Sleep is for the weak!
One thing I absolutely love to ramble (and be rambled at) about is Eito's Junior era. I don't really know a lot (or enough) and most of my information comes from SCP, this post by takarai_karin, Ricci's Subaru speculation post, mikan_purin_ame's... entire journal, lol and this loooong conversation with pashoshi when I first got into fandom (ignore my flaily "O HAY MINNA!!!111!" wapanese please >.>;;;;;;;;). I also spent a fair bit of time reading now-defunct LJs and forums and oooold article translations and then generally rambling at anybody who'd listen to me and making people tell me things. Oh and lol, Dreamin' Blood XD A lot of information is clearly questionable and nobody really knows what happened besides Eito themselves (lol this sounds like a mafia movie plot), so~
There was some talk on Twitter a few weeks ago about attempting to formulate a timeline of Eito's activities from when they joined JE, so I'm going to get started on that here :D Pleeease add/correct/delete as required :D I'm adding Takki and Tsubasa and other people in wherever required, considering how pretty much everybody was connected to everybody else for a short while. Plz to at least skim through so I don't feel like a dweeb for spending six hours on this? XD;;;
Subaru and Maru were the first to audition for JE, on September 22nd 1995.
Taeko bribed Subaru with ￥5000 on his 15th birthday and Maru (12 y/o) went along with it because both his parents told him to. In his SCP, Subaru said he wanted to stand out, so he pushed his way to the centre, wrote "SU - BA - RU" in hiragana (everybody else wrote their surnames in kanji) and stuck it on the middle of his chest and danced as well as he could (which... isn't saying much XD). But out of the 200 people that auditioned that day, only three people were picked and two of them were Subaru and Maru :D Maru's story is actually really adorable. He was apparently so ditzy (he routinely forgot to take his lunch-box to school XD) that his parents flailed about his future and decided to try to get him into Johnny's, so that his life would be secure. XD <3 As soon as they were picked, the three of them were asked to change into new T-shirts, prettied up with some make-up and rushed to a magazine interview and Domoto Tsuyoshi's TV show within an hour of passing the audition. So the two of them were all, "YAY OMG I'M A STAR NAO 8D" all the way home. And didn't hear from the agency after that until Christmas XD
On Christmas Day 1995, KinKi had special Christmas cons aaaat... Osaka Jo Hall? I think? and they needed juniors to backdance, so Subaru got a call from the agency. As it turned out, it was another round of auditions. Subaru passed this one too and got to go onstage, but Maru didn't and just... went home, lol. Just like that XD This was his second audition. That very same day, Hina (14) and Yoko (15) auditioned too and they were picked together with Subaru; first ever instance of the SanOssans! XD Hina auditioned because all the girls in class told him he was cute and he should try out. Yoko, on the other hand, did it because his mum forced him too XD His classmates had gotten into JE and she was like, "WTF Kimi is so much cuter than him DX" Ultimately, Yoko auditioned for and got into JE, but his friend quit soon after. Yoko tells this story how he was all ":|" and closed-up for a while as a Junior. One day, Johnny came up to him and said, "YOU! You're from Kansai! Why aren't you funny!" ...and that was how lulzy!Yoko we all know and love was born.
On September 6th 1996, Yasu (12), Kura (10) and Ryo (12) all auditioned (and were in the same audition room too, if I'm not wrong). Maru auditioned here one last time and (finally XD <3) managed to get into JE. Ryo auditioned because all the girls in his class XD were all, "You look like Takizawa Hideaki!!11! YOU SHOULD JOIN JE :D". Yasu because he sister was (is?) an Aiba fangirl (Yasu - "She liked him because he failed adorably at dancing :)" Taichi - "...so you're basically saying that Aiba-kun, your senpai, sucked at dancing on national TV. ._." Yasu - "Eeeeeeeeh!? No!! No! D: >.>;;;") and decided her brother was cute enough to join JE too~ But Kura's is my personal favourite. He fanboyed V6 and wanted to be cool and do backflips and dance like them. And he ended up becoming a drummer... XD <333
As it turned out, Kura and Yasu were pretty much standing right next to each other in the audition room. And Yasu was so nervous, he kept stomping on Kura's feet, trying to get the dance moves right. He apologised, though! Thirteen years later XD
Uchi was the last of the eight to join JE and auditioned on May 29th, 1999. He actually wanted to go on a class trip that day (he came home from baseball practice to an audition form! He was planning to be a pro-baseball player when he grew up daww), but his mum bribed him to audition with ￥500. Plus, he'd seen Yoko around a lot (they live in the same neighbourhood in Osaka and carpooled a lot) and thought he was "really cool omg aslkjf a real live Johnny's!! *___*" and so he agreed.
