‘If Otaku Try Hard Enough, YouTube Views Go Up’ — Hello! Project Fans Split

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The story

“YouTube view counts go up if the otaku try hard enough” — that claim, posted by BEYOOOOONDS and Juice=Juice fans on a Hello! Project message board, sparked a heated debate. Posters pointed out that while Morning Musume’s songs had dropped off the YouTube rankings entirely, BEYOOOOONDS’ music video had climbed thanks to fans sharing it widely — leading to disagreement over whether “how hard the otaku try” alone can explain the gap in view counts, and whether that effort actually reaches viewers beyond the fandom.

What people said

1AnonymousSep 9, 2026 08:18
Yep
2AnonymousSep 9, 2026 08:18
Days in the group as of 09/09/2026 (per Wikipedia)

4,329 days — Takeuchi Akari
3,727 days — Wada Ayaka
3,546 days — Sasaki Rikako
3,507 days — Jokokuryo Moe
3,040 days — Nakanishi Kana
2,964 days — Katsuta Rina
2,847 days — Ise Suzuran (2018/11/23–)
2,712 days — Kawamura Ayano
2,625 days — Hashisako Rin (2019/07/03–)
2,430 days — Fukuda Kanon
2,137 days — Kawana Rin, Tamenaga Yukine & Matsumoto Wakana (2020/11/02–)
1,996 days — Murota Mizuki
1,948 days — Kasahara Momona
1,751 days — Tamura Meimi
1,714 days — Hirayama Yuki (2021/12/30–)
1,262 days — Funaki Musubu
1,205 days — Shimoiya Sachiho & Goto Hana (2023/05/23–)
1,184 days — Aikawa Maho
1,001 days — Maeda Yuka
*,875 days — Ogawa Saki
*,690 days — Ota Haruka
*,389 days — Nagano Momoha (2025/08/16–)
*,*26 days — Kosuga Fuyuka
4AnonymousSep 9, 2026 08:21
Re: #2
Your math is always off by one day.
"Days in the group" should be counted including the first day.
"Days elapsed" is counted NOT including the first day.
The membership-day figures on Wikipedia are calculated the "not including the first day" way, so they come out one day short.
Don't just copy the numbers as-is — you have to add a day to each one.
13AnonymousSep 9, 2026 08:43
Re: #1

That's not how it works.

It's not that simple. No matter how much the otaku hype it up, or how much the members pat themselves on the back, the real world isn't that forgiving.
16AnonymousSep 9, 2026 08:50
Re: #13
Quit hunting for excuses not to do it — better to regret having done it than regret never trying.
17AnonymousSep 9, 2026 08:52
The moment all the Hello Project otaku threw their weight behind boosting BEYOOOOONDS' MV, Juice=Juice (nicknamed "Harami Juice" by some fans) and Morning Musume's videos dropped clean off the daily chart.
18AnonymousSep 9, 2026 08:57
Re: #17
Harami Amore is growing steadily — it's just Morning Musume that's dead.
19AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:00
Re: #16
Huh?

Isn't it fine if they just do their own thing? I'm just stating the obvious — the real world isn't that forgiving.
21AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:00
Re: #19
Funny how the one lecturing everyone about "the real world" is an otaku from the cynical-clique group.
22AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:03
Re: #18
In today's update, Harami Juice dropped from #51 straight off the chart, though.
23AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:04
Re: #22
I just watch Haromiri and the fan-made summary videos.
24AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:13


27AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:17
If otaku trying hard were enough to boost numbers, every other group would've already blown up.
28AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:19
Re: #27
They're just not trying hard enough.
54AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:30
Re: #27
There were also new fans coming in from Nishida's sumo-stable crowd, so hype matters too — if you don't push it, new fans just won't show up.
29AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:22
Hitting 200k views for just one day doesn't mean much — you need to keep it up for at least a week before it actually amounts to something.
30AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:24
Re: #29
You get that only Juice=Juice otaku are allowed to say that, right?
32AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:36
Is 200k views actually impressive? Feels huge within our little village, at least.
36AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:42
Re: #32
Getting 200k views in a single day is impressive enough to land you around #10 on the daily chart.
34AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:40
Re: #21
Huh?

I'm not an otaku of any group, though?
35AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:41
Re: #34
Then you don't need to be on Ookami (the late-night chat board), do you — chat threads don't rack up views, and this isn't the chat board anyway.
37AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:42
Re: #35
Huh?

So what if you disappeared, then?
38AnonymousSep 9, 2026 09:42
Re: #37
I did disappear, though? There you go, total pwnage~
44AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:06
Grinding out view counts among your own circle means nothing if outsiders never actually watch. Do you go watch every single video of some idol or celebrity you've never even heard of just because it has a lot of views?
46AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:15
Re: #44
That's exactly why you need 200k views a day for at least a week — sit in the daily top 10 for a week and it reaches people outside the fandom too.
50AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:28
Re: #44
If you don't at least boost the odds of being seen, nothing's ever going to happen.
48AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:26
Re: #36
The "Yes No" you're all sneering at also hit 193k views on day one, you know.
53AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:29
Re: #48
It's losing to "Hai to Diamond," so it doesn't mean anything anyway.
49AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:27
You can sneer all you want, but USEN also seems to be climbing the chart little by little.
65AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:46
Re: #49
"Kurakura" is still hanging on in the rankings too — you gotta respect that. Morning Musume's otaku are way too weak at this kind of thing.
51AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:29
Juice=Juice had all sorts of stuff worth digging into once they went viral — does BEYOOOOONDS have anything like that?
55AnonymousSep 9, 2026 10:34
Re: #51
If Juice=Juice's deep-dive material is Inoue and Arisawa, then BEYOOOOONDS holds its own among the other groups — Seino's talk box and beatboxing, Kobayashi's piano, stuff like that. Otherwise there's Anikoko, I guess.

Background and Key Points of the Debate

Because YouTube’s rankings are based on daily view counts, it’s not unusual for a video to briefly climb the daily top spots when a fanbase concentrates its viewing in a short window. The benchmark that came up in the thread — “200,000 views a day for a week gets you into the daily top 10 and reaches people outside the fandom” — reflects this mechanic, but it only increases the chance of exposure; whether that exposure actually translates into new fans discovering the group is a separate question. The debate centered on whether it’s fair to chalk up differences in view counts between groups to “how hard the fans try” or to differences in fan-base age, and the thread never addressed the fact that YouTube view counts don’t necessarily track with other metrics like CD sales or Spotify streams.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “A BEYOOOOONDS otaku says: “If YouTube views go up just from otaku trying hard, then any group besides Juice=Juice and BEYOOOOONDS is only failing because their otaku are lazy”.”

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