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<p>In the previous article, <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/371462">&#8220;[Commonalities with the Beatles] The &#8216;Biggest Reason&#8217; Why KinKi Kids Were Able to Gain Janie Kitagawa&#8217;s Favor</a>,&#8221; we discussed the similarities between KinKi Kids and world-famous band groups.</p>
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<h2>The &#8220;too good to be true&#8221; story.</h2>
<figure id="attachment_372120" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1000px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372120"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="0cc40a91"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/b4c44314e3fb3003b64488d157667c06-1.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-372120" class="wp-caption-text">Koichi Domoto and Tsuyoshi Domoto are not related by blood.</figcaption></figure>
<p>The KinKi Kids are a curious group.</p>
<p>They were born in Kansai in 1979. Tsuyoshi Domoto and Koichi Domoto, the two are not related by blood.</p>
<p>Is this possible?　The surname &#8220;Domoto&#8221; is rare.</p>
<p>Moreover, when both were 12 years old, their older sisters sent their resumes to Johnny&#8217;s office on their own.&#8217; In May 1991, the two met when they were invited to a Hikaru Genji concert. At the same time, they decided to join the office.</p>
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<p>Oh no, that&#8217;s amazing. It&#8217;s too good to be true. Really?　Isn&#8217;t this a made-up story?　I had my doubts.</p>
<p>The root of the word &#8220;idol&#8221; is &#8220;idol. It is like the image of Christ in a church. It is connected to the religious world.</p>
<p>In this sense, considering the mysterious encounter between Tsuyoshi Domoto and Koichi Domoto and its mystique, I strongly believe that KinKi Kids is an idol (= idol) in the true meaning of the word.</p>
<p>Perhaps he thought so too. Who is he?　Yes, he is Janie Kitagawa.</p>
<p>The idols of Johnny&#8217;s are chosen by the will and decision of a single man. He is a &#8220;god.</p>
<p>Take the members of SMAP, for example. Their ages and personalities are all different. There is absolutely no necessity for them to form a group. They were simply chosen according to Janney&#8217;s taste and will.</p>
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<p>The same is true of TOKIO, V6, and Arashi.</p>
<p>However, KinKi Kids is different. Their resumes were sent by their sisters at the same age, from the same Kansai region, around the same time. Two boys with the same surname of &#8220;Domoto&#8221; &#8211; and they are the same.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="A radical &quot;work&quot; that became a career-making work."></div>
<h2>The Impact of &#8220;Ningen Shikkaku</h2>
<figure id="attachment_372126" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 672px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372126"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3850b860"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/3c57c622e25fd3b880b509b5a571c0bf.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-372126" class="wp-caption-text">Shinji Nojima wrote the screenplay for &#8220;Ningen Shikkaku &#8211; For example, if I were dead.</figcaption></figure>
<p>The coincidence must have been quite surprising. In other words, it was not Janie Kitagawa&#8217;s will, but rather the inevitability of their meeting.</p>
<p>I think that Janie Kitagawa abandoned his position as &#8220;God&#8221; and bet on the power of that mysterious coincidence &#8230;&#8230;, so to speak, of &lt;fate&gt;.</p>
<p>It was the Delevi drama that first brought the two to my attention. It was &#8220;Ningen Shikkaku: Boku ga Kareta Boku ga Dareta&#8221; (Human Disqualification: When I Die), which aired in the summer of 1994.</p>
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<p>Set in a prestigious private junior high school, it depicted a bizarre world of bullying, corporal punishment, abuse, betrayal, and more. Tsuyoshi Domoto played the only son of Hidekazu Akai, the lead actor.</p>
<p>He is not a handsome man of the Ima style. He has a somewhat old-fashioned Showa-era samurai look (reminded me of a young Shintaro Katsu or Kinnosuke Manya).</p>
<p>His best friend was played by Koichi Domoto. He was a fresh, handsome boy with a very modern look.</p>
<p>In the middle of the drama, Tsuyoshi Domoto commits suicide after being severely bullied. I was surprised at this development.</p>
<p>In the second half, the story turns into a tale of revenge by his father, Hidekazu Akai, and the absent Domoto Tsuyoshi seems to become the real star of the drama.</p>
<p>Toward the end of the film, another face of Koichi Domoto is revealed. Kasei Taishu, a social studies teacher, loves Koichi. When Kasei learns of Koichi&#8217;s love for Tsuyoshi, he goes crazy with jealousy and hatches a plot.</p>