Okay, so that's all of Eito. And Takki and Tsubasa both auditioned and entered JE on 23rd April 1995.
Takki (12) wanted to be a pro-wrestler (brb laughing just a little bit a lot) and applied to various agencies! But they turned him down because he was too thin and too short (36 kgs and 130 cms, I think) XD So, heartbroken, he turned to JE. Out of... nowhere, lol. He sent in the app himself, went to the audition in slacks a polo shirt~ Tsubasa (13) really didn't give a fuck about idols, but his sister was like, "STFU /smacks" and dragged him to Tokyo and made him audition anyway XD But at the audition, somebody was like, "YOU! You win at dancing!" and Easily Flattered Imai-san was like, "...OKAY I LIKE THIS THING NOW :D" The first time they met, Tsubasa thought Takki was a dweeb XD
Moving on! The 1995 ~ 1999 period:
This period (possibly lasting a little into the millennium. I'm given to understand it ended when T&T debuted, which was on September 11th, 2002) is referred to as the Golden Junior Era. For the first time ever, Juniors had their own concerts where they could sing and perform as the main artists in addition to backdancing at senpai concerts. This is when Juniors started getting attention in their own right; it was like a revolution, for lack of a better term. For a while, it was mostly disorganized chaos since there was no staff or senpai in-charge of these Juniors or their activities. A lot of people assume that Takki took charge of his own accord at this point, all bossy and everything. The truth is (as he says on his SCP), he was explicitly ordered to by the top management. And he haaaated doing it.
Back to Osaka:
The ossans went on Domoto Tsuyoshi's show every week for a while and also Music Jump (proto-Shounen Club), sometimes with Ryo/Yasu/Ohkura. Yoko said (on SCP?) that Music Jump was the first TV show he got to be on, and that's only because he happened to be in the area at the time and Johnny was like, "...oh fine, you might as well go on. Whatever." Yoko and Hina did activities separately for a while (random Kansai TV shows, mostly) but ended up being clubbed together at some point as the Really Obnoxiously Loud Kansai Juniors Who Talk A Lot. Or something to that effect. XD
Them being on TV was a huge deal, as they've repeatedly commented on SCP, magazine interview and possibly on Recomen once. At the time, Kansai Juniors weren't given the same opportunities as Tokyo Juniors. Being on TV got them more exposure and provided the possibility of getting more opportunities and work. At the time, the Kansai branch didn't exist, so if they wanted to be on TV, they had to travel all the way to Tokyo and the travel/accommodation/food prices were ridiculously expensive. Until around the time KinKi or TOKIO debuted, JE had dorms that Kansai Juniors could stay at while in Tokyo, but those were shut down because of the sex scandal stuff. The Tokyo Juniors obviously didn't need to worry about all that and took this opportunity for granted, which pissed the Kansai Juniors off, causing a rift to form.
