In my most humble opinion, it is near impossible to be a fan of every STARTO ENTERTAINMENT idol group. Whether it’s from an idol who you don’t quite like for whatever reason or the style of music isn’t quite your thing (I am an avid fan of Hey! Say! JUMP, but I will run the other way if I hear Chau# playing), there’s something in each group to love or dislike depending upon your various interests.
But this story isn’t meant to lay out every person or song that I’ve ever disliked. No, that wouldn’t be too interesting to read nor do I want to devote that much time to negativity. Besides, I’m already worried about how the story I want to tell will come off. Because, sometimes, the odds are stacked against an idol group before you get to know them.
I don’t remember the first time that I ever heard of Bishonen (美少年). In those days they were still called Tokyo B Shonen (東京B少年), and I thought I was so clever thinking, “But what happened to Tokyo A Shonen?” as I flipped through magazines to find pictures of my favorite idol, Hikaru Yaotome of Hey! Say! JUMP.
I wasn’t interested in Juniors when I had first moved to Japan as well because I assumed they were all teenagers. This was due to my preconceived notion of when STARTO idols debuted. Any mild interest I had in Junior groups during that point in my life, like SixTONES, were preceded by the images of “DeBuT tHeM yOu CoWaRdS!!!?!?!?!?!?!” tweets floating through my head. I also wasn’t sure I wanted to engage in this kind of environment (I would, in July 2018, attend my first ever SixTONES concert and eventually become a fan of them and other Junior groups, but that is a story for another day).
Throughout the end of 2018, I couldn’t name all of the Junior groups that existed or were formed around that time. One small memory stands out of when Tokyo B Shonen was announced to have a new group name in mid-November 2018 – Sexy Bishonen (Sexy美少年), and I cringed at the news. I knew from my timeline on Twitter that every member of the group were teenagers then, and international fans were outraged at the company calling teens “sexy.” Luckily, this group name lasted less than two months, and, by January 7th, 2019, the “sexy” was removed to leave the group name as Bishonen. Other than them, I knew of SixTONES and Snow Man and that was it.
In those early months of 2019, I began devoting more time and attention to Junior groups. I found great love and adoration for Snow Man’s Daisuke Sakuma and was able to get a ticket for their show Yuki Man in the Show (雪 Man in the Show) in March thanks to a wonderful friend, but before that fateful day I still needed to attend SixTONES’ CHANGE THE ERA -201x- concert. I had been so excited to hit for center seats, the Yokohama Arena equivalent of arena level seating, as well as SixTONES’ notoriously chaotic MC times.
I had been thoroughly enjoying it, Juri Tanaka stripping off his sock and shoe to wiggle his toes around as he lounged on stage, before it was announced that someone was joining them. Suddenly, the members of Bishonen were there, and my heart dropped in my chest. What was this other group doing on stage? Were they going to be a part of the conversation?
But no. They weren’t there to talk. Bishonen took over to perform as SixTONES left to go back stage. I had been so disappointed standing there watching this other group perform. This wasn’t what I had signed up for!! I had paid to see SixTONES, and, instead, I was watching another group sing a few songs. Their voices were…alright? Not anything special, but I remember watching them dance out of sync and wondering why they were there.
I pushed the negativity out of my head, bounced my penlight to the beat, and kept a smile on my face. I could sit through one performance of a group I didn’t care about. SixTONES would be back soon and then I would never have to sit through another Bishonen performance again. It was fine. Everything was fine.
Three days later I was back for Yuki Man in the Show for Ryota Miyadate’s birthday concert. I ended up in D Block Arena, a little more than halfway back, but I didn’t care where I sat. I was absolutely blinded by happiness because this was the first time I would ever see Sakuma in person. I wish that I could explain the joy in my heart at that time, but it’s difficult to put into words even now. In my head, I knew that it would have been fine if I had gotten last row in the upper stands. Being in that arena was the most important thing to me at that time.
Much like SixTONES, I had been so excited for Snow Man’s MC time. I was in the perfect position to see the guest box, and I had already noticed that other idols were in attendance. During the start of the MC, those guests had disappeared. Me and the people I attended with were sitting in anticipation for who it was. Were they going to show up on stage? Were they going to perform?? What was going to happen? Snow Man announced there was a special guest coming on stage, and I sat on the edge of my seat until they announced who it was: Bishonen.
…..what.
I couldn’t believe my ears until they stepped out on stage. There they were. Bishonen…yay.
I’m sure a lot of people were overjoyed at getting to see Bishonen on stage and performing, but the only thing that my brain could come up with was an absolutely horrible joke: Bishonen were “following” me. And I would continue to make that joke for the next three months.
Compared to the SixTONES concert, Bishonen had a lot stronger performance that night. They were more in sync, but their inexperience was still showing. Still, I sucked it up and watched them perform before I was distracted by five people on roller skates at the other side of the arena. I was utterly shocked that members of Kis-My-Ft2 would perform at a Junior concert…and I would quickly learn that there was more than one idol group that performed on skates that evening.
