i don't know what to say about this post.
mcpofife has been asking me fifty billion questions about KAT-TUN and I keep promising to make a post covering some of their history. I have made one of these posts before, for giantessmess, but she was only vaguely interested and had no broadband. So this post will be fifty times more insane. Also it is mostly written from memory and I have a terrible memory, so anyone that bothers to read this please feel free to correct me.
Johnny's Entertainment: alias JE, Johnny's Jimusho, JEnt.
The male-only entertainment agency founded by creepy accused pedophile Johnny Kitagawa. Boys audition quite young (Pi was 9; Jin was old at 14) and join the agency. They are then trained as entertainers and are (generally) put into units (bands) by management. These units can be split up at a moment's notice and the guys generally have little to no control over what unit they are in. It's pretty traumatic. Even really popular units are not guaranteed a debut (generally the release of a cd is considered the official debut) and there is a lot of competition and uncertainty amongst the juniors.
JE has a terrifying monopoly on boy bands in Japan. There are other companies but none even remotely approach the level of JE. JE is the Coca Cola of Japanese male Idols. They totally control the media's relationship with its idols; generally, if a scandal gets out, I tend to think it is because JE didn't think it was important enough to bother covering up. There are also rumours that the company will make deals with tabloids, giving them certain stories in exchange for covering others up. Media companies that piss JE off will immediately have their access to the idols revoked. Idols who piss the company off too much disappear into obscurity. It is a testament to Jin's popularity that he has yet to be erased from the face of the earth.
Rumour has it that Johnny Kitagawa himself has taken a back seat in the management of the company because he's getting pretty old, and that his sister Mary is in charge. Johnny put NewS together but KAT-TUN are supposedly Mary's pet project. I know next to nothing about Mary. JE aren't exactly revealing about their management practices. Johnny never officially appears in public except occasionally in the audiences of concerts. He is very mysterious. Like the Wizard of Oz.
See here for a more extensive history of Johnny's Entertainment.
KAT-TUN
Kamenashi Kazuya
Akanishi Jin
Taguchi Junnosuke
Tanaka Koki
Ueda Tatsuya
Nakamaru Yuuichi
KAT-TUN were formed in 2001 by Koichi Domoto, as backdancers for his PopJam show. The unit was only supposed to be temporary, but then the fans liked it so much that it became permanent. In the early days, none of them got on very well. Koki especially resented the group. The other members had generally not been in the jimusho as long as he had and he only really knew Nakamaru. I get the impression that he didn't really like Kame and Jin at first. Kame has talked about how KAT-TUN would be written on a piece of masking tape on their dressing room door or something and Koki would come along and rip his T (the one after the hyphen) off. Because he's hardcore. Kame seems to find that really funny. So the first year or so the atmosphere between them all was really tense, and then it's like they just got used to each other. They bicker a lot but they all agree that they don't have serious fights anymore. As a group, they have a very brotherly relationship. They don't hang out a lot together outside of work but they seem to have a really strong, reliable relationship at work, now. Koki says that KAT-TUN are like the wife he has been married to for years, that he takes for granted but couldn't live without.
Over five years, they started getting more and more popular. Jin and Kame especially became monumentally popular. I think they were the first junior (undebuted) band to hold their own concert. Their first concert was Okyakusama Wa Kamisama (2002). It went for an hour but they did it 11 times in one day, setting some kind of record. A few years later, they held the Kaizokuban tour (2005). This is memorable as the tour where they wore fuschia satin pirate costumes. They had a ship. It was pretty awesome. They were all arguing about what the theme of their concert should be and eventually Jin was just like, "I want to be a pirate."
KAT-TUN - Gold Balladversion
Uploaded by laetiryu
The Kaizokuban dvd topped the Oricon (like the Japanese billboards) music dvd charts for 2005, and that year Kame and Jin also starred in Gokusen 2, which was massively popular. I think it was like, that network's first #1 rating drama, or something like that. I don't really remember. Kame won Best Supporting Actor in The Television Magazine's reader/journalist/expert panel voted Drama Academy Awards. Basically, they were starting to get really popular, but they were still not told when they would officially debut. They'd seen two other bands debut since they were formed; Kanjani8 and NewS, and I think they were kind of blankface about that. Like, why them and not us? Especially because NewS was very newly formed and consisted of a mix of experienced juniors like Pi and Nishikido Ryo and relatively inexperienced unknowns (Like Tegoshi.) At that time, Nakamaru says they all started to get a bit uneasy about their future. When the debut of NewS was announced, Kame and Jin dragged him to see Johnny so they could ask, 'Why NewS?'. And he answered with one of his weird Johnny non-answers.
I'm just trying to explain the origins of the tension that arose when it was announced that Kame would release a cd with Yamapi; Seishun Amigo, the theme song to Nobuta Wo Produce, my favourite tv show of all time. I just had to add that bit in.
