No move to hang the three members out to dry, just depends on the discovery… How do TV people view the “Kimpuri” withdrawal drama?

On November 4 last year, “King & Prince” announced the departure of Shoh Hirano (25), Yuta Jinguji (25), and Yuta Kishi (27), and announced on their special website that they would release DVDs, etc. for four consecutive months starting in January, when they will have less than four months left in their five-member group.

In January, a Blu-ray & DVD of their first Dome concert will be released, in February, their 12th single, in March, a Blu-ray & DVD of last summer’s concert tour, and in April, their first best album. Fans must have mixed feelings about the rush of releases, reminding them that the “countdown to the end of the five-member lineup” has begun,” said a music writer.

The division of the five members into two groups, those who left and those who stayed together, has led to whispers of a discord between the two groups, but a director of a commercial TV station said, “I don’t sense any such discord.

Many of the staff working with them learned of the three members’ departure from the group through news reports. That is why there was no sense of discomfort or foreboding at the site. Perhaps the remaining members, Ren Nagase (23) and Kaito Takahashi (23), are being cautious, but even after the announcement of their departure, the five members are behaving as usual.

The group’s flagship program “King & Prince Ru. (NTV) will continue even after the three members leave the group.

The three members’ departure from the group was reported to the upper management of Nippon TV before the announcement. After that, they had a discussion with the Johnny’s office about continuing the program, but since the group itself will continue to exist, it seems that the decision was made to continue. The relationship between Nippon TV and Johnny’s is very strong, as the group is actively used as the lead in dramas and as the host of information programs. Although the ex-members of “SMAP” disappeared from terrestrial broadcasting for a while after the breakup, Kimpuri did not break up and continued to perform. Hirano and the other three will be able to work more easily. Some people say that this is why Nagase and the others must have kept the group alive.

In fact, a producer at a key station said, “There has been no move to dry up Hirano and the other three members.

There have been reports in some media that Johnny’s is pushing “Naniwa Danshi,” but I haven’t heard anything like, “Use ‘Naniwa Danshi’ instead of ‘Kimpuri. I don’t hear anything like that. When “SMAP” broke up, Johnny’s was warned by the Fair Trade Commission that any attempt to prevent the use of ex-members who had left the group on TV programs might violate the Antimonopoly Law, so they are not likely to exert any blatant pressure. Nevertheless, it is possible that the TV stations will make a discovery to the Johnny’s office, and thus Hirano and the others will not be used for the program.

The three members of the group have also given up on appearing in terrestrial TV programs.

The three have seen what happened to the group that left ‘SMAP,’ so they must understand that it will be difficult for them to appear on terrestrial television for some time to come. They are probably thinking of focusing their activities on Netflix and other overseas video distribution sites like their senior member Tomohisa Yamashita (37), or transferring to an overseas entertainment company like Yurina Hirate (21), a former member of “Keyakizaka 46”.

The entertainment industry in Reiwa will change drastically depending on how the members of “Kimpuri” perform.

From the February 3, 2023 issue of FRIDAY