Juice=Juice’s Budokan & PIA Arena Shows — Effectively Fan-Club-Only — Sell Out 8,000 Seats in First Round; 5ch: ‘This Is on a Whole Different Level’

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The story

Juice=Juice’s upcoming performances at Nippon Budokan and PIA Arena MM sold out all 8,000 combined seats across both venues in the first-round sales alone — tickets offered exclusively to fan club members, before general sales even opened. On 5ch’s Hello! Project board, users expressed shock at this drawing power, but opinions split over the cause. Some argued it’s simply fans flowing in from other Hello! Project groups, while others countered that there’s a clear increase in what look like brand-new fans at the venues. The discussion expanded to cover trends in membership numbers, the ticket lottery system, and comparisons of fan demographics with other groups.

What people said

1AnonymousSep 25, 2026 08:42
That's honestly on a different level.
2AnonymousSep 25, 2026 08:44
It's just Hello! Project fans (otaku) migrating over from other groups.
6AnonymousSep 25, 2026 08:53
Re: #2
Seriously, if you actually go to the venue it's packed with new fans.
7AnonymousSep 25, 2026 08:55
Re: #2
Why would they migrate over, though?
Are they going back to their original group eventually, or not?
8AnonymousSep 25, 2026 08:56
Re: #2
No matter how much evidence from X (Twitter) you show him, this guy still wants to believe new fans haven't increased at all and that it's basically the same as Angerme — poor "Ankasu" (a mocking nickname for die-hard skeptics) strikes again today.
10AnonymousSep 25, 2026 08:58
They pulled every string and went all out, but still didn't book anything bigger than Budokan or PIA Arena, and made it a MOALA-verified show.

Rather than cash in and sell out while they're hot, the ticketing approach basically says "we'll just keep quietly doing shows for our fan club members the same as always, even after the momentum fades."

That's very on-brand for this shoddy agency, honestly.
13AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:00
Re: #10
I'll say it flat out — there IS a bigger venue coming.
11AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:00
Well, if you keep holding down the groups that should be playing arena-sized venues based on some internal pecking order, of course this happens.
I don't get why Oda gets Yokohama Arena while Juice gets Budokan/PIA.
26AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:46
Re: #11
Isn't PIA Arena… an arena?
14AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:03
Re: #13
The final show (senshuraku) is locked in for PIA.
There's no way they'd book a better venue than PIA before the finale, so the fall tour ends there.
15AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:06
Re: #14
That's the tour, though — just the tour.
You don't get why they specifically made PIA and Budokan part of the tour too, do you?
16AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:07
Did people actually get rejected in the lottery?
18AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:10
Re: #16
Obviously, yeah — tons of people got rejected.
20AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:17
It just went from 3,500 people/day last time to 4,000 people/day, that's all.
22AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:26
Re: #20
Seriously, face reality already.
Keep spouting nonsense and you'll just get shut down with screenshots again.
24AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:41
BEYOOOOONDS is actually pretty huge too, you know.
30AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:50
Re: #24
There's a real path where new fans drawn in by "Moremi" (a member known for flattering, filter-perfect SNS photos) get hooked on Hello! Project and then move on to BEYOOOOONDS.
27AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:49
Once Danbara and Inoue graduate, the next generation is just "Yafutako"? Man, that's rough.
28AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:50
Re: #27
By the time Danbara and Inoue graduate, more than half the current Mo-An (Morning Musume/Angerme) lineup will probably have graduated too, and the whole thing will be a mess.
29AnonymousSep 25, 2026 09:50
A friend of mine just joined the Hello! Project fan club and their member number was over 160,000, so membership has probably grown by around 20,000 in the past year…?
June '25 → mid-142,000s
Dec '25 → mid-145,000s
Today → mid-163,000s
34AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:21
Re: #29
Though a few hundred of those are probably people who've actually passed away (dead accounts still counted in the numbering).
39AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:42
The male ratio among Juice=Juice fans was only 39%.
https://kizuna.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/morningcoffee/1790260527/


If that's true, it's only a matter of time before the women drift over to BEYOOOOONDS.
42AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:45
Re: #39
If they added Kojima Hana anticipating that, that's surprisingly competent for this crappy agency.
44AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:47
Re: #39
Juice (i.e. Juice=Juice) in tears lmaooooooooooo
41AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:44
BEYOOOOONDS honestly appeals more to female fans.
43AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:46
Re: #41
It's probably like — even if Hirai's female-fan ratio is insane, she still loses to Danbara in raw numbers.
45AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:49
Skill-wise BEYOOOOONDS has really matured too, and the songs they do have a huge range, so women probably enjoy that.
47AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:55
Re: #45
Even BEYOOOOONDS fans themselves admit their songs have a narrow range, not a wide one.
49AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:57
Re: #47
You can't just say whatever you want.
"Even BEYOOOOONDS fans admit it," lol.
50AnonymousSep 25, 2026 10:59
Re: #49
I meant it positively — there are basically no raunchy songs, mostly cheer-you-on type tracks.
51AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:06
Does Hello! Project even have that many raunchy songs?
55AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:07
Re: #51
For Juice=Juice, I'd say something like "Sunao ni Amaete."
And more recently, if you actually read the lyrics of "BLOODY BULLET" closely, it's pretty raunchy too.
85AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:12
Part of it is that Hello! Project "DD" fans (people who like multiple groups equally, not loyal to just one) are gathering there, but new fans are also increasing a ton.
It makes it feel like other groups are declining even when they're just flat.
Honestly I think Angerme is the only one that's actually declining.
86AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:14
Re: #85
What's crazy is the opposite — existing fans knowingly apply even though they know they probably won't get tickets, because Juice=Juice is the one they truly want to see live.
The other groups just don't have enough appeal.
87AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:17
If you don't get tickets you just don't go, and if you do get them you go — so the barrier to applying is actually lower than for a group where you're guaranteed to get in.
It's like gambling, so it stokes that thrill of chance too.
88AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:18
Re: #87
Isn't the whole appeal of being a Hello! Project fan that you can see them anytime as long as you've got the money? Isn't that why people support Hello! Project?
89AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:22
If you lose the Juice lottery, you just go see whichever group you can see anytime, whenever you feel like it.
90AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:23
Re: #89
But all we ever get is data too vague to tell whether people like that even actually exist.
91AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:25
It's just that "Moremi" happened to go viral, that's all.
Juice=Juice will get old news and decline by next year.
93AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:27
Re: #91
Hello! Project has become a place where Juice=Juice is the only group actually making money, so Up-Front will probably do everything they can to keep it going.
95AnonymousSep 25, 2026 11:27
Re: #91
Heard that exact same line at the end of last year too, lol.

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

“MOALA verification,” used for performances on the scale of Budokan or PIA Arena MM, is an anti-scalping system requiring identity verification, and its adoption is spreading for events with hard-to-get tickets. In this case, both venues’ combined 8,000 seats sold out through what was effectively fan-club-only advance sales using this verification system. Where the thread split was over whether this represents genuine growth in new fans or an inflow from other Hello! Project groups like Angerme — some pointed to trends in membership numbers as evidence of new fan inflow, while others argued it can be explained purely by the drawing power of existing fans, and no consensus was reached. The discussion also brought in a comparison of audience demographics (male/female ratio) with BEYOOOOONDS, developing into a debate over shifting popularity between the groups.

※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “Juice=Juice: ‘Effectively fan-club-only events at Nippon Budokan & PIA Arena MM sold out 8,000 seats across both shows in the first round’ — Isn’t that just too amazing?“

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