It was around ...1997? that Subaru started getting lots of attention and solos even in the concerts. Ryo caught up pretty quickly and he was the most favoured Junior soprano for the longest time. Subaru hung out with Takki and Tsubasa a lot and apparently seemed to have the same "inner ranking" as the two, which made him pretty much one of the most popular juniors. Hina apparently tagged along a lot; Ryo (in his SCP) says: "It's like he knew Subaru would be popular, so he hung out with him so he'd be popular too >.>" ... XD Ryo's Tokyo Junior friends were Yamapi, Jin and... more people who I can't remember now. Ryo was popular, okay. XD He became BFFs4LYFE with Yamapi after a trip to Hawaii. They were so freaked out by a scary story that they clung to each other and even escorted each other to the loo lmao XD
Right, so my point! The most popular Kansai Juniors at that point were Subaru, Yoko/Hina and Ryo. Ryo initially formed a unit with Yasu, Maru, Kura and someotherKansaiJuniorsIdon'tknowthenamesof called BIG West, but that died when Ryo collaborated with Higashiyama on Secret Agent Man and Yasu/Maru/Kura didn't get as much screen-time.
The Kansai/Tokyo rift just kept widening. Takki morphed into what Taichi calls a Young Johnny-san, lol, and started organising the Juniors. He arranged for them to be on TV, scolded them when they didn't work hard/do things right, set up entire motherfucking concerts (example: Johnny's Junior Concert @ Tokyo Dome). On Takki's SCP, Hina does a VTR where he says, "When I was a junior, I really, reeeeeeally hated you. You were bossy and annoying and I'd yell back, 'Go mind your own business!' or 'Who are you to tell us what to do!?' when you gave us tips or asked us to do things better. But now that I think about, it was all of that advice you gave us that made us into what we are today. It's because of the Takki of that time that Kanjani8 exists now." (more or less)
The Kansai Juniors were already pissed at not getting enough exposure and Takki being this way would definitely have rubbed them the wrong way. The hostility was intense. Ryo, who had friends on both sides, was at a loss. He used to sit alone and practice Kansai-ben and Tokyo-ben XD And got really embarrassed when Maru was LOUD and YAY OSAKA when they hung out together in Tokyo XD
Onstage, Subaru, Takki and Tsubasa were the stars, with "Higashi no Takki to Nishi no Subaru". At some point around this time (my guess is 1998ish), Subaru moved to Tokyo and was soon followed by Yoko & Hina and then Ryo.
In August 1999, the Kansai Juniors held their own concert at Osaka Jo Hall and over 14,000 fans attended. At that point, the ossans were regulars on Pikaichi, a show hosted by KinKi. But Subaru reportedly got into a huge fight with and pissed off Domoto Tsuyoshi and then got kicked off the show in around 2000. I'm told you can still see Yoko and Hina in some later episodes.
1999 is the year that Uchi joined JE and he became popular almost right off the bat. He was made the lead vocalist in a unit called V.WEST with Maru, Yasu, Mizuno Kiyohito and Imayama Tohru. Maru was actually also a guitarist, but when the unit was being formed, Johnny said, "YOU (=Maru)! You're tall! So play the bass! And YOU (=Yasu)! You're really short, so play the guitar!" The logic makes absolutely no sense to me, but they've remained bassist/guitarist to this day so... I guess we should all learn to trust Johnny more. XD Mizuno and Uchi were really close, so it hit him hard when Mizuno and Imayama decided to quit JE to pursue other interests. V.WEST continued with Ohkura as the drummer and had a concert in 2001 and went on a show called WEEKLY V.WEST regularly.
Things started going downhill for the others. Subaru was sent back to Osaka, and Yoko and Hina too. The official reason was the establishment of a Kansai Branch, but work dwindled to almost nothing. Subaru just... clean fell off the radar for a while. And then he resurfaced to act in the very, super-disastrous Platonic Sex, in which he plays an abusive son/has underage sex/is a juvenile delinquent/gets thrown in jail. I don't understand how JE didn't just deny the offer when it was made because as a Junior, I'm entirely sure Subaru didn't have the authority to pick his roles. But whatever the reason, his career spiraled further downwards.
I've read in a lot of places that Subaru fell into deep depression then and has been battling it ever since and... honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. He got the tattoo out of the blue at some point after April 2001, just before Platonic Sex.
