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The story
A post comparing the drawing power of Tsubaki Factory’s Kasai Yui, Fukuda Marin, and Yokaze Runo (nicknamed “LitoKyame”) with Juice=Juice’s Arisawa Ichika, Irie Risa, and Ebata Hisaki (nicknamed “Sunflower”) went viral on 5ch’s Hello! Project board. The spark was a report that Juice=Juice had sold out a roughly 11,000-capacity show at Nippon Budokan. In the thread, some users broke down the seat count to verify the real attendance figures, while others revisited how the two units were originally split up in a joint 2019 audition. Opinions split over whether the gap in turnout reflects a genuine difference in ability or just how things happened to fall.
What people said
This has nothing to do with you lot, you little shit. (ankasu — a crude Kansai-dialect insult)
The gap between Inoue and Ono as sub-leaders.
It was Nishiguchi who ran the joint audition and handed all the ready-made Juice hopefuls to Tsubaki instead.
It was Enoshima and Ogata who ran Tsubaki into the ground badly enough that it needed rebuilding in the first place.
I'll keep saying it:
Taking it out on Juice or Sunflower is misdirected.
This is Tsubaki Factory shadowboxing with itself.
Exactly this.
They got handed ready-made talent and still couldn't make it work, so that's on Tsubaki's incompetence.
Juice's Budokan show was on a favorable Friday, while Tsubaki's was on an unfavorable Monday, so you can't compare them so simply.
Quit trash-talking ANGERME, who can't deliver results no matter what day it is!
All four had singing chops suited for Juice, but because Tsubaki was in shambles from the scandal and the existing members' singing was way too weak at the time, every one of them except Kasai wanted Juice and got dumped into Tsubaki instead. A real tragedy.
Yokaze: "I wanted to join Juice=Juice."
Setting Hello! Project aside, packing a small stage to capacity, even where you can't see, and only getting 9,500 — that's strange in its own right.
218 Nameless Wanted… 2026/11/06 (Fri) 21:12:32.37 0
Fixed seating 10,835 − North stand 1,460 − NE/NW stands 1,000 (1/3) = 8,375 seats
Add arena floor and standing room, 1,800 people
Real number is around 10,000, but as always they padded it and announced 11,000.
If Ogata hadn't gotten caught running a secret account and left, LitoKyame never would've joined, so honestly I think it worked out for the best.
The Hinaazu don't have a same-generation debut pair to be measured against (even on the "Rookies" special they got grouped with Kawashima from the 17th-gen Hapifura, one class above them), so nobody's directly comparing them to anyone.
LitoKyame and Sunflower, on the other hand, debuted together, and LitoKyame crushed it early on while Sunflower flopped hard — so now they're being compared partly on the basis of that contrast too.
Are you actually writing that after seeing it live at Budokan yesterday?
From what I saw of the stream, it didn't seem like that great a show, though…
Even after LitoKyame became well known, the Budokan show in spring 2022 only drew 5,000 people, and right before the Gay Bar scandal, Asakura's graduation concert at Hina Fes Makuhari Messe was also about 5,000 with almost everyone getting tickets — so there wasn't really solid evidence of popularity even back then.
It wasn't an instant hit, but just as they were starting to rebuild trust step by step, it all fell apart right away.
I could kind of see Yagi leaving early coming, though.
They used the sub-stage just fine, actually.
What they didn't use much was the width of the main stage.
But I do think LitoKyame brought Tsubaki back from the brink.
BabyKyame (the group's newer junior members, nicknamed in parallel to LitoKyame) had even bigger expectations riding on them, yet the results haven't been as strong.
That part I don't really get.
LitoKyame and BabyKyame have different vibes, though, so to someone who likes LitoKyame,
BabyKyame might just look like dead weight, cute as they are.
Kasai Yui, Fukuda Marin, Yokaze Runo — Tsubaki Factory 5th Anniversary Live
"LitoKyame Fight! vol.3 ~Ichigo Ichie~" (a once-in-a-lifetime encounter)
7/7 (Tue) 📍 Hulic Hall Tokyo
🎟 Advance tickets sold out — no same-day tickets will be sold.
But still, that's a show where 700 people end up turned away.
Fukuda Marin 1,061,404
Kasai Yui 659,376
Yokaze Runo 537,629
Yagi Shiori 483,402
Ebata Hisaki 398,980
Arisawa Ichika 244,543
Irie Risa 233,857
Background and Key Points of This Topic
LitoKyame and Sunflower are the members who were split up in the joint audition held in 2019 when Tsubaki Factory needed to fill vacancies after a scandal, and the thread’s references to members “wanting Juice but getting sent to Tsubaki” stem from that history. Budokan attendance figures are the numbers announced by the organizers, and as the thread’s breakdown of “fixed seating + standing room” shows, these are typically rounded up from the actual seated count — so a gap in the announced numbers doesn’t necessarily mean a real gap in popularity between the units. The thread also repeatedly pointed out that even though the two units debuted at the same time, their respective groups faced very different circumstances — such as whether a scandal had occurred or how strong the existing members’ singing was — making a simple comparison difficult.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “LitoKyame (Kasai, Fukuda, Yokaze), who can only perform at a half-empty 7,500-capacity Budokan, vs. Sunflower (Arisawa, Irie, Ebata), who sold out an 11,000-capacity full house at Budokan.”
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