<figure id="attachment_372080" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 2868px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372080"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="b49376b9"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/1707e1b19a05b09aa16c67a4cdbf372d.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-372080" class="wp-caption-text">KinKi Kids is an unusual two-person unit for Johnny&#8217;s</figcaption></figure>
<p>At the end of March this year, Tsuyoshi Domoto of KinKi Kids left the former Johnny&#8217;s office (SMILE-UP.). This was a major turning point. Why?　Because I am convinced that the fate of Johnny&#8217;s is in the hands of the KinKi Kids.</p>
<p>Last spring, the name Johnny&#8217;s finally disappeared from the world after the BBC broadcast in the UK reported the sexual assault of the late Johnny Kitagawa. But the downfall of Johnny&#8217;s had already begun long before that.</p>
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<p>Yes, the SMAP breakup drama.&#8217; In 2004, after a disastrous appearance on Fuji Television&#8217;s &#8220;SMAP x SMAP,&#8221; which was also called a &#8220;public execution,&#8221; the national idol group was dissolved. No press conference or breakup concert was held. It was as if the group had been &#8220;crushed&#8221; by the office.</p>
<p>What happened after that?</p>
<p>16 = SMAP disbanded.<br>
18 = TOKIO suspended their music activities (Tatsuya Yamaguchi left the group.) Tomoya Nagase left the group).<br>
18 years = Tackey &amp; Tsubasa disbanded.<br>
2008: Issei Nishikori and Katsuhide Uekusa leave the group. Shonen-tai (effectively) disbanded.<br>
2008: Arashi suspended.<br>
21 = V6 breaks up.</p>
<p>It is obvious at a glance. Even leaving aside Shonen-tai, the oldest group, since the breakup of SMAP, top groups such as TOKIO, Tackey &amp; Tsubasa, Arashi, and V6 have either broken up or been forced to suspend their activities one after another.</p>
<p>This is the end of the line for the core popular groups of the agency, which can be said to be SMAP followers that debuted from 1994 (= TOKIO) to &#8217;02 (= Tackey &amp; Tsubasa).</p>
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<p>This brings us to KinKi Kids, the only group formed in 1992 that has remained alive and well without disbanding or going on hiatus. In other words, since the establishment of SMAP in the 1990s, the KinKi Kids have been the &#8220;last bastion&#8221; of Johnny&#8217;s soul.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="The &quot;two-member group&quot; is a minority group in Johnny's."></div>
<h2>Tension&#8221; that only a duo can feel</h2>
<figure id="attachment_372081" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 2081px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372081"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="e728913d"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/92f414957854ef1200b480c86d6dc5a4.jpeg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-372081" class="wp-caption-text">Koichi Domoto in a direct interview with this magazine in Fukuoka in &#8217;21.</figcaption></figure>
<p>Recently, Koichi Domoto made a guest appearance on the talk show &#8220;Dareka to Nakai&#8221; (Fuji Television), in which Masahiro Nakai serves as MC, and the show attracted a great deal of attention. There, Nakai remarked that two-person groups like KinKi Kids are rare in the Johnny&#8217;s office. He also said that there is Tackey &amp; Tsubasa, but that they are different from KinKi Kids.</p>
<p>As the name suggests, Tackey &amp; Tsubasa is a collaboration of Hideaki Takizawa and Tsubasa Imai, and is different from a group like KinKi Kids.</p>
<p>Today, King &amp; Prince has become a two-member group due to the departure of a member, but the meaning of the name is different from that of KinKi, which has always been a two-member group.</p>
<p>In this light, the peculiarity of KinKi Kids becomes clear. The original Johnny&#8217;s and the Four Leaves were a four-piece group, the Tanokin Trio was a three-piece group, although not a group, and the same is true of the Shibukitai and Shonen-tai. Hikaru Genji was a seven-member group, and SMAP went from a six-member group to a five-member group when Mori Katsuyuki left the group. Indeed, two-member groups are rare.</p>
<p>Why does KinKi Kids have two members?</p>
<p>This is a great mystery.</p>
<p>I would like to think about the number &#8220;2. Numbers in this world can be divided into 1, 2, and 3 or more. 1 is an individual, and 3 or more is a society. When three or more people get together, there is a definite split, one against two, two against two, and so on. Factional warfare begins. This happens in the Liberal Democratic Party and in girls&#8217; school classes.</p>
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<p>However, in a two-person group, a split is a breakup. The duo breaks up. This is where the tension of a two-person team arises.</p>