Around 2000, Takki and Subaru began drifting apart. Nobody really knows why or what happened. It could've been over something trivial and then they just drifted apart. But for what it's worth, the "Takki-dumped-Subaru-for-Tsubasa!!!11!!" thing is completely untrue. Takki was on the verge of quitting JE because the pressure and the hate directed at him because of being the Leader. After talking things out with a senpai, he decided to stay on and wanted to definitely only debut with somebody and not solo. It made sense. He really hated being the Leader and how people isolated him because of it, so I can see why he would want the comfort and security of being in a group or a duo. He called up Tsubasa and this was the first time they talked in a very long time (three years) and he picked Tsubasa because "everybody else in JE had already been paired off". So... yeah. The confusion regarding their debut is a whole other story.
So the members started getting part-time jobs and began to consider quitting. There was no work, there was no promise of work in the future; JE had basically exiled them to Kansai was what it looked like. Ohkura, Yasu, Maru were still in school; Maru and Yasu only became serious about their instruments a little around this time.
Hina started working a sketchy amusement park (it's since been condemned), Ohkura got a newspaper route. Yoko's family situation was pretty fucked up and he had his step-brothers to support, so he started doing hard labour at a construction site and moving companies. Subaru reported coached a girl's volleyball team. Suuuure, Subaru, I believe that. XD Subaru quit high school within a week of starting because of JE, Hina claims he's on an extended sabbatical. XD So yeah, they didn't have a lot to fall back on. At one point, Hina and Yoko literally had to kick Subaru out of the house.
All of them decided they'd might as well quit. All but Ohkura, surprisingly. He stated on SCP that he never actually thought about quitting, even through the rough period. He figured his seniors would just figure something out and he'd be fine. I was surprised to see this, because even delusionally optimistic Hina said he'd considered quitting.
And then one day, ANOTHER happened. Yoko got a call from Johnny about a butai to be staged in Osaka featuring Yoko, Subaru, Hina, Maru, Yasu, Ryo and Uchi among other Kansai Juniors. Ohkura had the amazingly awesome role of being One of The Kids Who Sat on The Boulder At The Corner of The Screen (And Yell Randomly As Appropriate). So glamorous XD ANOTHER went on to be a success and Eito decided to stick it out for a while. And it was a good thing that they did, because in late-2002 (or early 2003?), Johnny decided to debut a Kansai group.
After adding Ohkura in to make the group 8 (since they were debuting on Channel 8. Geddit? Geddit? Oh Johnny, you and your logic XD Not that I'm complaining this time.), he gave the group an ultimatum: they were to perform a concert in... Winter? and if the response was suitably positive, they would get to debut. If they failed, they'd be banished to Kansai forever. Or something to that effect. XD Yasu was the only one who knew about the ultimatum; Ohkura had to master the drums in a really, really short time (he was picked to be drummer because he had excellent rhythm as a dancer -- again, Johnny Logic. XD) and figuring telling him this would be counter-productive, Yasu decided to just encourage Kura as much as he could.
The concerts rolled by and Kanjani8 wowed the audiences. (Yoko haaaaaaated the name Kanjani. He wanted a cool ~English~ name and he was like, "FUCK YOU, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO GIVE US A NAMESQUISH D:") And they were set to debut! :D
And then Johnny screwed things up further by forming NEWS out of the blue and putting Ryo and Uchi in it and debuting in them in like... three weeks or something. Eito figured they wouldn't get a chance to debut now, and were really bitter that people like Tegoshi got the opportunity to debut within 6 months of joining JE while it had taken most of them almost 10 years to get to where they were now.
There was also the added downer of Yoko and Subaru possibly being too old to debut; if I'm not wrong, they were the oldest juniors to debut for a while.
