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The story
Kentaro Kawabe, former chairman of LINE Yahoo, posted on social media amid a worldwide PHP vulnerability scare that “Hello! Project’s official site happened to get a redesign and wasn’t using PHP, so it’s business as usual today” — sparking a lively discussion on 5ch’s Hello! Project board. Posters joked about the perfect timing of the post, while also debating the merits of PHP as a language. The thread also showed curiosity about how, since stepping down, Kawabe has become so deeply involved with Hello! Project in what amounts to an advisory role at Up-Front Promotion.
Kentaro Kawabe @dennotai
In the middle of this worldwide PHP-vulnerability lockdown festival, Hello! Project’s official site just happened to get redesigned and wasn’t using PHP, so it’s open for business as usual today!
If you’re into other fandoms, this is a great chance to check out the world of Hello! Project too!
Source: helloproject.com / Original article here
What people said
PHP's a bad language, so finding a critical flaw in it isn't really an "emergency" — he's just stating the obvious: good thing they ditched PHP early, seeing this coming.
PHP doesn't cost anything to use.
It's just an old, patched-together language.
Dropping PHP during the redesign is a totally normal move.
Ruby
Python
Perl
JavaScript
Because Nabe-nabe (Kawabe's nickname) tinkered with it himself.
he's been roaming the country in a camper van as an 'AI solopreneur,'
while also holding what amounts to an advisory role at Up-Front Promotion.
whatever, I guess.
Why would someone this perfect bother helping out Hello! Project?
Though his fan behavior isn't any different from your average creepy otaku.
He's doing "fan activities only he can pull off."
Most of OG's work comes through connections Kawabe introduced.
He's even revealed on a podcast with his father, Chuji Okura (founder of Eternal Hospitality Holdings), that Juice=Juice's appearance on 8JAM happened because Kawabe is tight with Tadayoshi Okura and literally begged him on his knees (dogeza) to make it happen.
https://youtu.be/7Pg_wsRKg5M?t=2m05s
He's steering Hello! Project so smoothly it doesn't even feel out of place.
Wasn't getting Tsubaki Factory booked in Tateyama thanks to Kawabe?
Just check his X (Twitter), lol — this guy's buddies with [former PM] Kishida, lol
Cases like this one have practically infinite possible combinations.
In the end what matters most is the quality and quantity of your engineers and whether disclosure is handled in a closed manner, which is why the advice is to use a major global managed service.
Using some Japanese hosting service and building your own environment from scratch is the worst approach.
The big global providers are exactly where the risk is.
Diversifying is the basic rule.
Isn't that just not listed there?
It's hard to imagine they're not using CSS with React/Astro.
Still, using Astro is pretty impressive.
It's not a bad language.
It's just questionable to use it in security-critical situations like payment processing.
So it is a bad language to use in security-critical situations.
Karin-chan just dumps everything on 'Chappy' (net slang for ChatGPT) and leaves it at that…
Background and Key Points
According to the thread, Kentaro Kawabe stepped down as LINE Yahoo chairman in June 2026 and has since been traveling the country in a camper van, while also holding what amounts to an advisory role in Up-Front Promotion’s management. Opinions in the thread split over how to judge PHP as a language itself: some argued “it’s an old, patched-together language, so of course vulnerabilities show up,” while others countered that “a patched version of PHP is actually safe” and “it’s not a problem unless you’re using it for sensitive things like payments.” That said, it’s worth noting that no information beyond Kawabe’s own post was available in the thread about the specific nature or severity of this vulnerability, so the technical debate never goes beyond speculation. Likewise, there’s no confirmation beyond the fact of the redesign itself for why the official site stopped using PHP.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “Kentaro Kawabe declares total victory: ‘Amid the worldwide PHP vulnerability lockdown festival, Hello! Project’s official site is unaffected and open for business as usual!’.”
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