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<p>In the previous article, <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/371464">&#8220;[Chosen Children of God]</a> The <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/371464">Inevitability of</a> the <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/371464">Two KinKi Kids</a> Remaining <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/371464">Idols and Their &#8220;Extreme Performances&#8221;</a>,&#8221; we discussed the &#8220;mythic nature&#8221; they continued to have as top idols.</p>
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<h2>Unexpectedly big hit</h2>
<figure id="attachment_372143" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 916px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372143"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="dcb2b9f4"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/7586c2c0e9d7a2a291132916746408f7-1.png" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-372143" class="wp-caption-text">KinKi Kids&#8217; debut single, &#8220;Glass Boy,&#8221; reached No. 1 on the Oricon</figcaption></figure>
<p>In July 1997, KinKi Kids made their CD debut with &#8220;Glass Boy&#8221;; the two were 18 years old and had been together for six years.</p>
<p>The song became a big hit, debuting at No. 1 on the Oricon charts and selling 1.8 million copies (and has remained at No. 1 for 47 consecutive singles over the past 27 years).</p>
<p>Masahiro Nakai also expressed his surprise at this. The explosive debut hit by KinKi must have been quite unexpected for Nakai, who composed the music for the song &#8220;Glass Boy&#8221; and composed the lyrics for the song &#8220;Yamashita no Shonen.</p>
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<p>The music for &#8220;Glass Boy&#8221; was composed by Tatsuro Yamashita. At the time, Tatsuro was not blessed with hits and even considered retirement. However, the huge hit of &#8220;Glass Boy&#8221; and the subsequent contribution of the song to KinKi Kids marked the rebirth of Tatsuro as a musician.</p>
<p>The lyrics were written by Takashi Matsumoto, who had not worked with Tatsuro since &#8220;High Teen Boogie&#8221; (1982) by Masahiko Kondo. The song is in a minor key, and the subject matter is somewhat reminiscent of Hikaru Genji&#8217;s &#8220;Glass Teenager&#8221; (1988).</p>
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<p>It was a good song, but a bit old-fashioned, I thought. When I saw the two singing on TV, I thought, &#8220;They look like the hunters from &#8220;Azusa No. 2&#8221;! And.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="Counter to the SMAP Empire"></div>
<h2>Symmetry with SMAP music</h2>
<figure id="attachment_372203" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1796px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372203"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="82394210"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/5318197ab39b96f3816929e1714f166c.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-372203" class="wp-caption-text">SMAP was an idol opposite to KinKi Kids.</figcaption></figure>
<p>On the other hand, SMAP at that time was in its first period of exploding popularity after a year of &#8220;SMAP x SMAP&#8221; broadcast. They had a hit with &#8220;Celery,&#8221; an innovative reggae-style song. The lyrics were written by Masayoshi Yamazaki. This was followed by &#8220;Yozora Nomukou,&#8221; considered by many to be SMAP&#8217;s best song. The lyrics were written by Sugashikao, who absorbed new J-pop talents one after another and broke new ground beyond the framework of idol songs.</p>
<p>However, &#8220;Glass Boy&#8221; was written by &#8230;&#8230;. The addition of Happiendo&#8217;s Takashi Matsumoto, &#8217;70s new music&#8217;s Tatsuro Yamashita, and even folk song god Takuro Yoshida (&#8220;Zenkoku Dakishimete&#8221;) stands in stark contrast to SMAP&#8217;s novelty. It was somewhat nostalgic and even reactionary.</p>
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<p>Now it is clear. No, in fact, this was the great strategy of Janie Kitagawa.</p>
<p>SMAP radically turned the aesthetics and traditions of Johnny&#8217;s upside down. They shed the glittering costumes of Hikaru Genji and went for casual, everyday fashionable clothes. They don&#8217;t (can&#8217;t?) do backflips or backflips. They hummed a slurred, lethargic J-pop song. This was perfect for the &#8220;easy&#8221; mood of the &#8220;lost era&#8221; of the Heisei period after the bursting of the bubble economy.</p>
<p>The outstanding manager, Michi Iijima, built an independent country called SMAP within the Johnny&#8217;s empire.</p>
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<p>Kitagawa fully appreciated this. He then made his next move. That was a new duo.</p>
<p>Yes, KinKi Kids was his response to SMAP.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="Influence from Hitoshi Matsumoto"></div>
<h2>Respecting Hitoshi Matsumoto</h2>
<figure id="attachment_372204" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1715px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372204"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="47669828"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/c2bc68da099f52b2fee9b32278463ac0.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-372204" class="wp-caption-text">Koichi Domoto playing grass baseball at Jingu Stadium.</figcaption></figure>
