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The story
Weekly Bunshun has reported that Sandaime J Soul Brothers will disband in 2029. While their anniversary tour is reportedly doing well, news that their “X-Day” is approaching split opinion on 5ch. Some argued their draw has simply cooled off years past their peak, others tied it to reports of member Tosaka Hiroomi’s marriage, and still others dredged up the old “100-million-yen scandal” surrounding the Japan Record Award — with the conversation eventually spiraling into a debate over the standing of their talent agency, LDH, itself.
What people said
https://bunshun.jp/articles/-/91995?page=1
Are they even still popular?
The 1st gen includes original EXILE members, plus the vocalist who now writes songs for the Sakamichi groups (Nogizaka46/Sakurazaka46 and the like).
The 2nd gen is guys like NESMITH and that crowd.
Airi's co-stars:
GENERATIONS from EXILE TRIBE's Katayose Ryota
FANTASTICS from EXILE TRIBE's Yagi Yusei
THE RAMPAGE from EXILE TRIBE's Yoshino Hokuto
Because it's a fading agency that's neither Johnny's nor Stardust.
Their draw is probably about the same as the other LDH groups at this point.
There have been a few member scandals too, and their stamina's fading, so they're probably just running low on motivation.
Hello! Project is just as guilty then — they won Best New Artist at that same Record Award despite being totally unknown to the public.
Especially Smileage, who won Best New Artist over Girls' Generation right after Girls' Generation's huge Japan-debut boom.
What was that about?
Wait, they're literally buying it with cash?
Kanou Gendai (叶弦大, 81), former top official of the Japan Record Award, has come forward under his own name to accuse Suo Ikuo (76) — the so-called "don of the entertainment industry" — of treating the award as his personal property.
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/932870532302651392/pu/vid/1280×720/EeNGiH5I-S_Z3jfV.mp4
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPI60z7VAAABIQ0.jpg
https://kizuna.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/morningcoffee/1789175294/
Why so far off?
Are they planning to milk this 'we're disbanding' angle for years?
Tough-guy 'idols' wearing a delinquent disguise so nobody could accuse them of pressuring Johnny's talent.
And on top of that, the host was HIRO's wife, Ueto Aya.
If you're gonna quit, just hurry up and quit already.
and this is the sorry agency that hasn't gotten a single benefit out of it?
If anything, they'd already carved out a solid position before Johnny's even collapsed.
LDH's been behind the times for a while now.
They're getting crushed by K-pop and groups like BE:FIRST.
LDH is a joint venture between Burning Production and Ken-On, so they were already massively privileged from the start.
If anything, they're the ones losing market share as Johnny's collapses, not gaining it.
Ever since Breaking Down (ブレクダ, an underground fight event tied to a delinquent image) came along they all blur together — they should really drop the gangster-adjacent look.
And even GENERATIONS itself is kind of mediocre.
this whole 'dancers who don't sing' thing —
like, do you really need ten of them?
Splitting the group into vocalists and dancers was a countermeasure against Johnny's, so it can't be helped.
They got frozen out of the Record Award and Kohaku [NHK's New Year's Eve music special] after that.
Goes to show popularity really does come down to media exposure in the end.
It's not that simple in today's social-media-driven era.
Milk, for one, broke out through TikTok, not TV.
The Japan Record Award Was Bought for 100 Million Yen! 《Invoice Obtained》The 'Don of the Entertainment World' Confronted Directly… Weekly Bunshun Reports 'The Truth About the Record Award'
https://bunshun.jp/denshiban/articles/b10166
No, it's because they can't sing while dancing.
Watching their solo work, they clearly can sing while dancing.
It ended up that way out of deference to Johnny's — HIRO reportedly went to pay his respects to Mary Kitagawa (Johnny's then-VP) when putting EXILE together.
Background and Key Points of the Debate
The “100-million-yen Record Award scandal” that kept resurfacing in the thread refers to a real 2017 incident in which Kanou Gendai, then the top official of the Japan Record Award, publicly accused Suo Ikuo — head of major talent agency Burning Production — of treating the award as his personal property, naming him directly. The fact that non-Johnny’s boy groups like Sandaime JSB and EXILE repeatedly won awards and appeared at the Record Award and Kohaku Uta Gassen throughout the 2010s has been a recurring point of contention ever since that accusation, and this thread revisited it by comparing it with similar cases involving other agencies, such as Hello! Project. Opinion split, however, over where LDH itself stands: some argued the agency benefited from the decline of the old Johnny’s empire, while others countered that LDH — a joint venture between Burning Production and Ken-On — was already privileged from the start and is actually losing out as Johnny’s collapses. Note that the reported “2029 disbandment” comes from Weekly Bunshun’s reporting, not an official announcement from the agency or the members themselves, and is treated as a separate matter from the concurrent reports of Tosaka Hiroomi’s marriage.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “【Bunshun】Sandaime J Soul Brothers to Disband in 2029.”
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