<p>In fact, the true black belt who broke up their relationship and sent Tsuyoshi to his death was actually the &#8220;homosexual&#8221; Kasei Taishu.</p>
<p>I was astonished at this turn of events. The drama will probably never be rerun again. Why?</p>
<p>Because the homosexual teacher who pushes Tsuyoshi and Koichi into a corner is too &#8230;&#8230; reminiscent of Janie Kitagawa.</p>
<p>The script was written by Shinji Nojima, who had made &#8220;High School Teacher&#8221; a big hit the previous year. Nojima must have implicitly projected the character of Janney onto Kasei Taishu.</p>
<p>Still, it is amazing that the Johnny&#8217;s s office allowed Tsuyoshi and Koichi to appear in such a drama!　I can only say.</p>
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<p>At the end of the drama, Taishu Kasei is killed by someone. The identity of the murderer is unknown.</p>
<p>But it is all too prophetic, considering that 30 years later the Johnny&#8217;s office was choked to death. The homosexual who abused his beloved boys, &#8220;Taishu Kasei ≒ Janie Kitagawa,&#8221; is destined to be eliminated in time.</p>
<p>Let us compare it to the title of the drama.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="Fate as an &quot;idol&quot; is"></div>
<h2>It would not be out of place in the &#8220;mythical world&#8221;.</h2>
<p>～If &#8220;Janney&#8221; died, for example, he would be condemned by Noriyuki Higashiyama after &#8230;&#8230; as <span class="strongInContent">&#8220;the most foolish act in the history of mankind&#8221; and &#8220;the work of a demon&#8221;</span>.</p>
<p>Yes, it was Janney Kitagawa himself who was a &#8220;disqualified human being&#8221;.</p>
<p>Although the two were born in the same year in Kansai and share the same surname, they are completely different in appearance and character. Tsuyoshi is somewhat old-fashioned and extremely individualistic, while Koichi has a popular personality that can be liked by anyone.</p>
<p>This combination recalls various precedents.</p>
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<p>For example, if Tsuyoshi is John Lennon, Koichi is Paul McCartney. The former is a turgid artist, while the latter is a lovable entertainer.</p>
<p>This reminds me of Ryu Murakami&#8217;s novel &#8220;Coin Locker Babies&#8221; (1980). Two babies abandoned in a coin locker eventually grow up and go on to destroy the world. Hashi, a doomed and dangerous singer, and Kiku, a dynamic sportsman. Hashi is Tsuyoshi and Kiku is Koichi.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the story is also connected to the world of Katsuhiro Otomo&#8217;s manga &#8220;AKIRA&#8221;. The two main boys, the doomed psychic Tetsuo, is Tsuyoshi, and the action-oriented bad boy Kaneda is Koichi.</p>
<p>Someday I would like to see &#8220;Coin Locker Babies&#8221; or &#8220;AKIRA&#8221; adapted into theater by the two KinKi Kids on stage.</p>
<p>But these are not only the worlds of modern novels and manga. They are, as it were, twin brothers torn apart in the world of mythology, such as Cain and Abel in the Old Testament (&#8220;East of Eden&#8221; movie), or Umihiko and Yamahiko in the old tales originating from &#8220;Chronicles of the Dead&#8221; (&#8220;Santa vs. Gaila&#8221; monster movie).</p>
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<p>What is amazing about KinKi Kids is that they are neither a story nor a fiction. They are living, active, ongoing idols &#8211; flesh and blood. And yet, the two seem to be living in a mythical world.</p>
<p>I wrote that idols are &#8220;idols. Jesus Christ, though born as a human being, was called the &#8220;Son of God&#8221; and lived a myth.</p>
<p>Idols, too, are human, but as &#8220;idols,&#8221; they are asked to live a fictional life.</p>
<p>Johnny&#8217;s, the largest entertainment production company in postwar Japan, was both a paradise and a hell for the embodiment of one man&#8217;s &#8220;desire.</p>
<p>However, at a time when the myth of &#8220;desire&#8221; was about to die out, it is significant that the last two remaining members were the duo who were living the fatal idol myth.</p>
<p>&#8211;Where will KinKi Kids go from here?</p>
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<p>In the next article, <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/371466">&#8220;[The Mystery of Only Two Appearances in Kohaku] KinKi Kids&#8217; Fate of Being a &#8216;Counter to SMAP</a> &#8216;&#8221;, we will look back on the idol life of KinKi Kids, which was to walk in the opposite direction of SMAP.</p>
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 Akio Nakamori

 Takao Kawakami, Kyodo News

 The drama "Ningen Shikkaku - For example, Boku ga shinda boku ga shita" (Human Disqualification - For example, if I die), in which KinKi Kids made their name, incorporated radical elements that cannot be broadcast today.

Chosen Sons of God and the Inevitability of KinKi Kids Remaining as Idols with their Radical Debut Work

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