<p>The two men, both from the Kansai region, are as adept at free talk as any young comic storytellers. They made the girls of their generation laugh with their &#8220;tame&#8221; talk. When the music started playing, the boys, with their realistic, modern look, instantly looked sharp as they sang and danced their way through the splendid world of Johnny&#8217;s.</p>
<p>Tsuyoshi Domoto&#8217;s melancholy voice and verse, and baby-faced Koichi Domoto&#8217;s lighthearted backflips and backflips in the air. The unexpected surprise!</p>
<p>＜There is a saying in the New Testament, &#8220;Put new wine in old leather bags. The phrase was a negative one, meaning that no matter how new something is, it doesn&#8217;t look good if it fits into an old formality. However, Mr. Kitagawa took the opposite tack.</p>
<p>Rather, it is the mismatch between the new and the old that creates unexpected brilliance.</p>
<p>No, KinKi Kids is a &#8220;new skin bag,&#8221; and by adding old sake to it, a completely unknown new flavor is created.</p>
<p>Takuro Yoshida, a Showa-era legend who became a folk god by refusing to appear on TV, and KinKi Kids, an idol more than 30 years younger than him, form a band. The fun of this unexpected mismatch became the groundbreaking music variety show Love Love Aishiteru.</p>
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<p>Thanks to this, Takuro Yoshida (following Tatsuro Yamashita) also achieved a rebirth.</p>
<p>Tsuyoshi Domoto respected Hitoshi Matsumoto. It is said that in the world of comedy, there are two types of people: before Downtown and after Downtown. In particular, Matsumoto&#8217;s charisma is immense. There are many junior comedians who were influenced by him and aspire to comedy.</p>
<p>However, Tsuyoshi Domoto is probably the only idol from Johnny&#8217;s who has so clearly shown the influence of Downtown and Hitoshi Matsumoto. Matsumoto had a comedy show called &#8220;Hitori Gottsu,&#8221; in which he would give a stand-alone answer to a question. Tsuyoshi was clearly under that influence as well.</p>
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<p>He held an event called &#8220;Koki no me.</p>
<p>Some have described this as a &#8220;black history of pacification,&#8221; but I disagree. Rather, I think that through Tsuyoshi Domoto&#8217;s respect, Matsumoto Hitoshi&#8217;s fun spread to the younger generation of idol-fan girls.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="The discomfort of only two &quot;Kohaku&quot; appearances"></div>
<h2>The symbolism of &#8220;Cowcon.&#8221;</h2>
<p>With the breakthrough of Downtown, Kansai comedians from Yoshimoto flooded into Tokyo in droves and took over TV variety shows.</p>
<p>Similarly, the appearance of KinKi Kids triggered a Kansai whirlwind in the Johnny&#8217;s s office. New groups such as Kanjani Eight, Johnny&#8217;s WEST, and Naniwa Danshi (&#8230;&#8230;) emerged one after another from the so-called &#8220;Kansai Johnny&#8217;s&#8221;.</p>
<p>The KinKi Kids revitalized Johnny&#8217;s not only on a time axis (as in the 1970s with Tatsuro Yamashita, Takashi Matsumoto, and Takuro Yoshida), but also on a spatial axis (with the Kansai region). The K-pop group had been a major force in the Japanese music scene for many years.</p>
<p>Despite having such a string of hit songs, KinKi Kids have not won any record awards and have appeared on NHK&#8217;s &#8220;Kohaku Uta Gassen&#8221; only twice. This has to do with the fact that they were the first artists of &#8220;Johnny&#8217;s Entertainment,&#8221; a record company established by Johnny&#8217;s Office. By creating their own window of opportunity separate from the existing music industry, KinKi paved the way for their big hit, which subsequently brought huge copyright revenues to Johnny&#8217;s.</p>
<p>Beginning in 1998, the year after KinKi Kids&#8217; CD debut, Johnny&#8217;s Countdown Live has been held at the Tokyo Dome from New Year&#8217;s Eve to New Year&#8217;s Day. KinKi Kids was always at the center of these events.</p>
<p>On the other hand, SMAP has been participating in the &#8220;Kohaku Uta Gassen&#8221; since 1991. And yet, SMAP is the only group that never appears at the countdown live. It is no wonder that every year on New Year&#8217;s Eve, the division of Johnny&#8217;s was clearly visible.</p>
<p>The most popular group of the Heisei era, SMAP, was always surrounded by the following Johnny&#8217;s idols &#8230;&#8230;, with KinKi Kids standing in the forefront.</p>
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<p>In the next article, <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/371468">&#8220;[The End of KinKi Kids] The Day Janie Kitagawa&#8217;s Soul Shattered with &#8216;Glass Boy,'&#8221;</a> we will discuss what they tried to protect after Tsuyoshi&#8217;s independence and the dissolution of their fan club.</p>
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 Akio Nakamori

 Takero Shigumura, Kazuhiko Nakamura

 KinKi Kids has participated in Kohaku only twice. This is partly because they are a counter to SMAP, who lived in the same era.

The Mystery of Only Two Kohaku Appearances: KinKi Kids’ Harsh Fate as SMAP’s Counter

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