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The story
A remark by Juice=Juice’s Inoue Reon in the magazine “Bessatsu Kadokawa Scene 17” has stirred up the Hello! Project board on 5ch. She said, “I think every group has members who work hard, but Juice=Juice is the only one fighting the pressure of being a so-called ‘powerhouse school.’” Many read the comment as her “getting full of herself,” splitting the thread into opposing camps. Defenders point out that Inoue has openly said, ever since her days in Kobushi Factory, that she wanted to reach the top of Hello! Project. Critics, meanwhile, broadened the attack to question the reliability of Juice=Juice’s actual sales figures and social media metrics, and the debate spiraled into comparisons with other groups.
What people said
Rei-Rei's always been like this.
She's been saying since her Kobushi Factory days that she wanted to reach the top of Hello! Project first.
https://www.youtube.com/live/8R7tk8BLVjE?t=11775s
Seriously?…
Kunio, do you know something we don't? lol
Well, Kobushi Factory was the scandal-prone group, after all.
Tell them: 'Working hard outside of Juice is meaningless and worthless, so just retire.'
Is this another smear job by the lying haters twisting her words again? ("anchor-kasu" = slang for anti-fans who cherry-pick quotes to stir drama)
Has nothing to do with haters twisting things.
She's the woman who beat 12.5% survival odds in Kobushi Factory.
She never wrote 'only Juice,' did she?
Hope people who twist things this maliciously get hit with a massive defamation lawsuit.
Must be nice for the other groups — nobody in the world cares about them, so zero pressure~
you joined partway through, didn't you?
It's nothing but rage-bait meant to pit groups against each other.
Way too many people taking it seriously lately on Ōkami (the Hello! Project board's nickname).
I get the feeling of not wanting to be lumped in with the rest of the Hello! Project 'idol fan club.'
excellent, lol
"The riper the rice ear, the lower it bows."
— Empress Masako
Kitagawa:
The truly great are always the humblest…
More like the pressure of being told 'you're supposed to be good at this already.'
I doubt anyone in this thread actually bought the Kadokawa magazine…
Even before Rei-Rei joined, the group had already been nicknamed the 'Hello! Project Avengers,' and that nickname follows them everywhere. If they ever disappoint, people say 'huh, that's all you've got?' It ties into the same idea that Mifu-chan can't afford to let the Hello! Project name down either.
You only stumble onto trends because you actually dig for them.
The ones NOT digging are the old-guard fans who never leave Haro Village and don't know what's going on outside it.
Something that just leaks out and goes viral doesn't count as 'digging.'
That's just finding what already flowed across your SNS feed.
Their sales numbers are on a totally different level from other groups.
Most of Juice's "metrics" are just rigged online numbers.
Their real-world sales are miles apart from AKB or iLIFE.
"Selling well" means, literally, that something actually has to sell.
Fake online voting doesn't actually sell anything in the real world.
This is exactly it.
I get that fans want to hype up their own group, but the other side's fans feel the same way.
Adults aren't stupid — of course they factor that bias in.
When it comes down to real numbers, Juice is clearly behind.
If just going viral on TikTok got you on Kohaku, iLIFE would get in first.
Seriously, this.
If that were the bar, "Kawaikute Gomen" (lit. "Sorry for Being Cute," a TikTok-viral hit) would've already been on Kohaku.
Seriously, this.
If that were the bar, Tokisen's "Suki!" would've already been on Kohaku.
Seriously, exactly.
If Juice alone got picked for this, there'd be a riot.
Seriously, this.
Even if you pump up your YouTube and TikTok view counts, if it doesn't translate into actual sales, it's pointless.
It's just pie in the sky (lit. "a rice cake drawn in a picture" — looks good, means nothing).
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Inoue comes from Kobushi Factory, a predecessor group within Hello! Project, and reportedly declared even back then that she wanted to reach the top of Hello! Project. In the thread, how the quote was framed became a point of contention itself, with opinions split over whether it reads as the strong claim that “only Juice” faces this pressure. The latter half of the discussion expanded into comparisons of actual sales and view-count figures, but no concrete data was ever presented in the thread — every post remained in the realm of speculation and impression. Readers should keep in mind that social media view counts and rankings are a different metric altogether from figures like actual CD sales and live concert attendance.
※This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Inoue Reon: ‘I think every group has members who work hard, but Juice=Juice is the only one fighting the pressure of being a so-called “powerhouse school”‘.”
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