On a roll..
The other thing that is keeping my friends page occupied, besides the TT reunion (Which, let's face it, nobody on LJ cares about. It seems LJ is THE place for japanese fandom) is KAT-TUN or the fact that Jin Akanishi, the former A of KAT-TUN left them. This feels eerily familiar to the day when Robbie left Take That. Let's just hope that KAT-TUN won't quit in half a year. :) I really like KAT-TUN's music - if you look at it from a music point of view they are my favourite JE band. On the other hand I'm much older now, it doesn't hurt me and Jin Akanishi was never my favourite to begin with. So it is quite interesting to see how people react to this.
So what do we think of it? Basically I'm not suprised. And I think nobody is. Because he's been on his own for some time now and more importanly even when he was still with KAT-TUN it seemed like he wasn't there anyway (mentally, physically he was, indeed). What do I mean by that? Watch him when the rest of KAT-TUN are having fun and you know what I mean. Jin Akanishi is an America-Otaku. He toured the US and is making music that sounds like Justin Timberlakes music. It's not bad and all, but in the end he is japanese and doesn't realize that being japanese is good. I have made loads of posts at a Forum I frequent about this change. A girl there went to his solo gig in L.A. and while she liked it she just wasn't blown away by it. There were also loads of japanese people in the audience. But Jin Akanishi thinks he can make it in the US. I don't think so. So Johnny's Entertainment decided that Jin cannot have KAT-TUN as a safety net when he fails. Fans might hate that, but I think, for once that JE is right. I don't know what will happen to Jin. And I don't really care. I hope KAT-TUN continue as a 5 piece, even though they will surely loose fans, I just don't think it's right for them to have to pay the price of loosing their career just because of one person. Didn't SMAP start as 6 members, too? (No, I'm not comparing them, I doubt KAT-TUN will ever have their level success)
So in the end if I have to choose between Jin and KAT-TUN, of course I choose KAT-TUN and hope that this will give the other members time to shine, because they didn't really before.
So what do we think of it? Basically I'm not suprised. And I think nobody is. Because he's been on his own for some time now and more importanly even when he was still with KAT-TUN it seemed like he wasn't there anyway (mentally, physically he was, indeed). What do I mean by that? Watch him when the rest of KAT-TUN are having fun and you know what I mean. Jin Akanishi is an America-Otaku. He toured the US and is making music that sounds like Justin Timberlakes music. It's not bad and all, but in the end he is japanese and doesn't realize that being japanese is good. I have made loads of posts at a Forum I frequent about this change. A girl there went to his solo gig in L.A. and while she liked it she just wasn't blown away by it. There were also loads of japanese people in the audience. But Jin Akanishi thinks he can make it in the US. I don't think so. So Johnny's Entertainment decided that Jin cannot have KAT-TUN as a safety net when he fails. Fans might hate that, but I think, for once that JE is right. I don't know what will happen to Jin. And I don't really care. I hope KAT-TUN continue as a 5 piece, even though they will surely loose fans, I just don't think it's right for them to have to pay the price of loosing their career just because of one person. Didn't SMAP start as 6 members, too? (No, I'm not comparing them, I doubt KAT-TUN will ever have their level success)
So in the end if I have to choose between Jin and KAT-TUN, of course I choose KAT-TUN and hope that this will give the other members time to shine, because they didn't really before.