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The story
A thread titled “Amuse is so washed up it has nothing left but pushing old guys like Fukuyama Masaharu and Oizumi Yo” appeared on 5ch’s Hello! Project board. It started with the claim that major talent agency Amuse is leaning on veteran actors like Fukuyama Masaharu and Oizumi Yo for NHK appearances, and commenters piled on with the view that the agency’s momentum has faded. On the other hand, plenty of posters pushed back by naming young actresses such as Kiyohara Kaya, Hotta Mayu, and Yamada Anna, and with quarterly earnings reports also thrown into the mix, opinions split sharply over how to judge the agency’s real standing.
What people said
Oizumi
NHK's absolutely smitten with them
Kohaku, taiga dramas, SONGS… (NHK's flagship year-end special, historical drama slot, and music program)
guys like Nakayama Hide, Honjamaka's Megumi, Neptune
not one of them is any good
so Amuse can keep coasting too
Maybe it's because they haven't cultivated the next generation?
He's deep into stage plays right now
Can't even get tickets
Wonder if that's still the case
If they've got more than they can handle, hand some over to Hello!
Doesn't feel like an agency that's great at social media either, and the fanbase skews older
Plenty of them are dropping like flies these days
https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZRST0517969S6A810C2000000/
What are you even doing judging from a single 3-month earnings report? lol
UP-FRONT is just as bad, if not worse
It's Hello!-haters starting threads on the Wolf board (a die-hard Hello! Project fandom board)—go check the thread list
UP-FRONT aside, you can still say Amuse is on the decline
Hoshino Gen's acting work isn't under Amuse
Impressive, given she's got that 'ill-fated' look (a delicate, melancholic face type often praised in Japan)
She's the heroine in this week's release of Yatsuhaka-mura (The Village of Eight Gravestones)
Being in Hotta Mayu's tier is seriously elite even by entertainment-industry standards
An asadora heroine role too, why not (￣▽￣)（NHK's morning drama serial）
What's the benefit in that?
For Amuse it's basically a lottery ticket—maybe a one-in-a-million shot lol
If you're hiring a middle-aged idol, you'd normally just go after a young one instead
Background and Key Points of This Topic
Amuse is a major talent agency whose roster includes Fukuyama Masaharu, Oizumi Yo, Perfume, and @onefive, and it has long been active in both acting and music. Notably, this thread wasn’t started on a voice-actor board but on the “Hello! Project” board, which tends to draw fans of rival agencies—so the “washed up” label floating around may be colored by some inter-agency rivalry. Some posters in the thread cited quarterly earnings reports as evidence, but opinions were divided on whether a single month’s or quarter’s numbers can really capture a company’s overall health. In fact, Amuse’s roster includes numerous young actresses such as Kiyohara Kaya, Hotta Mayu, Yamada Anna, Tsunematsu Yuri, and Kayashima Mizuki, so judging the agency’s true standing purely by the visibility of its veteran male talents on variety shows and NHK risks missing the bigger picture.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “The mysterious major agency called ‘Amuse’—so washed up these days it has nothing left but pushing old guys like Fukuyama Masaharu and Oizumi Yo.”
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