Arashi

Arashi (嵐, lit. storm) is a five-member Japanese boy band under Johnny & Associates. They made their debut in September 15, 1999 in Honolulu, Hawaii. The group was signed to the Pony Canyon record label from 1999 to 2001 before transitioning to Johnny’s Associates-powered J Storm record label in 2002, producing their future singles and albums.

Biography

Arashi covers a wide range of music, including R&B, hip hop and various forms of pop music. Aside from being a popular idol group in Japan, the group is widely known across Asia and to J-pop fans all over the world.

Johnny’s & Associates (or Johnny’s) announced the group’s debut
on September 15, 1999 through a press conference aboard a cruise ship
off the coast of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi.
Arashi, the Japanese word for storm, was chosen by Johnny’s to
represent the group’s thrust of “creating a storm throughout the
world.” Arashi is currently the only debuted group in Johnny’s that is
written entirely in Kanji. Their debut single, “A・RA・SHI“,
became the theme song for the 8th World Cup of Volleyball hosted by
Japan in 1999. They gained widespread exposure when they sang their
debut single at the cup’s opening on November 2, 1999. At the debut
event a day later, an estimated 80,000 fans showed up at the Yoyogi National Hippodrome to see the group’s live performance.
The single went on to become a major hit, selling almost a million
copies. From March 25 to April 30, 2001, the group embarked on their
first nationwide tour, the Arashi Spring Concert 2001. The tour
took place in Sendai, Osaka, Nagoya, Hokkaido, Fukuoka, Hiroshima,
Kanazawa, Toyama and Tokyo with an unprecedented 26 performances. March
2002 saw the group’s return to Hawaiʻi, with a series of fan tours, as a part of Johnny’s Stand Up Hawaiʻi! Campaign^.

By 2006, the group’s singles and albums were being released outside Japan. Their album, Arashic,
was released not only in Japan, but in Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan
and Thailand as well. In Korea, the album proved so successful, the
first 10,000 copies of the album were sold out on the first day, and it
even topped the non Korean sales charts on the third week of July. On July 31, 2006, the group embarked on their Jet Storm Tour, which aimed to promote the album. The one-day tour covered Taiwan, Thailand and South Korea, countries which later became part of their Asia tour (The Thailand concert, Thai-J Pop Concert, was canceled due to a military coup).

The concert in Korea was decided because about 1,500 Korean fans gathered at the Incheon International Airport during the group’s Jet Storm press conference. The concert, held on November 12, 2006, made Arashi the first group from Johnny’s Entertainment to perform an individual concert in South Korea.
The group proved popular to Korean fans when their concert tickets were
sold out in an hour, as some 150,000 people rushed to book tickets
online. Aside from their concert performances, the group represented Japan in the 2006 Asia Song Festival, also held in South Korea.

On February 21, 2007, the group released their first single of the year 2007, “Love so sweet“, the theme song for the high-rating television drama Hana Yori Dango 2 which peaked at the number one spot on Oricon’s daily and weekly charts. Their nineteenth single, “We Can Make It!”,
released on May 2, 2007, also charted number one on Oricon’s daily and
weekly charts, before falling out of the Top 10 in its second week,
only to return back to the Top 10 on its third week. On April 2007, the
group performed in one of their largest concerts to date: Arashi Around Asia in Dome,
which was a continuation of their Triumphant Homecoming concert, aimed
to celebrate the successful Asian tour held in January 2007. A huge
number of fans balloted for the January concerts so it was decided that
they will hold a dome version of the concert. Arashi Around Asia in
Dome was held in Kyocera Dome in Osaka, and at the Tokyo Dome, with a combined total capacity of 100,000 people, and had an attendance of over 200,000.

Their ninth studio album, Time
released in July, continued the group’s string of number one releases,
selling over 190,000 copies in its first week and even reaching the
number two spot on the United World Rankings. Also in July, saw the
premiere of the TBS drama production of the manga, Yamada Taro Monogatari starring members Kazunari Ninomiya and Sho Sakurai. The theme song of the series, “Happiness“, was sung by the group and also debuted at the top spot of the Japanese single charts. The year proved successful for the group, with all of their singles at the Top 30 of the annual Oricon charts, with “Love so sweet” ranking 4th in single sales overall.

