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The story
On the Hello!Project board, a discussion took off about how Juice=Juice fans tend to identify themselves as “Juice otaku” even in videos and on social media that have nothing to do with their own group. Some in the thread pointed out that fans of popular groups greeting and helping each other out at events by naming their group is a longstanding idol-fandom custom, while others suggested it might be tied to Juice=Juice’s growing activity outside Hello!Project in recent years. As the thread went on, it turned into a broader argument about the gap between “new” fans who flowed in through social media and longtime fans who’ve followed Hello!Project for years.
What people said
Juice=Juice's already made it out into the wider world, so that habit just spread from there.
They're riding high, so just let them enjoy it.
It was the same with the "to each their own" crowd back then too.
So is that why the snarky Morning Musume/ANGERME/Tsubaki Factory crowd has become Hello!Project's "Three Stooges"?
I want them to keep showing off as "Moremi newbies" more and more.
Because then I get to make fun of those Moremi-newbie posers.
Every group has to pander to the Moremi newbies now, or they'll never fill the big venues that switched to e-tickets.
who act like know-it-all veteran fans anyway, right? Hilarious lol
If Tsubaki Factory could fill Akiyama's graduation concert with longtime fans alone, you'd have a point.
What would a bunch of posers who only discovered Hello! through Moremi → Juice even understand, you idiot lol
If that history doesn't translate into popularity, what's the point?
These days they're "Moremi veterans."
These days it's the era of Harami-chan-collab newbies.
Still comes back to Moremi in the end.
A Morning Musume otaku doing the "mutual-aid club" routine?
If it's within a Hello!Project group, it's fine, isn't it?
Not really something worth getting worked up about.
Though if they pulled this on other groups' stuff, it'd be infinitely annoying.
It means, "I went out of my way to watch this, so as a thank-you, come watch Juice=Juice's videos too."
Well, Juice=Juice's fanbase is the only one that actually knows the outside world.
It's not really a smug face — they've genuinely earned it.
You know what to do next, right? Do it properly, counting on you.
It's precisely because they do it naturally outside that they can pull it off naturally inside too.
(laughs). Not that many people know this, but—
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Hello!Project has a culture where multiple groups share the same big venues, so fans naturally cross paths at events and on social media. Fans of popular groups leaving comments naming their own group under other fans’ posts is described in the thread as a longstanding, mutually-promotional custom within the idol fandom. That said, the real focus of the debate isn’t an evaluation of Juice=Juice itself — it centers on the temperature gap between “new” fans who recently flowed in via social media and longtime fans who’ve followed Hello!Project for years, making it more a reflection of generational friction within the fandom than a comment on the group’s popularity. As symbolized by the remark about “Hello!Project’s 29-year history,” this kind of old-guard-versus-newcomer debate is a recurring staple of Hello!Project threads.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello!Project) thread “What on earth is with Juice otaku’s habit of announcing they’re Juice otaku everywhere they go??.”
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