On the Eve of the Birth of SMAP: The Real Strength of “Shonen-tai” and “Hikaru Genji,” the Fulfillment of Janie Kitagawa’s Ideal

In the previous article, “[Behind the SMAP x SMAP Public Execution Incident] Johnny’s Faces the ‘Beginning of the End’ in the Formation of SMAP,” we discussed how the SMAP breakup was the cause of the decline of the Johnny’s office.

The “Ellipse” of Janie Kitagawa

When I think about the characteristics of Johnny’s and the Johnny’s Office, I am reminded of one critic. Hanada Seiki. His masterpiece “The Spirit of the Reconstruction Era” was published in 1946, the year after the end of the war. Included in the book is a sentence written during the war, “Elliptical Illusion – Villon” (Villon was a medieval French thief poet).

A circle has one center, but an ellipse has two centers. It is like a rugby ball. Seiki Hanada writes: “A person can be pious or pious can be pious.

＜A person can be pious. One can be pious, and one can be obscene. But it was Villon who showed that one can be pious and obscene at the same time. ＞The first to show that one can be both pious and obscene at the same time.

He also says that “piety and obscenity – these two things that are most difficult to connect – have equal rights and exist at the same time.

This is the very person of Janney Kitagawa!

Just as the opposites of piety and obscenity coexist, a “great producer” and a “horrific sex offender” exist within a single person. It is not a circle. It has two centers, like an ellipse. They appear to be “torn apart” by these two opposing points.

First, there are two points: the United States and Japan.

Janie Kitagawa was born in Los Angeles, USA, in 1931. His real name is John H. Kitagawa. His Japanese name is Hiromu Kitagawa.

He returned to Japan at the age of 2. During the Pacific War, he suffered an air raid in Wakayama City. After the war, he moved to the U.S. at the age of 16 and attended high school and college in Los Angeles.

He came back to Japan in 1952 and worked for the U.S. military.

I see, he is torn between Japan and the U.S., between “Janey” and “Kitagawa.

In the early 1960s, he formed a baseball team with a group of boys who gathered at a U.S. military facility (Washington Heights). He went to see the musical film “West Side Story” with its members and was shocked. This is how they formed an idol group called Johnny’s.

Both baseball and musicals are American dreams. To realize the American dream in Japan became his lifelong mission.

The “Tanokin Trio” was also a coincidence..!

The next two points are Janney and his sister, Mary Kitagawa.

Johnny’s was established in 1962. Janie Kitagawa trained the talent, and Mary Kitagawa was in charge of management. It was a tripartite arrangement, with Janie producing and Mary managing. This relationship continued for 57 years until Janie passed away in 2019 at the age of 87.

Johnny’s is not truly understood unless it is viewed as an “ellipse” with two centers, Johnny (producing) and Mary (managing).

From the 1960s to the 1970s, progress was made from Johnny’s to Four Leaves and Hiromi Go. However, in 1975, Goh suddenly transferred to the new office in a surprise move. Johnny’s suffered a severe blow and entered a long period of stagnation.

The “Tanokin Trio” of Toshihiko Tahara, Masahiko Kondo, and Yoshio Nomura became popular in the 1980s.

Interestingly, this was not due solely to Janie Kitagawa, as Tahara, Kondo, and Nomura happened to audition for the role of a student in the TBS drama “Kinpachi Sensei: 3 Years B Class”. Without the drama “Kinpachi Sensei,” the “Tanokin Trio” would not have existed. The scene of the heyday of Johnny’s in the 1990s, which led to the Shibukitai and Hikaru Genji, may never have come to fruition.

Janie Kitagawa’s initiative was to select and train members and produce music and stage productions. He does not have the power to book them for TV programs, especially dramas. This is the domain of Mary Kitagawa’s management.

The only way to gain popularity and recognition as an idol is to appear on TV. This was especially true in the Showa period. However, the power of Janie Kitagawa was not yet extended to this point.

At that time, what TV shows and dramas existed depended on current trends and the initiative of TV station staff. The office can only book and manage.

This is where the two centers of “television” and “live stage” emerge.

Torn between America and Japan, the American dream must be realized in Japan. Janie Kitagawa’s goal is to achieve the brilliance of boys’ musical theater like “West Side Story” with high quality. It will require singing, dancing, acting, brilliant staging, and above all, the lively brilliance of the boys.
At the end of the Showa period, at the end of the 1980s, I think this was accomplished.

One of them was Shonen-tai.

The “end point” of Janie Kitagawa’s dream

It took them a total of four years from the time they started as back-up dancers in 1981 until their debut in “The Masked Ball”. The trio had acquired overwhelming dance skills through a long period of intense training. It is said that Janie Kitagawa called Shonen-tai “a group of masterpieces.

The other is Hikaru Genji. Hikaru Genji combined two groups from different generations, Hikaru and Genji. Above all, their style of singing and skating on roller skates took people by surprise.

The origin of this style was the British musical “Starlight Express,” which was performed on roller skates. Hikaru Genji debuted as a campaigner for the play’s Japan tour. Their debut song was “STRAIGHT.

Hikaru Genji became the most popular Johnny’s group in history, and in 1988 won the last Record Award in the Showa era with “Paradise Ginga”.

Hikaru Genji was the top idol group as a stage attraction and glamorous attraction, while Shonen-tai was a three-member group that boasted overwhelming dance skills. With these two groups, Janie Kitagawa’s long-held dream of shining on stage as dancing boy idols was fulfilled.

However, the achievement of a goal is also the end of a dream. There was nowhere more to go. The motion of the ellipse, torn in two, converges on a single point and closes cleanly as a circle. The motion stops.

At …… that moment, another new and unexpected point begins to secretly gestate. Young boys dancing on skateboards in the background of Hikaru Genji’s glamorous stage. They would be called the Skate Boys, and over time, members would be selected, and eventually a new name would emerge.

–SMAP.

In the next article, “[Also with Johnny’s’s Disqualified Persons] The Identity of What “Drove and Abandoned” SMAP Right After Their Debut,” we will look back at the factors that plagued them during SMAP’s long underachieving years.