Shuji to Akira - Seishun amigo
Uploaded by WithLuv2Johnnys
Seishun Amigo - Shuuji to Akira
The single was the highest selling single for 2005 and sold a million copies in about four weeks.
None of the members publicly said anything about it at the time, but there was a marked coolness and distance in their interactions with Kame at that time. You can literally see how uncomfortable they all are together alsdkasldkj. This is purely speculation, but I'd say that it inflamed some pre-existing fears about Kame and Jin's insane popularity in relation to the rest of the band. If Kame were to be taken away from the band at that time, the likelihood that KAT-TUN would have survived is pretty slim. There's also the more obvious causes for jealous; Kame got to do all these things they didn't get to do, Kame was super famous, Kame was probably making more money than them. I'd say their jealousy was pretty normal and natural, especially because they have so completely gotten over it.
Click to viewKind of angsty in retrospect.
Kame was obviously really conscious of KAT-TUN's reaction to the popularity of Shuuji to Akira. Whenever anyone brought up the success of Shuuji to Akira in KAT-TUN group interviews (which they did constantly) he would look really pained and quickly change the subject to the success of the Kaizokuban dvd as professionally as possible. Eventually, after the debut, they started talking more openly about the tension that Seishun Amigo caused.
In a Hey Hey Hey interview, Kame said that he went to Johnny and tried to talk him out of releasing the cd, the others were all like, YEAH RIGHT, but when the hosts of the program started hassling him about it in earnest Koki was just like, "it wasn't his decision." Kame said that when he went to Johnny, Johnny said that he had plans for KAT-TUN, if the single was successful, and Jin says that they forgave him because the single was so successful. If it had been a flop they'd have killed him. Kame obviously felt that pressure because he dropped down to 40kg while filming Nobuta. He always stresses out while filming dramas, but not that much alksdj.
JESUS THIS IS LONG I AM SUCH A PSYCHOPATH. YOU KNOW SOMETIMES YOU JUST TAKE A MOMENT TO SIT BACK AND LOOK AT YOUR LIFE? I AM DOING THAT RIGHT NOW.
So they debuted to great success, everything was going great, and then suddenly Jin announced he was going on hiatus, to LA to learn English. At the time, he was going indefinitely, no-one knew if or when he would come back. Everyone was really freaked out. KAT-TUN kind of seemed like they'd been suckerpunched, even though they knew about it well before the public. They pulled themselves together pretty well, but there was of course a lot of resentment. When he came back everyone was really happy but Koki talked about how pissed off he'd been. They met Jin in the US a few months before he came back and Koki yelled at him alkdj.
KAT-TUN a little while after Jin's return
KAT-TUN joking about Jin's hiatus
Kame on what he would like KAT-TUN to be like in the future: I think we would like to be like the ocean. The six of us are all different types of rivers, with different shapes and speed. And these rivers find the way to a place called KAT-TUN. And there are no oil spills or trash there, and we all change everyday. So we would all like to be that kind of beautiful ocean.
For more about KAT-TUN's history, a magazine made a manga out of one of their interviews. Credit to boys_framed, I think. Part One / Part Two.
KAT-TUN'S ALBUMS:
Best of KAT-TUN (2006)
Cartoon KAT-TUN II You (2007)
KAT-TUN'S SINGLES:
You will notice this theme where they always record their pvs in a warehouse clothed in rags. It is a source of distress amongst fans.
In chronological order:
REAL FACE (2006)
KAT-TUN's debut single. It sold more than a million copies and was single of the year in 2006. Their biggest selling single so far, though all their songs debut at #1.
SIGNAL (2006)
BOKURA NO MACHI DE (2006-7)
The only single they released without Jin. This was the theme song to Kame's drama Tatta Hitotsu No Koi, in which he starred as a boy from the ~wrong side of the tracks~ who fell in love with a rich girl in remission from leukemia.
YOROKOBI NO UTA (2007)
Their first single after Jin's hiatus. The theme song to Koki's drama Tokkyu Tanaka 3 Go.
KEEP THE FAITH (2007)
Another warehouse pv in which Kame dresses like a highlander. The theme song to Jin and Junno's drama Yukan Club.
LIPS (2008)
This is my favourite KAT-TUN pv. It is the theme song to Kame's drama One Pound Gospel, in which he is a binge eating boxer who falls in love with a nun. Everyone looks really amazing in the pv, even though they are singing into weird phallic steel microphones. Kame is wearing eyeliner and is easily the most beautiful person on the face of the earth.
Their next single is called Don't U Ever Stop.
KAT-TUN - Peaceful days (Tour 2007 Cartoon KAT-TUN II You)
Uploaded by laetiryu
PEACEFUL DAYS / Cartoon KAT-TUN II You tour
They also host a weekly tv show called Cartoon KAT-TUN II You.
Next up: Members, resources, etc.