Why Hideaki Takizawa Didn’t Recruit His ‘Favorite Disciple’ Snow Man
On July 5, during the TBS variety special “Kazunari Ninomiya × Let Snow Man Do It Combo SP,” the members of the popular group Snow Man first mentioned Hideaki Takizawa (42), who was the “mentor” of the group and served as the president of the talent agency TOBE, regarding his departure from the former Johnny’s Entertainment (now SMILE-UP.).
In the program, the eight members of Snow Man, excluding Raul (21), welcomed guest Kazunari Ninomiya (41) of Arashi and engaged in candid talk at an izakaya. Reflecting on his departure from the former Johnny’s in October of the previous year, Ninomiya jokingly touched on the topic of Takizawa, saying, “I never heard from Tackey at all.”
When Ninomiya revealed that he was in contact with Takizawa, Daisuke Sakuma (32) said, “We haven’t been in touch with Takizawa at all. It was unexpected.” Shota Watanabe (31) shared, “Takizawa-kun remains a mentor to us. When he left, naturally, at first, we all thought that if Takizawa-kun is leaving, are we going to leave too?” revealing that there was a possibility that the Snow Man members might follow Takizawa and leave the former Johnny’s as well.
Tatsuya Fukazawa (32) admitted, “Honestly, I thought about it a lot. It wasn’t that I was being contacted, but,” confessing that Takizawa’s departure made him uncertain. However, Ren Meguro (27) stated, “We received a lot of support from Takizawa-kun. But we were nurtured by this company,” and Sakuma added, “I like this agency. I want to achieve great things with this agency,” explaining the reasons behind their decision to stay with the agency.
