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The story
A thread on 5ch’s Hello! Project board caught fire over the string of idol group projects Fuji TV has produced throughout its history. Posters listed group after group the network had a hand in, from 1980s projects like Onyanko Club, Ribbon, and CoCo through to the 2000s’ Idoling!!!, with one reply naming more than 40 groups including Shoujotai and the AKB48 franchise. The debate centered on whether Fuji TV had actually mass-produced *good* idols — some argued everything besides Onyanko Club was a string of failures, while others countered that projects involving Yasushi Akimoto have kept a solid batting average.
What people said
Let them produce idols instead of the talent agencies
The strongest network there was
Onyanko Club was only active for two and a half years, though
Ikko Club
So in that sense maybe they really were 'good'
If we're talking the same era as Otome Juku, TV Asahi had Sakurakko Club
Plenty of failures too, though
Like Last Idol, Rain Tree, Ginbis…
It's a group company, though
Shouchi-no-Suke (a joke reply — a personification of 'understood!')
Never heard of any of them, so that says it all, I guess
It works out when there's competent staff around him
It survived on AKB's momentum, and the staff probably got stubborn about making it work
Silent (2022)
Ikko Club
Bakumatsu Juku
BANANA
Nezumikko Club
Suitei Shoujo
AKB48
SKE48
SDN48
NMB48
HKT48
Nogizaka46
JKT48
SNH48
Thinking Dogs
NGT48
Keyakizaka46 (now Sakurazaka46)
Hiragana Keyaki (now Hinatazaka46)
22/7
BNK48
STU48
Last Idol
Gekidan 4 Dollar 50 Cent
TPE48 (now AKB48 Team TP)
Seishun Gakko 3-nen C-gumi
MNL48
AKB48 TeamSH
High School Children
Yoshimotozaka46
IZ*ONE
SGO48
The Coin Lockers
CGM48
DEL48
MUB48
Watashi ga Joyuu ni Naru Hi
Blueberry Soda
Boku ga Mitakatta Aozora
SHOW-WA
MATSURI
WHITE SCORPION
Fujikozu
Tabekko Kids
Rain Tree
Cloud ten
Rinku Nishiyama
Like, how many of these did you make?
This is rough
The Tsunku Victims' Association (fans burned by producer Tsunku) doesn't stand a chance against the Yasushi Akimoto Victims' Association
Once she's done raising her kids she'll swap back in
Retiring to marry a TV producer — genuinely a shame
Background and Key Points of the Debate
Onyanko Club was an idol group born out of a late-night Fuji TV program in the mid-1980s, and is well known for having been produced by Yasushi Akimoto. After the group disbanded, successor groups like Ribbon and CoCo were planned, but neither reproduced success on the same scale. It’s easy to overlook that groups like AKB48 and Nogizaka46, which came up repeatedly in the thread, are projects from a separate production company involving Akimoto, run under a different structure than Onyanko Club or Idoling!!!, which were produced in-house by Fuji TV itself. The coexistence of the view that “things hit when Akimoto’s involved” and the view that “Akimoto hates the standard playbook and often misses” comes down to whether you measure success by sales, name recognition, or how long a group lasted.
※This article was compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Fuji TV really did mass-produce good idol groups, huh.”
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