NHK’s difficulties in negotiating for the “last slot” for the white team in the Arashi Kohaku Uta Gassen?

The NHK “Kouhaku Uta Gassen” is an annual event held on New Year’s Eve. This year, 10 groups have entered the competition for the first time, including KAT-TUN, celebrating its 15th anniversary, and Mone Kamishiraishi, who plays the heroine in NHK’s morning TV series “Come Come Everyday”.

However, the lineup was undeniably small compared to previous years, as there were few hit songs throughout the year.

The fact that “Official Bearded Otoko-dism,” whose commercial songs and anime theme songs have become hits and are immensely popular among young people, withdrew from the competition is also significant. Also, it seems that B’z, who NHK has been eagerly awaiting for a long time, will not participate this year either.

NHK is not just sitting on its hands in the midst of what they call “small” entries. It is said that NHK has prepared a surprise for the audience by reducing the number of groups in the white group to 21, compared to 22 in the red group.

NHK is asking the Johnny’s side to revive the show for one night only,” said a music industry insider.

Arashi stopped its activities as a group at the end of last year. The members of the group have been working on their own activities, but the leader, Satoshi Ohno, has not been involved in any entertainment activities.

This year, guitarist Torayasu Nunobukuro will perform in Kohaku. This year, guitarist Torayasu Nunobukuro will participate in Kohaku, no doubt with the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Paralympics in mind.

Naturally, there will be many Olympic and Paralympic medalists as judges and guests. NHK really wants Arashi to sing “Kite,” the theme song of the Tokyo Olympics program.

However, Sho Sakurai and Masaki Aiba were the only members to appear on NHK during the Olympics. For them, there is a clear line between group activities and personal activities, and they seem to think that the five of them together are “Arashi”.

However, there was an incident that changed the course of events: at a screening of Arashi’s live film on November 3, four of the members (excluding Ohno) made a surprise appearance to promote the film.

When NHK saw this, they suddenly became more positive about the offer. However, promoting a movie and singing on stage are two different things. It seems that they are desperately trying to negotiate, but they haven’t received a favorable response. More importantly, I think the members are not keen on the idea.

Even so, it seems that NHK is trying to negotiate with Sakurai and Aiba for them to appear in the show. But even if they do agree to appear, it’s unlikely that they will sing Arashi’s songs alone.

It is said that the distance between the members of Arashi is particularly close among idol groups, and until all five members are together, they will not perform as a group.