From our other sites
The story
When NHK announced the lineup for its “Kohaku Uta Gassen” (Red and White Song Battle) year-end special, it emerged that Hello! Project group Juice=Juice had not been selected. On X (formerly Twitter), posts lamenting “Juice=Juice missed it” outnumbered celebratory posts for the acts that did make the cut, pushing the topic onto Japan’s trending list. On 5ch’s Hello! Project board, opinions split: some pointed to the group’s modest CD sales of around 50,000 copies this year and ongoing name-recognition problems, while others took the fact that even non-fans were disappointed by the snub as proof of how well-liked the group is.
What people said
Tokisen disappeared this year, which by that logic means next year it'll be Juice's turn to vanish.
That's because Tokisen flamed out right after New Year's with An Juria's graduation announcement.
The real question for Juice=Juice is whether every single member has the will to grind it out one more year.
Two years ago this slot went to FRUITS ZIPPER ("Furuppe"), and last year it was =LOVE and Cutie Street ("Kyuusuto").
Juice and Moremi are nowhere near as popular as those groups or their viral hits, yet they still got handed this slot.
They need to make the most of it.
Only 50,000 copies, seriously?
↓
Other fandoms had quietly been thinking "this lot's gotten full of themselves, kind of gross" but stayed silent — now it's suddenly fair game to pile on
↓
"Juice=Juice missed Kohaku" (serves them riiight)
I'd bet a chunk of that trend count is coming from this crowd too.
What is even going on here?
Well, given this year's momentum and actual talent level, I mean… yeah.
Fans of other groups are genuinely bummed about this too.
Keep telling yourself that — nice wishful thinking to make yourself feel better.
How many times do you need to hear that all this "talent" and "momentum" talk is only a thing in your own little bubble, before it sinks in even after getting snubbed?
The agency pushed them hard and got them on TV again and again, but they came up weak on every single metric, the songs never broke into the mainstream, and this year ended in yet another failed attempt to go viral.
Nobody else thought Juice had a shot at Kohaku to begin with — more to the point, the general public still doesn't even know who Juice is.
So I guess the message is: come back stronger and try again.
That seems like the bigger issue here.
What do you mean? Honestly, Juice aside, it's pretty much the same as every other year.
Though with Junretsu, Mona-Key, and Niihama Leon padding out the kayokyoku (traditional pop) slots on the White Team, it is a big change that the enka slot has finally hit zero.
Last year had "Tokubyu," "Kawadame," and "Chou Saikyou Ai Scream" (Ultimate Strongest Love Scream).
They should be putting out whatever song actually blew up that year.
Maybe the thinking is the men's acts cover this year's zeitgeist, so it doesn't matter what the women perform?
Though there's a chance Cutie Street ("Kyuusuto") sings "Kyuutai" instead of "Kawadame."
Honestly, did she even put out a song this year?
That just shows you're out of touch.
Her old Crayon Shin-chan theme song "Kimi ni 100 Percent" had a massive revival hit on TikTok.
And her new single has been the ending theme for the NHK anime "Pan Dorobo" (Bread Thief — currently the most popular picture book) since October.
Only a handful of the women can actually sing properly.
So there was a chance they'd keep a women's enka act purely for vocal skill, but—
if this is supposed to be a "song battle," the White Team wins by about 20 lengths before it even starts.
Fair, but the act that's strong live, "Tokubechu," sings live anyway.
Re: #34
Same story last year — the actual vote was a landslide for the White Team too.
Say what you want about the performances, but the K-pop acts were lip-syncing anyway.
So swapping them out for live-singing acts like Cutie Street and =LOVE is a good thing.
Whether =LOVE actually sings live depends on the occasion, though.
Juice=Juice is stacked with genuinely good-natured members, so pretty much everyone except the terminally cynical likes them.
Most of these people still aren't fans.
But that's exactly the point — the question is how to turn them into fans.
Though I can't say I have much faith in Up-Front to pull that off.
If you kicked enka out of the Red Team too with this lineup, pretty much nobody left could actually sing in tune.
Whether they made Kohaku or not, I figured they'd drop the MV on the day the lineup got announced anyway.
Their fall tour venues are small, and they've got shows scheduled on weekdays around this time of year.
Looking at the Hello! Pro Con lineup, there's no sign they're planning bigger venues for the spring tour either.
That agency is cold to Juice, damn them.
They're probably not that enthusiastic about it, true.
Getting on now might just let the fan excitement cool off as-is.
Whereas "next year, for sure!" keeps that energy working as a tailwind for ticket sales.
Background and Key Points
The lineup for NHK’s Kohaku Uta Gassen is said to be decided by NHK based on factors like agency recommendations, how newsworthy an act has been that year, and ratings considerations, so the selection for each slot tends to spark discussion online every year. In the thread, some pointed out that Juice=Juice’s sales are smaller than those of groups that previously held the same slot, citing CD sales of around 50,000 copies as grounds for the snub, while others took the sheer volume of posts mourning the exclusion as proof of the group’s likability. That said, it’s worth noting that trending on X and a high post count only measure how many people posted and how much buzz there was — they don’t directly prove the size of the fanbase or how popular the group actually is with the general public. NHK has also not disclosed its actual reasoning for the final lineup, so discussion of why Juice=Juice was passed over — including posts speculating about the agency’s attitude — remains speculation confined to the thread.
*This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary of the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “Juice=Juice’s Exclusion from the “Kohaku Uta Gassen” Mourned on X, Trends in Japan! Juice=Juice’s High Likability Proven“.
Leave a Reply