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A thread on 5ch’s Hello! Project (Morning Musume-related) board heated up over the theory that the agency’s “favoritism” has shifted in sequence — from the “One for All” era (when promotion was spread equally across every group), to the Rika/Miko-era Juice=Juice, to the current Juice=Juice lineup, and now to Ochanorma. Posters pointed out that Tsubaki Factory and Angerme have been pushed for years without producing results, and talk also surfaced that Juice=Juice looks poised to return to the Excellent Work Award at this year’s Japan Record Awards. Opinions split between “they sold because they were pushed” and “they sold on their own merit.”
What people said
Ochanorma's anime theme song is amazing~
↑ (this)
Tsubaki is the agency's favorite — they pushed them for about three years from 2021 onward, but it did nothing, and they've basically given up on them now.
Every time there's a festival or Hello! Con, they get articles written naming Ochanorma as the act set to follow the currently-popping Juice=Juice (slang: "moreru," meaning "thriving").
Though the agency also seems to be pushing Nagano, so it's unclear whether Ochanorma or Angerme will end up the main favorite.
It overlaps with that period after Kasai joined, when they were hyping Tsubaki hard while also pushing Jokoryo.
I get the sense they want to steadily build real strength rather than it being like pushing on a noren curtain (getting no response) the way it's been with Tsubaki — but because of that, they probably won't get flashy favoritism either.
Especially the new members who got tossed into some random extra group as an add-on — their whole idol career just ends up being spent desperately cleaning up the mess their senpai made.
The current Juice=Juice sold because they didn't blame anyone else, though.
Everyone's working hard building on what the senpai stacked up, isn't that right? Only I'm the one blaming others? every Hello! Pro member is working hard so I don't think it's right for you to act so cocky about it if you were truly part of the Juice=Juice family you wouldn't say something like that because it taints everything honestly get out of Hello! Project you
If everyone's working hard to some degree, then isn't it just that whoever works hardest gets rewarded?
In Hello! Project's current case there's no producer or person in charge, so even if a group or talent that sells does emerge, no adult shows up to hog all the credit.
To begin with, every group besides Juice=Juice and Rosy Chronicle was being actively pushed in one way or another.
So failing to sell at the level today's Juice=Juice does during that time is just on them, isn't it?
The fact they're not selling now isn't Juice=Juice's fault at all.
Of course the new groups (the thread calls them "Rabiyo") and the freshly-debuted Ochanorma got pushed during the pandemic.
Angerme and Tsubaki, though, were genuinely pushed way too much — it got exhausting.
It's kind of ironic that Juice=Juice — who missed Best New Artist at their debut and have been sidelined ever since — might make a comeback to the Japan Record Awards this year with the Excellent Work Award.
This is exactly what it feels like when a group is "having a moment."
The Colorful era, the Rika/Miko era, the Ma-chan era —
I'm getting that exact same momentum right now.
The only difference is this time the songs are actually going viral.
When a song spreads outside the fandom, the number of non-Hello!-otaku rubberneckers jumping in skyrockets.
The three eras you listed only ever drew jealousy from within the Hello! otaku bubble — strictly a local phenomenon.
They're just parts in the machine after all — in the end, it's the chairman who wins.
The song was written specifically for the Danbara-era Juice=Juice by Aoi Yamazaki, so you can absolutely argue it's built around the members.
But because it's Juice, it seems like they have no intention of pushing it that hard.
Up-Front used to be an enka-style agency that steadily built up acts like KAN and Sha Ran Q, so if the chairman's touch is still alive, Juice=Juice's push this year feels extremely true to Up-Front's style.
It's all thanks to Aoi Yamazaki, honestly. Thank you, Aoi Yamazaki.
That's exactly why the various camps, figuring Juice=Juice itself had nothing to do with it, pushed hard for "Dantotsu de Aishite" and "RED LINE" — but those flopped, didn't they.
The oldest member of =LOVE, the dominant idol group right now, is already in her thirties, so for Juice=Juice, whose oldest member is 25, there's obviously still time. Even Nonaka, Taniguchi, and Hirai — who'll become Hello! Project's oldest generation once Oda graduates — still have a few years of runway left.
But in practice, this was an organization that pushed people out at 25.
I mean, it's not really fair to lump it together with an organization run by Sashihara-P — a former idol herself and an influencer — who puts idols' own feelings first… I want them to make it okay for Hello! Pro members to stay on past 30, starting now? Reiruru especially.
When I think about how the current situation exists because the original members properly handed things off to their juniors, I do feel a bit of "why are you guys still around" about it — I mean, =LOVE and Momoiro Clover Z are original-member groups, right?
Handed off? They just gave up during the pandemic and quit in a hurry, that's all.
It's always the ones who were being pushed who quit the fastest.
People say this sometimes, but Danbara Ruru joined Juice=Juice as a pure addition at a time when none of the original 5 members had quit yet.
So whatever's true for the other members, in Danbara's case it's not like she got in because a senior stepped aside.
That was a pointless, excessive hard-push, huh.
For solo bookings, it'd be more like Suzuki Airi, Yagi Saki, or Mano Erina, I guess — group popularity and individual name recognition are different things after all.
Jokoryo was also capped at just being a regular on "bis" back then, but being an exclusive model means you can only appear in that one magazine — not the kind of job a genuinely popular idol, who gets offers from all sorts of publishers, would take.
Rikako is gorgeous though, makes sense.
Thank you 😊
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Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Hello! Project, run by talent agency Up-Front, manages multiple groups, and disputes over which group gets the lion’s share of songs and media exposure are a perennial source of “favoritism” debates among fans. There used to be a clear production structure under songwriter-producer Tsunku♂, but with no clear overall producer in charge today, it’s unclear who’s even making these decisions, so the thread’s speculation remains impossible to verify. Opinion split over whether Juice=Juice’s current momentum comes from the agency’s backing or mostly from the songs going viral on their own merit. Posters agreed that Tsubaki Factory and Angerme have been “pushed for years without results,” but were divided on whether that’s due to the agency simply not trying as hard for them, or a lack of strength in the songs and concepts themselves. Note that the talk of the Excellent Work Award at the Japan Record Awards is speculation ahead of the year-end announcement, not a confirmed fact. Unverified rumors about individual members’ personal lives have been excluded from this article.
*This article was composed by excerpting and summarizing the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “From One for All → Rika/Miko → Juice=Juice → Ochanorma, Looks Like the Budget’s Getting Passed Around~.”
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