I wish that I could say that Bishonen would come in and out of my life over the next few years, tempting me to become a fan of them, but that is far from the case. They would occasionally come across my feed, such as when they were in Los Angeles for Nisei Week 2019. I remember looking at photos and videos of them in L.A. thinking they looked quite awkward and uncomfortable being in such an environment. I never watched their YouTube or sought out their concerts. I existed on parallel planes to them: existing at the same time but rarely intersecting.
There was only one time that my fandom life did intersect with Bishonen directly. In November 2020, during the height of the pandemic, a concert series called Johnnys’ Jr. Island FES was announced. It was a two day concert featuring HiHi Jets, 7 MEN Samurai, and Jr. SP (now called SpeciaL) on the 28th, and Bishonen, Shonen Ninja, and the former Junior group IMPACTors on the 29th. My ex-best friend and I bought both shows together, so we could watch our favorite idols perform.
After watching the first day, I was a little disappointed with how the concerts appeared to be structured. The first day felt very much like HiHi Jets the concert plus some others. The concert had been packed with HiHi Jets songs and each member had a solo as well. Meanwhile 7 MEN Samurai and SpeciaL didn’t have as much group content as I would have liked. If it had been marketed as a single group’s concert plus others rather than a combination of all three groups performing together, I’m not sure if I would have bought these live streams at that time.
But I had paid to watch them. I had seen 7 MEN Samurai get a new song at this live stream, and I was hopeful that IMPACTors would get one as well, so I tuned in the second day to see what unfolded.
From the very beginning, the structure of the second day was very similar. It was Bishonen the concert but, unlike the first day where I sat around and wondered when 7 MEN Samurai was going to show up, I spent most of it chatting with my friend as we waited for IMPACTors’ turn to sing. We sat through solos, original songs, and covers, but just when I was about to give up hope, Bishonen did something that I didn’t expect.
On the first day of the concerts, HiHi Jets had performed two songs with 7 MEN Samurai on stage, but it hadn’t been a long corner. Sooner rather than later, it turned back into a HiHi Jets concert. Unlike that initial day, there was an entire corner dedicated to a medley. There were fourteen songs where Bishonen, Shonen Ninja, and IMPACTors were on stage together in various groupings or all together. As difficult as it was for me to admit at the time, that singular corner changed my opinion of Bishonen. Just a little.
For you see I’ve had a lot of conversations with a friend about the psychology of idols who grew up and became famous quite young. We’ve discussed cockiness and how this trait in personalities is subtle but can be seen in how people can act when they acquire fame in their teenage years. I, personally, don’t have a problem with cockiness if it can be backed up. It was one of the reasons why I enjoyed Soya Igari’s personality during my brief stint as a HiHi Jets fan. He does have a bit of cockiness to his personality, but he has the skills as a skater, rapper, and as well as intelligence to explain why he is cocky in YouTube videos and on stage.
I had expected quite a bit of cockiness from Bishonen due to the expectations set by HiHi Jets from the first day of Johnnys’ Jr. Island FES. I had expected the concert to only focus on them. I had expected to not see much of the other groups on the second day. I had expected them to want to command this entire concert as theirs instead of ours. I had expected to nurture a little seed of hatred for a group who I didn’t even know a single name of one of the members.
Instead, when that shuffle medley was announced, all of my preconceived notions were thrown out the window. The little seed I had expected to slowly water until it bloomed into a plant of hatred had been thrown out the metaphorical window. I looked upon Bishonen with a small smile of appreciation, and I enjoyed the rest of the concert more than I thought I would. Later, I couldn’t help but praise them for including a shuffle medley into the show.
The sad thing about fandom is that sometimes the people that you meet can have a strong effect on how you perceive idols. A friendship gone wrong or a bad interaction online or in person can latch itself onto the idol that person loves, and you are forever changed in how you view that performer, despite them never having done anything to you.
I know that I have been affected by people that I have met in the past. I’ve had friendships with manipulative and verbally abusive people that have thankfully ended, but I viewed the idols they loved less than I previously did. It’s only through time and self-reflection that I’ve been able to move past those negative connections.
After the live stream in 2020, I began to slowly do this with Bishonen. I associated them with a person who rubbed me the wrong way, and my emotions towards the group, despite having a hint of positivity due to their live stream, began to sour. Because of this connection between these two entities, I knew that I would never become a fan of this group. It would always be a hard “no” if someone else tried to get me into Bishonen.
The years passed by in this fashion. Because of this one person who had helped construct a negative image around the word “Bishonen,” I was visibly annoyed every time they crossed my Twitter feed. I even went so far as to mute their name. Friends would occasionally post about them, and I wouldn’t understand why they supported them. If I didn’t like them, I couldn’t comprehend why other people would like them, and I couldn’t get past this thought in my head. At the same time, I never broached the subject with friends because I didn’t want to accidentally start an argument.