But finally FINALLY :D on August 15th, 2004, Kanjani8 debuted with Naniwa Iroha Bushi with a limited Kansai release. Yoko was none-too-pleased with the enka angle, but Subaru genuinely was, since it was "different". The single went on to be released and promoted nationwide on September 22nd, 2004 :)
I would love to say they lived happily ever after, but... yeah. But the good news is, they're doing amazingly well and all the fail and fuckery they had to deal with in the Junior period has been balanced out <3 And Uchi is back and busy with cons and butais and dramas. And Takki is happy being Takki-y and gay with Kielbasa and is now promoting Juniors in a less-pressured environment XD
So... yeah. It all worked out. <3
There was some talk on Twitter a few weeks ago about attempting to formulate a timeline of Eito's activities from when they joined JE, so I'm going to get started on that here :D Pleeease add/correct/delete as required :D I'm adding Takki and Tsubasa and other people in wherever required, considering how pretty much everybody was connected to everybody else for a short while. Plz to at least skim through so I don't feel like a dweeb for spending six hours on this? XD;;;
Subaru and Maru were the first to audition for JE, on September 22nd 1995.
Taeko bribed Subaru with ￥5000 on his 15th birthday and Maru (12 y/o) went along with it because both his parents told him to. In his SCP, Subaru said he wanted to stand out, so he pushed his way to the centre, wrote "SU - BA - RU" in hiragana (everybody else wrote their surnames in kanji) and stuck it on the middle of his chest and danced as well as he could (which... isn't saying much XD). But out of the 200 people that auditioned that day, only three people were picked and two of them were Subaru and Maru :D Maru's story is actually really adorable. He was apparently so ditzy (he routinely forgot to take his lunch-box to school XD) that his parents flailed about his future and decided to try to get him into Johnny's, so that his life would be secure. XD <3 As soon as they were picked, the three of them were asked to change into new T-shirts, prettied up with some make-up and rushed to a magazine interview and Domoto Tsuyoshi's TV show within an hour of passing the audition. So the two of them were all, "YAY OMG I'M A STAR NAO 8D" all the way home. And didn't hear from the agency after that until Christmas XD
On Christmas Day 1995, KinKi had special Christmas cons aaaat... Osaka Jo Hall? I think? and they needed juniors to backdance, so Subaru got a call from the agency. As it turned out, it was another round of auditions. Subaru passed this one too and got to go onstage, but Maru didn't and just... went home, lol. Just like that XD This was his second audition. That very same day, Hina (14) and Yoko (15) auditioned too and they were picked together with Subaru; first ever instance of the SanOssans! XD Hina auditioned because all the girls in class told him he was cute and he should try out. Yoko, on the other hand, did it because his mum forced him too XD His classmates had gotten into JE and she was like, "WTF Kimi is so much cuter than him DX" Ultimately, Yoko auditioned for and got into JE, but his friend quit soon after. Yoko tells this story how he was all ":|" and closed-up for a while as a Junior. One day, Johnny came up to him and said, "YOU! You're from Kansai! Why aren't you funny!" ...and that was how lulzy!Yoko we all know and love was born.
On September 6th 1996, Yasu (12), Kura (10) and Ryo (12) all auditioned (and were in the same audition room too, if I'm not wrong). Maru auditioned here one last time and (finally XD <3) managed to get into JE. Ryo auditioned because all the girls in his class XD were all, "You look like Takizawa Hideaki!!11! YOU SHOULD JOIN JE :D". Yasu because he sister was (is?) an Aiba fangirl (Yasu - "She liked him because he failed adorably at dancing :)" Taichi - "...so you're basically saying that Aiba-kun, your senpai, sucked at dancing on national TV. ._." Yasu - "Eeeeeeeeh!? No!! No! D: >.>;;;") and decided her brother was cute enough to join JE too~ But Kura's is my personal favourite. He fanboyed V6 and wanted to be cool and do backflips and dance like them. And he ended up becoming a drummer... XD <333
As it turned out, Kura and Yasu were pretty much standing right next to each other in the audition room. And Yasu was so nervous, he kept stomping on Kura's feet, trying to get the dance moves right. He apologised, though! Thirteen years later XD
Uchi was the last of the eight to join JE and auditioned on May 29th, 1999. He actually wanted to go on a class trip that day (he came home from baseball practice to an audition form! He was planning to be a pro-baseball player when he grew up daww), but his mum bribed him to audition with ￥500. Plus, he'd seen Yoko around a lot (they live in the same neighbourhood in Osaka and carpooled a lot) and thought he was "really cool omg aslkjf a real live Johnny's!! *___*" and so he agreed.
