From our other sites
The story
A discussion has broken out on 5ch’s “Hello! Project” board over the dance style of Juice=Juice, a group under the Hello! Project idol franchise. The thread kicked off with a post arguing that while Hello! Project culture has traditionally prized “everyone dancing hard and in perfect sync,” Juice=Juice has been winning praise for a different approach — prioritizing “unity over intensity” in choreography, and “singing properly over dancing hard.” The discussion expanded to comparisons with the dance cultures of other groups like °C-ute, the Sakamichi series (Nogizaka46/Sakurazaka46/Hinatazaka46), and AKB48, the dancing history of former members Manaka Inaba and Tomoko Kanazawa, and claims that Ruru Danbara has been the driving force behind the group’s push for choreographic unity. Opinions split over whether it’s fair to say the group “gave up on dancing for the sake of singing.”
What people said
Look at Makino or Tamenaga — doesn't exactly scream "great dancer."
Yeah, Tamenaga really is the polar opposite of Juice=Juice in both looks and performance style.
That's nothing — groups like the Sakamichi ("46") series, HANA, XG, or Avantgardey are way more impressive.
Isn't that exactly the point — that Hello! Project's values are out of step?
They're bad at it though.
°C-ute was a group that sang while dancing hard in perfect sync, so they're nothing like Juice=Juice or Kobushi Factory, who dropped dance intensity for the sake of singing.
Current Juice=Juice is pretty close to that though — both "Hatsukoi" and "Moremi" were choreographed by Shiho, who also did a lot of °C-ute's choreography.
Well, in °C-ute only Airi really sang, so everyone else had no choice but to dance.
Kind of like how in ANGERME, back when Sasaki was in the group you could just watch her the whole time — but after she graduated there wasn't much to look at and the group kind of fizzled, that sort of thing?
That only applies to live shows. On TV or in media appearances, if you're not in sync the flaws show and you get dragged for it.
If we're talking about contribution to going viral, I'd think Endo would at least make the list.
You left out Endo.
Ringo's singing is a bit shaky though.
But her dancing is so good that for a bar or two, it's not really a bother.
If anything, she's more of a draw with the general public than Danbara.
By the way, on Juice=Juice's TikTok, the recent "Soran Bushi" video featuring Irie just crossed 50,000 likes, which means every current member has now had a solo or select-unit video break 50,000 likes. Danbara, Kudo, Matsunaga, and Arisawa had already cleared that bar; Irie and Ishiyama were the holdouts, but Ishiyama broke through with a "Noimy" dance-cover video with Endo, and Irie cleared it as mentioned above — so now everyone's done it.
My impression of ME:I is that they get clipped and dragged everywhere — TV, live shows, you name it.
Thanks to that, their popularity's probably dropping.
Sounds exactly like ANGERME fans, honestly.
Though that's assuming the face is cute enough to carry it.
"Good-looking members giving it their all with sparkly, high-energy dancing" seems to only work if you keep the group size down.
iLiFE!'s nine members might be about the max for that formula to stay commercially viable.
No matter how hard AKB48 gets pushed, having way too many members is ultimately its weakness.
Momoiro Clover Z made it big doing exactly that.
Back when Inaba was in the group though, I never once heard anyone say she was a good dancer.
Inaba actually ranks #1 in the "best dancer" poll voted on by Hello! Project members themselves.
Yeah, that's true.
Miyazaki wasn't just "weak at dance" either — she was way beyond that, so no matter how hard Takagi and Miyamoto worked, there was only so much they could do.
Seriously, this is exactly why dance-loving Hello! Project fans don't take Juice=Juice seriously lol
Rather than flailing around a ton and doing everything half-assed, Juice=Juice went all-in on expression and ended up winning on both dance and singing.
And even that singing isn't really a cut above the rest of Hello! Project anyway.
There's this general vibe that for big groups, dancing in perfect sync is the whole point — so groups with 10+ members don't go viral even if they try to compete on dance.
That might be part of why Hello! Project has been capping groups at 11 members in recent years — that's roughly the visual limit for being able to tell members apart.
Among successful groups at other agencies, the Sashihara-produced groups (like STU48 and similar) tend to run about that same size too.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Juice=Juice is one of the longer-running groups within Hello! Project. The group has a history in which Manaka Inaba was praised for her dance skill, Tomoko Kanazawa went through a period of struggling with dance, and the group has since leaned increasingly toward a “unified” choreography style centered on Ruru Danbara. The thread’s disagreement centered on how to interpret this shift: some saw it as “a rational choice to sharpen vocal ability,” while others saw it as “the result of giving up on refining dance precision” — the same phenomenon read in opposite ways depending on one’s standpoint. The fact that TikTok view counts and likes are being cited as a way to measure members’ “contribution” also shows how, unlike CD sales or concert attendance, a distinctly social-media-era yardstick for evaluating idols has taken hold. One point readers may easily misread is that this debate isn’t a simple judgment that “Juice=Juice are bad dancers” — it’s really a difference of interpretation over the group’s chosen approach to self-presentation.
※This article is composed of excerpts and a summary from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “The Hello! Project Concept That Juice=Juice Overturned: “Unity Over Intensity in Dance,” “Singing Properly Over Dancing Hard”.”
Leave a Reply