Despite all of the negativity I held in my heart surrounding the group, I never let these emotions progress to hatred. After all, Bishonen had never done anything to me personally. Yes, they had shown up at a few concerts I attended in person, but it wasn’t as if they had done that to personally spite me. That level of delusion was something that I would never reach. But the more they stopped showing up on my feed, the more my annoyance lessened, and I slowly forgot they existed except in rare circumstances.
One of those rare occasions was when my ex-best friend attended JOHNNYS’ World Next Stage in 2023 and walked out charmed by Naoki Fujii. Although I was confused by her new found interest in him, I didn’t think much of it. After all, I wasn’t a Bishonen fan. There was no way my ex-best friend could even convince me to become a fan of them no matter how she tried. Their style wasn’t for me.
My life in 2023 existed in a bubble that consisted of Hey! Say! JUMP, 7 MEN Samurai, 7Order, 4U. (ふぉ~ゆ〜) and anyone else who currently had my attention. I believed that I was done finding STARTO groups that interested me. After adding Kis-My-Ft2 as a group that I had a soft affection for in 2022, there was no one else that I wanted to be a fan of. And I was fine with that. I didn’t need to spend more money.
Act ONE, the new name for the JOHNNYS’ World show, was announced in October of 2023, and I immediately knew that I wanted to go to support 7 MEN Samurai and see what kind of stage they created. Each group participating in the show was able to build a twenty minute set centered around a selected theme of their choice, and I was so excited to experience everything. But, as much as I only wanted to watch Reia Nakamura perform every second he was on stage, I knew to truly experience and take in this revamped show, I would need to be unbiased and watch the entire production. When I finally got to my seat, I was ready to enjoy each and every moment of Act ONE.
If you read my review, you know I was completely spell bound with the entire show. It was hands down one of the best productions that I’ve ever attended, but there were things I left out of the review to keep it from reading like a Twitter thread.
The first being when the representative from each group, Reia from 7 MEN Samurai, Taisho Iwasaki from Bishonen, Yuto Takahashi from HiHi Jets, and Koki Kawasaki from Shonen Ninja, rose from the orchestra pit. I remember seeing Yuto rising in front of me, and my eyes went down the line to find Reia. I had watched Taisho for a moment, just a moment, but there was something about him that piqued my interest. I couldn’t quite place my finger on what it was, but I put a pin in it and decided to mentally investigate the reason why throughout the show.
As the first few numbers of the show progressed, I found my eyes drifting over to Taisho during Bishonen’s moments on stage, making mental notes to myself as I enjoyed the performances. He had incredible stage presence, commanding the attention of the audience as he danced, and his voice! He had one of the most beautiful singing voices that I had ever heard, and there was no doubt in my mind he was one of the most vocally talented people in the entire company. Despite hearing opinions from friends that Bishonen’s corner was not the most interesting, I was slowly finding myself a little excited to see what they would do with their set.
I won’t talk much about the show itself, for I already wrote quite a bit about it, but I will include one bit that I hadn’t talked about yet. Before Bishonen’s version of the song Act ONE, there was a small duet that Taisho did with one of the four young Juniors that had been taking the audience through the show. I remember him standing there, his jacket thrown over one of his arms and such a large smile on his face as he performed that instantly melted my heart.
This smile wasn’t significant because of how beautiful Taisho was, and he is a beautiful guy. It didn’t melt my heart for that reason. It was the subtle joy that was in his expression as he stood on stage singing. You could tell just from this small moment that performing was his entire life and was something that Taisho was passionate about. His song with that Junior couldn’t have lasted more than a minute, but it was that small portion that changed my entire world. During the rest of the Bishonen corner, my eyes would drift to the other members of the group on stage, but I would mainly watch Taisho.
By the time the curtain fell on Act ONE, I was conflicted. I had spent so many years as a STARTO fans saying that I didn’t like Bishonen because they weren’t my type of idols. I had long shied away from idols with what I believed to be prince-like images or those that mostly sang overly cute songs because it wasn’t the kind of music that I liked to listen to.
But I had liked Bishonen’s corner. Even with the music being slower than my usual taste, for I’ve always preferred upbeat pop or dance music, I had enjoyed their entire set. I had honestly found the beauty they had wanted to convey. I felt like a complete hypocrite for enjoying a group that I had so long pushed aside as “not for me.” At the same time, I wanted to learn more about Taisho to see if I enjoyed his personality as much as his stage presence.
I just wasn’t sure how to proceed. Did I take that leap and welcome a new bias into my life? Or did I stay where I was and stick to the status quo? Well…
I’m not a Bishonen fan. I can say that, compared to where I was even a year ago, I do have a newfound appreciation for the six members and what they do. I’ve unmuted their name on social media, so their posts come across my feed a lot more than they used it. I’m interested in seeing how they grow and improve as idols and might check out a dance practice or two from time to time. But a fan? I’m not sure if I could consider myself one just yet.
As for Taisho? The singing siren that waltzed into my life? Well…
I think this says it all.
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