Okay, so that's all of Eito. And Takki and Tsubasa both auditioned and entered JE on 23rd April 1995.
Takki (12) wanted to be a pro-wrestler (brb laughing just a little bit a lot) and applied to various agencies! But they turned him down because he was too thin and too short (36 kgs and 130 cms, I think) XD So, heartbroken, he turned to JE. Out of... nowhere, lol. He sent in the app himself, went to the audition in slacks a polo shirt~ Tsubasa (13) really didn't give a fuck about idols, but his sister was like, "STFU /smacks" and dragged him to Tokyo and made him audition anyway XD But at the audition, somebody was like, "YOU! You win at dancing!" and Easily Flattered Imai-san was like, "...OKAY I LIKE THIS THING NOW :D" The first time they met, Tsubasa thought Takki was a dweeb XD
Moving on! The 1995 ~ 1999 period:
This period (possibly lasting a little into the millennium. I'm given to understand it ended when T&T debuted, which was on September 11th, 2002) is referred to as the Golden Junior Era. For the first time ever, Juniors had their own concerts where they could sing and perform as the main artists in addition to backdancing at senpai concerts. This is when Juniors started getting attention in their own right; it was like a revolution, for lack of a better term. For a while, it was mostly disorganized chaos since there was no staff or senpai in-charge of these Juniors or their activities. A lot of people assume that Takki took charge of his own accord at this point, all bossy and everything. The truth is (as he says on his SCP), he was explicitly ordered to by the top management. And he haaaated doing it.
Back to Osaka:
The ossans went on Domoto Tsuyoshi's show every week for a while and also Music Jump (proto-Shounen Club), sometimes with Ryo/Yasu/Ohkura. Yoko said (on SCP?) that Music Jump was the first TV show he got to be on, and that's only because he happened to be in the area at the time and Johnny was like, "...oh fine, you might as well go on. Whatever." Yoko and Hina did activities separately for a while (random Kansai TV shows, mostly) but ended up being clubbed together at some point as the Really Obnoxiously Loud Kansai Juniors Who Talk A Lot. Or something to that effect. XD
Them being on TV was a huge deal, as they've repeatedly commented on SCP, magazine interview and possibly on Recomen once. At the time, Kansai Juniors weren't given the same opportunities as Tokyo Juniors. Being on TV got them more exposure and provided the possibility of getting more opportunities and work. At the time, the Kansai branch didn't exist, so if they wanted to be on TV, they had to travel all the way to Tokyo and the travel/accommodation/food prices were ridiculously expensive. Until around the time KinKi or TOKIO debuted, JE had dorms that Kansai Juniors could stay at while in Tokyo, but those were shut down because of the sex scandal stuff. The Tokyo Juniors obviously didn't need to worry about all that and took this opportunity for granted, which pissed the Kansai Juniors off, causing a rift to form.
It was around ...1997? that Subaru started getting lots of attention and solos even in the concerts. Ryo caught up pretty quickly and he was the most favoured Junior soprano for the longest time. Subaru hung out with Takki and Tsubasa a lot and apparently seemed to have the same "inner ranking" as the two, which made him pretty much one of the most popular juniors. Hina apparently tagged along a lot; Ryo (in his SCP) says: "It's like he knew Subaru would be popular, so he hung out with him so he'd be popular too >.>" ... XD Ryo's Tokyo Junior friends were Yamapi, Jin and... more people who I can't remember now. Ryo was popular, okay. XD He became BFFs4LYFE with Yamapi after a trip to Hawaii. They were so freaked out by a scary story that they clung to each other and even escorted each other to the loo lmao XD
Right, so my point! The most popular Kansai Juniors at that point were Subaru, Yoko/Hina and Ryo. Ryo initially formed a unit with Yasu, Maru, Kura and someotherKansaiJuniorsIdon'tknowthenamesof called BIG West, but that died when Ryo collaborated with Higashiyama on Secret Agent Man and Yasu/Maru/Kura didn't get as much screen-time.
