<figure id="attachment_272289" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-272289" style="width: 1997px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="0baa2166"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2022/10/KOU1650.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-272289" class="wp-caption-text">Masaki Aiba&#8217;s ratings for &#8220;VS Soul,&#8221; which he hosts, are in trouble.&#8221; The &#8220;Arashi&#8221; brand is now known once again&#8230;</figcaption></figure>
 Will he protect the Arashi brand or not?
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 The variety show &#8220;VS Soul Gradation&#8221; (Fuji TV) is in an emergency situation.
 The program, which was scheduled to air on October 27, has been changed to a live broadcast of the Japan Series professional baseball game between the Orix and Yakult teams. Hiroaki Ogi, Kayoko Okubo, and Chiaki were scheduled to appear as guests on the broadcast as the &#8220;Ogi Gundan.
 If this were the only reason, it would have been treated as an unavoidable situation, but according to the program&#8217;s official Twitter page, the broadcasts on November 3 and 10 will also be suspended, and the next broadcast will be a month later, on November 17.
 After the September 29 broadcast, the October 6 episode of &#8220;VS Soul&#8221; will be followed by the &#8220;FNS Drama Competition: Treasure Award,&#8221; and the October 13 episode will be followed by the &#8220;FNS Drama Competition: Treasure Award. Treasure Award&#8221; on October 6 and &#8220;Miracle Experience! Anbiribabo 2-hour special&#8221; on October 13, and it was not aired until October 20. In other words, the last two months have been at a &#8220;once-a-month&#8221; pace.
 The show&#8217;s predecessor was &#8220;VS Arashi,&#8221; in which Arashi members compete with guest teams. The program was renamed after Arashi&#8217;s hiatus. The main MC is Masaki Aiba, with Shunsuke Kazama, Katsutoshi Sato of &#8220;Sexy Zone,&#8221; and Katsunori Kurokawa of &#8220;K&#8221; Kabuki. Masaki Aiba will be the main MC. Prince&#8217;s Yuta Kishi, and other Japanese talents.
 The ratings for the show, despite being in primetime, hovered around 5% (household viewer rating). It is no wonder that the show is considered &#8220;wacky&#8221; in terms of content. The main host, Mr. Aiba, is a good-looking young man and has a good reputation, but does he have the numbers (viewer ratings)? It&#8217;s not so clear.
 Kazunari Ninomiya and Jun Matsumoto are mainly actors, and Sho Sakurai is a producer of Nippon TV&#8217;s &#8220;news zero. Kazuya Ninomiya and Jun Matsumoto are mainly actors, Sho Sakurai is a newscaster as typified by NTV&#8217;s &#8220;news zero,&#8221; and Aiba is mainly a variety show producer, but they may be forced to make some changes.
 Even so, the reason why they cannot discontinue the program is because of the Arashi brand. The reason they cannot discontinue the program is because of the Arashi brand. They want to protect the &#8220;VS Soul&#8221; slot at all costs until the day the group resumes its activities in the future.
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 Even if the name of the program is changed, Arashi&#8217;s impression of the program is still strong. If the program is cancelled due to low ratings, the Arashi brand will be damaged. For Arashi fans, too, the show was a special program featuring the members. I think there will be many people who want to say &#8216;welcome back&#8217; on the show when Arashi resumes its activities,&#8221; said a source at the TV station.
 However, as Fuji Television Network (Fuji TV) also dared to carry out a large-scale restructuring of 100 employees this spring, the management of Fuji TV is in a difficult situation. Some sports newspapers reported that Fuji Television had resorted to &#8220;rough tricks&#8221; to prolong the life of the program by putting special programs and one-off specials into the &#8220;VS Spirit&#8221; slot, in order to keep the program alive. But&#8230;.
 However, it is unbearable for Arashi fans to see the devastation of being treated as a burden. On the Internet, there are a few who argue that the show must be cancelled, saying, &#8216;Give it a rest&#8217; or &#8216;I don&#8217;t want to see you in pain.
 Aiba and Sho Sakurai announced their marriage last September, and the birth of their first child, a boy, was announced on October 22. According to a source, now that Aiba has a child, he is devoting more energy to his family than to his work.
 He is now putting his wife and child first,&#8221; the source said. Kazuya Ninomiya also had his first child last spring. Mr. Aiba is happy to have a &#8220;father friend&#8221; in the group. For the time being, his priority is his family rather than his work.
 It is not that he is unmotivated, but he is preoccupied with his child at the moment. The &#8220;bargaining&#8221; between the Johnny&#8217;s side, which wants to keep the program as a symbol of Arashi, and Fuji Television, which is suffering from a slump in viewer ratings, is likely to continue&#8230;

 VS Arashi" was popular for its appearances by all the members of Arashi. After the group went on hiatus, Masaki Aiba, a member of Arashi, took over as the host of "VS Soul," which started with a bang....

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