<p>The leading postwar thinker, Takaaki Yoshimoto, thought this problem through. In Yoshimoto&#8217;s masterpiece, &#8220;The Theory of Common Illusion,&#8221; he wrote that humankind lives by illusions: 1) individual illusions for the individual, and 3) common illusions for society (the state) for the society (the nation). Yoshimoto&#8217;s originality lies in the fact that he named the &#8220;2&#8221; in between the two &#8220;counter-illusions.</p>
<p>What is the counter-illusion?　They are lovers, married couples, parents and children, and &#8230;&#8230; families. This &#8220;counter-illusion&#8221; of one + one = two people is what creates the power to oppose the joint illusion = the state. one person would be crushed. three or more would be torn apart (see SMAP!). If there are more than three, they fall apart (look at SMAP!). But with two, they can resist against a larger force.</p>
<p>Johnny&#8217;s, the largest entertainment company of the postwar era, is truly a joint illusion. The fact that KinKi Kids, a rare duo, did not get crushed, did not fall apart, and became the &#8220;last stronghold&#8221; is due to the power of their &#8220;counter-illusion&#8221;.</p>
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<p>The story does not end here. Let us listen to the theory of Gyojin Emiya, a charismatic thinker of the next generation after Takaaki Yoshimoto. Emaya says, &#8220;All love is a love triangle&#8221; (&#8220;Quest II&#8221;). He emphasized this in a text discussing Soseki Natsume&#8217;s novel &#8220;Kokoro&#8221; (&#8220;Kokoro&#8221;).</p>
<p>What is interesting here is that even if it is just the two of them, &#8220;a third person is hiding. A love triangle over a person who is not supposed to be here is occurring, he said.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead="The unknown &quot;third&quot; member."></div>
<h2>Achievements in bringing &#8220;Mr. Janey&#8221; to the public eye</h2>
<figure id="attachment_372087" class="wp-caption alignnone" style="width: 1280px;" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-372087"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="f55db27a"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/05/fd522fb3f61c9385140f4599a223af14.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-372087" class="wp-caption-text">Janney Kitagawa photographed before his death</figcaption></figure>
<p>Ack!　I thought.</p>
<p>For KinKi Kids, this third person is &#8230;&#8230;Janny Kitagawa, isn&#8217;t it?</p>
<p>We have never, not once, seen Janie Kitagawa. But everyone knows him. We have never seen him before, but everyone knows who he is. and laugh at his tone of voice.</p>
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<p>In fact, it was Tsuyoshi Domoto who started such imitation of Janie Kitagawa. In 1919, Domoto attended Janie Kitagawa&#8217;s farewell party and said, &#8220;I have something I want to apologize for. I did too much of Janney-san&#8217;s impersonation,&#8221; he said. He added, &#8220;It&#8217;s approved by Janney-san, though.&#8221;</p>
<p>We got to know Janie Kitagawa through Tsuyoshi Domoto. We witnessed Janney in his eyes and heard his phantom inner voice through his mimicry.</p>
<p>Tsuyoshi Domoto was Janney Kitagawa&#8217;s favorite. You are a genius! He was favored with the words, &#8220;You&#8217;re a genius! On the other hand, Koichi Domoto was told, &#8220;You are the worst. Koichi was troubled and continued to search for his own way.</p>
<p>Yes, the KinKi Kids duo was always involved in a &#8220;love triangle&#8221; over the third person, Janie Kitagawa. The image, the gestures, and the voice of Janie Kitagawa, who was supposed to be invisible to us, emerged clearly through the duo.</p>
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<p>The fact that only KinKi Kids has not disbanded or suspended its activities, and is still alive and well as a &#8220;last stronghold,&#8221; in other words, does this mean that the spirit of Janie Kitagawa is still alive and well there?</p>
<p>Yes, KinKi Kids is a three-member group that includes &#8220;the absent Janney Kitagawa&#8221;!</p>
<p>In the next article, <a href="https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/371462">&#8220;[Commonalities with the Beatles] The &#8216;biggest reason&#8217; why KinKi Kids was able to win the favor of</a> Janie Kitagawa,&#8221; we will delve into the unknown commonalities between the world-famous rock band and KinKi Kids.</p>


 Akio Nakamori

 Kazuhiko Nakamura, Toshikatsu Tanaka, Takao Kawakami

 At the end of March of this year, Tsuyoshi Domoto left the former Johnny's office. The group's activities have come to an end, but where will Kinki Kids go from here?

Unveiling the Name of the Unknown Third Member Who Continued to Support KinKi Kids

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