The Kansai/Tokyo rift just kept widening. Takki morphed into what Taichi calls a Young Johnny-san, lol, and started organising the Juniors. He arranged for them to be on TV, scolded them when they didn't work hard/do things right, set up entire motherfucking concerts (example: Johnny's Junior Concert @ Tokyo Dome). On Takki's SCP, Hina does a VTR where he says, "When I was a junior, I really, reeeeeeally hated you. You were bossy and annoying and I'd yell back, 'Go mind your own business!' or 'Who are you to tell us what to do!?' when you gave us tips or asked us to do things better. But now that I think about, it was all of that advice you gave us that made us into what we are today. It's because of the Takki of that time that Kanjani8 exists now." (more or less)
The Kansai Juniors were already pissed at not getting enough exposure and Takki being this way would definitely have rubbed them the wrong way. The hostility was intense. Ryo, who had friends on both sides, was at a loss. He used to sit alone and practice Kansai-ben and Tokyo-ben XD And got really embarrassed when Maru was LOUD and YAY OSAKA when they hung out together in Tokyo XD
Onstage, Subaru, Takki and Tsubasa were the stars, with "Higashi no Takki to Nishi no Subaru". At some point around this time (my guess is 1998ish), Subaru moved to Tokyo and was soon followed by Yoko & Hina and then Ryo.
In August 1999, the Kansai Juniors held their own concert at Osaka Jo Hall and over 14,000 fans attended. At that point, the ossans were regulars on Pikaichi, a show hosted by KinKi. But Subaru reportedly got into a huge fight with and pissed off Domoto Tsuyoshi and then got kicked off the show in around 2000. I'm told you can still see Yoko and Hina in some later episodes.
1999 is the year that Uchi joined JE and he became popular almost right off the bat. He was made the lead vocalist in a unit called V.WEST with Maru, Yasu, Mizuno Kiyohito and Imayama Tohru. Maru was actually also a guitarist, but when the unit was being formed, Johnny said, "YOU (=Maru)! You're tall! So play the bass! And YOU (=Yasu)! You're really short, so play the guitar!" The logic makes absolutely no sense to me, but they've remained bassist/guitarist to this day so... I guess we should all learn to trust Johnny more. XD Mizuno and Uchi were really close, so it hit him hard when Mizuno and Imayama decided to quit JE to pursue other interests. V.WEST continued with Ohkura as the drummer and had a concert in 2001 and went on a show called WEEKLY V.WEST regularly.
Things started going downhill for the others. Subaru was sent back to Osaka, and Yoko and Hina too. The official reason was the establishment of a Kansai Branch, but work dwindled to almost nothing. Subaru just... clean fell off the radar for a while. And then he resurfaced to act in the very, super-disastrous Platonic Sex, in which he plays an abusive son/has underage sex/is a juvenile delinquent/gets thrown in jail. I don't understand how JE didn't just deny the offer when it was made because as a Junior, I'm entirely sure Subaru didn't have the authority to pick his roles. But whatever the reason, his career spiraled further downwards.
I've read in a lot of places that Subaru fell into deep depression then and has been battling it ever since and... honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if it were true. He got the tattoo out of the blue at some point after April 2001, just before Platonic Sex.
Around 2000, Takki and Subaru began drifting apart. Nobody really knows why or what happened. It could've been over something trivial and then they just drifted apart. But for what it's worth, the "Takki-dumped-Subaru-for-Tsubasa!!!11!!" thing is completely untrue. Takki was on the verge of quitting JE because the pressure and the hate directed at him because of being the Leader. After talking things out with a senpai, he decided to stay on and wanted to definitely only debut with somebody and not solo. It made sense. He really hated being the Leader and how people isolated him because of it, so I can see why he would want the comfort and security of being in a group or a duo. He called up Tsubasa and this was the first time they talked in a very long time (three years) and he picked Tsubasa because "everybody else in JE had already been paired off". So... yeah. The confusion regarding their debut is a whole other story.
