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The story
Hello! Project idol group Juice=Juice has been surging in popularity, and whether they’ll move to a bigger venue for their spring 2027 tour has become a hot topic on the 5ch “Hello! Pro” board. Their recent shows have stuck to Nippon Budokan and PIA Arena, and fans are calling for a jump up to two nights at Yokohama Arena or even a K Arena-sized venue. On the other hand, some point out that booking large venues involves a one-to-two-year lag, making a scale-up by next spring unlikely, and opinions were split over whether to prioritize sellouts or looser seating.
What people said
How many years have you been following this garbage agency?
The newbie fans who got hooked by her flattering 'camera-ready' look (盛れミ, slang for fans drawn in by heavily flattering photos) haven't even been following her a full year.
Well, next year's supposed to be Morning Musume's big comeback year.
Morning Musume '27: Okamura, Yamazaki, Sakurai, Inoue, Yugeta, Sugihara, Yasuda, Suzuki, Ishikawa, 19th gen — "It's Morning Musume's 30th anniversary, so please support us" 👈 Support them?
https://kizuna.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/morningcoffee/1793314884/
Where's the 'comeback' in any of that?
So it's probably best not to expect too much from next spring's tour.
Halls and arenas can both be booked within a year.
The only thing that's genuinely hard to pull off in a year is a dome.
If the agency doesn't do anything about it,
every unit is going to end up suffering from this same problem.
If Angerme or Tsubaki Factory ever somehow blew up, sure, they'd get full backing — but that's basically never going to happen. So if even today's Juice=Juice isn't getting proper support, Hello! Pro members have nothing left to dream about.
30th anniversary.
New members.
That kind of hard-push-with-zero-track-record act is exactly what gets hated the most.
Keeping Hello! Project's 30th anniversary going needs Juice=Juice's absurd year-one-into-year-two momentum.
To the agency, Juice=Juice is still just treated as a lesser bonus act below Morning Musume and Angerme.
2028 is Hello! Project's 30th anniversary.
the momentum's going to shift away.
The type of fan who's into that kind of thing is an Angerme otaku.
just give us a venue with some breathing room.
As things stand, if you're not in the fan club, all you get is garbage seats.
Even the leftover Budokan tickets right now are some bizarre 'standing room at the very back' seats.
That's probably the agency trolling us too —
stubbornly making sure it never fully sells out.
Selling out matters — it's how you project a 'we're hot right now' image.
Look at Angerme —
if they keep selling out live houses, they don't give off a 'past-their-prime' vibe.
Because you can predict the bubble's going to pop soon anyway.
Then why are they investing mainly in groups that don't even have a bubble to begin with?
Probably because she hasn't been steeped in Up-Front for 20 years or whatever — if anything, she's only in her first year.
The agency's set pecking order >>> an unbreakable wall >>> one-hit wonders.
That's exactly why she's the big sister everyone has to walk on eggshells around.
to them, a half-empty show ('garacon') automatically means 'dead and over' ('owakon').
Then why don't the groups besides Juice=Juice just shrink their capacity and turn into 'hajikon' shows (the packed, electric opposite of a sparsely-attended 'garacon')?
but honestly, I'm fine with no other group ever blowing up like Juice did.
When that happens you get a flood of new fans and tickets become impossible to get,
and new fans and longtime fans end up clashing over opinions — it's definitely not all upside,
that's what I've learned.
So I'm totally fine with the other groups staying exactly as they are.
If it's good for the members, you should just support it.
There are members who are showing open rivalry with Juice too.
https://ameblo.jp/angerme-new/entry-12982958261.html
But there's one thing that's really frustrating,
and I'll keep this to today's blog post only —
not being able to perform at this year's year-end show has been eating at me this whole time!
I'm bursting every single day with wanting to keep working hard, nonstop! I feel like we're putting on shows that are so completely us, full-throttle and burning hot!
We're that rock and roll!
I'm going to keep pushing so they'll call on us again.
Honestly, I want to work myself until I drop.
Please, go take a look at how fired-up these girls are right now ☺︎
Well of course they can't put up a good fight with a lineup like that —
all the talented members only ever get funneled into Juice=Juice.
Huh? Every new member is a hidden gem though?
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Hello! Project is the flagship brand of talent agency Up-Front, which manages several girl idol groups, and Juice=Juice is a group that has seen a sharp surge in new fans over the past few years. Booking large venues like arenas or domes takes considerable lead time, so as the thread points out, scaling up a venue after a group becomes popular typically involves a one-to-two-year lag — meaning there’s a real chance the venue size won’t change much by next spring. At the same time, a “sellout” is a selling point that signals strong drawing power, while keeping seat counts lower makes it harder for existing fans to get tickets — the two goals are hard to reconcile, which is exactly why opinions in the thread were split. There’s also underlying frustration over how talent is distributed across the other groups, but that impression is based on readers’ sense of attendance and sales figures rather than any officially stated ranking from the agency — a distinction that’s easy for readers to miss.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Pro) thread “If the agency doesn’t expand Juice=Juice’s capacity for the spring 2027 tour, doesn’t that mean they’re not serious about pushing them?“.
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