band, which is the real link between these two acts rather than a random crossover.