No Johnny’s Talent Showed Up for the First Time After New Year’s Ceremony

At around 2:00 a.m. on January 1, Kawasaki Daishi was crowded with Hatsumode visitors at the beginning of the new year. In front of a building a short distance away from the main gate to the temple, which was still crowded although the peak had passed, dozens of Johnny’s fans were just standing there in the dark and cold. They were waiting for the annual Hatsumode (New Year’s visit to the shrine) by Japanese celebrities. The talents enter a different waiting room from the general visitors and come out of this building to pay their respects when the time comes. This allows fans to see them right in front of them.

It has become a tradition for the Johnny’s s office to have them all come together here to pay their respects after the Kohaku and countdown concerts. In the past, Noriyuki Higashiyama, Mitsuko Mori, and former president Mary Kitagawa would bring their talents to pay their respects. There were no ceremony in year 2021 and 2022 , perhaps out of consideration for Corona, but in 2020, the festival was attended by Arashi, who performed as the last performer at Kohaku, V6, Tomohisa Yamashita, KAT-TUN, NEWS, Kanjani Eight, Hey! JUMP, Sexy Zone, SixTONES, and others, all of whom thrilled fans.

This is a rare opportunity to see so many talents in front of you, so every year 200 to 300 fans gather for the event. Some of them even wait for the show on New Year’s Eve without watching Kohaku.

This year, however, the situation was quite different. No one came out even after 2:00 p.m., when the celebrities who had finished praying would usually appear one by one. In the end, we were able to confirm the presence of some of the old staff members, but could not see any of the talent.

Fans were expecting that the event might be canceled this year as well, following on from last year and the year before. However, there were even more disturbing rumors. Fans who were waiting for the show to start were downcast and said the following: “There were no plans for Kohaku or the countdown from the very beginning.”

“The Kohaku and countdown concerts are big performances that take place once a year,” said one fan. After the concert, they are exhausted, so some of the talents said, “I want to go home early, without going to the Hatsumode.”

“In fact, in the past, SMAP did not participate in Hatsumode for the same reason at the discretion of Manager Iijima. But at least when Mr. Janney and Mr. Merry were around, no such complains were raised. It kind of feels like everyone is falling apart slowly.”

For the fans, they would have liked to celebrate the New Year’s holidays with the spectacular Johnny’s, at least for the first time.