So the members started getting part-time jobs and began to consider quitting. There was no work, there was no promise of work in the future; JE had basically exiled them to Kansai was what it looked like. Ohkura, Yasu, Maru were still in school; Maru and Yasu only became serious about their instruments a little around this time.
Hina started working a sketchy amusement park (it's since been condemned), Ohkura got a newspaper route. Yoko's family situation was pretty fucked up and he had his step-brothers to support, so he started doing hard labour at a construction site and moving companies. Subaru reported coached a girl's volleyball team. Suuuure, Subaru, I believe that. XD Subaru quit high school within a week of starting because of JE, Hina claims he's on an extended sabbatical. XD So yeah, they didn't have a lot to fall back on. At one point, Hina and Yoko literally had to kick Subaru out of the house.
All of them decided they'd might as well quit. All but Ohkura, surprisingly. He stated on SCP that he never actually thought about quitting, even through the rough period. He figured his seniors would just figure something out and he'd be fine. I was surprised to see this, because even delusionally optimistic Hina said he'd considered quitting.
And then one day, ANOTHER happened. Yoko got a call from Johnny about a butai to be staged in Osaka featuring Yoko, Subaru, Hina, Maru, Yasu, Ryo and Uchi among other Kansai Juniors. Ohkura had the amazingly awesome role of being One of The Kids Who Sat on The Boulder At The Corner of The Screen (And Yell Randomly As Appropriate). So glamorous XD ANOTHER went on to be a success and Eito decided to stick it out for a while. And it was a good thing that they did, because in late-2002 (or early 2003?), Johnny decided to debut a Kansai group.
After adding Ohkura in to make the group 8 (since they were debuting on Channel 8. Geddit? Geddit? Oh Johnny, you and your logic XD Not that I'm complaining this time.), he gave the group an ultimatum: they were to perform a concert in... Winter? and if the response was suitably positive, they would get to debut. If they failed, they'd be banished to Kansai forever. Or something to that effect. XD Yasu was the only one who knew about the ultimatum; Ohkura had to master the drums in a really, really short time (he was picked to be drummer because he had excellent rhythm as a dancer -- again, Johnny Logic. XD) and figuring telling him this would be counter-productive, Yasu decided to just encourage Kura as much as he could.
The concerts rolled by and Kanjani8 wowed the audiences. (Yoko haaaaaaated the name Kanjani. He wanted a cool ~English~ name and he was like, "FUCK YOU, WHY DO YOU HAVE TO GIVE US A NAMESQUISH D:") And they were set to debut! :D
And then Johnny screwed things up further by forming NEWS out of the blue and putting Ryo and Uchi in it and debuting in them in like... three weeks or something. Eito figured they wouldn't get a chance to debut now, and were really bitter that people like Tegoshi got the opportunity to debut within 6 months of joining JE while it had taken most of them almost 10 years to get to where they were now.
There was also the added downer of Yoko and Subaru possibly being too old to debut; if I'm not wrong, they were the oldest juniors to debut for a while.
But finally FINALLY :D on August 15th, 2004, Kanjani8 debuted with Naniwa Iroha Bushi with a limited Kansai release. Yoko was none-too-pleased with the enka angle, but Subaru genuinely was, since it was "different". The single went on to be released and promoted nationwide on September 22nd, 2004 :)
I would love to say they lived happily ever after, but... yeah. But the good news is, they're doing amazingly well and all the fail and fuckery they had to deal with in the Junior period has been balanced out <3 And Uchi is back and busy with cons and butais and dramas. And Takki is happy being Takki-y and gay with Kielbasa and is now promoting Juniors in a less-pressured environment XD
So... yeah. It all worked out. <3