The group’s success in 2007 sparked renewed interest, with two major
announcements in February 2008. The first was the announcement that the
group will be doing a concert tour of the five major domes in Tokyo,
Nagoya, Osaka, Fukuoka, and Sapporo. The tour, titled ARASHI Marks 2008 Dream-A-live,
consists of 10 performances, from May 16 in Osaka to July 6 in Sapporo.
The only other Johnny’s artists who have done a five dome tour are SMAP and KinKi Kids. The second announcement was from the Japanese television network TBS,
announcing that the group will host a variety show dealing with social
and cultural topics on its primetime line-up as a part of its
programming strategy after concerns about falling ratings. The show
which is entitled Himitsu no Arashi-chan (“Arashi-chan’s secret”), will air 10:00 JST,
starting on April 10, and will be produced by Saori Hirata. It will the
be the first variety show hosted by the group to be aired in primetime. As a publicity campaign for the show, the group appeared in a TBS Tokyo Friend Park
Special on March 31, which became the most-watched non-drama primetime
program that night, registering a viewership rating of 19.7%. Arashi will be only the third musical group (after SMAP and Dreams Come True) to perform at Tokyo’s National Stadium in their first major outdoor concert on September 5, 2008 as the start of the group’s second Asian tour, that will include Taipei, Seoul, and Shanghai; Johnny & Associates’ first concert in China.

2008 proved to be a successful year for Arashi. Their single
Truth/Kaze no Mukou e topped the Best Singles chart with One Love
following next. Japan had not have any artist to bag the Top 2 placings
for 19 years already. Their latest single Beautiful Days scored a 10th
position. With 3 songs in the Top 10 chart, Arashi is currently leading
the J-pop charts.

Group members

Satoshi Ohno, the oldest member of Arashi, is the reluctant “leader” of the group after winning against Sho Sakurai in a round of rock-paper-scissors
with the other members on a Japanese variety show. The exact same
pattern of him unwillingly ‘winning’ against Sho has been seen
repeating many times ever since. He is the oldest person in the group
and Ohno sings the lead vocals. Although he has stated that he wanted
to avoid becoming the leader the most, Arashi members have once stated
in an interview that Ohno is a new-age idol, who leads his group by not
leading at all. Aside from leading the vocal work, he is known to be
the best dancer and has the greatest control when it comes to singing
in Arashi. Back when Arashi first debuted and before he was elected
leader, Ohno was told by Johnny’s to be the “Dance Leader”. He
choreographs several of their dance moves, which the other members
sometimes find quite hard to follow. Other artistes from the same
company openly expressed their admiration for Ohno’s dancing; among
them are Imai Tsubasa of the duo Tackey & Tsubasa, Kokubun Taichi of TOKIO, Yuuri Chinen of the newly-debuted group Hey! Say! JUMP, and other juniors. He is also one half of the Arashi skit duo Ohmiya SK,
partnering Kazunari Ninomiya. Out of all the members, he has appeared
in the fewest dramas, preferring to do stage plays or focus on his art.
He performed his first solo concert on January 29, 2006. He became the
first artist in Johnny’s who held an art exhibit, which was entitled,
“Freestyle”.

Sho Sakurai sings most of the rap parts (known to fans as “Sakurap“), the lyrics of which he also writes. Sakurai was the first in the group to perform in a solo concert, The Show, on January 14, 2006. He is currently a Monday co-host of NTV’s News Zero, on which he became the first idol to host an election special. Sakurai is arguably the best-educated member of the group, having graduated from Keio University,
the Japanese equivalent of an Ivy League school. During the early years
after Arashi’s debut, Sho was appointed by the Johnny’s to be the
“Study Leader”. Although he lost in a round of rock-paper-scissors,
hence excusing him from being the group’s leader, the other four of
Arashi have made many remarks that Sakurai is the one who possesses
leadership qualities.

Masaki Aiba is the tallest member of the group, with a distinctive breathy voice. He was once hospitalized after fainting due to the collapse of one of his lungs
and was forced to stop playing the saxophone due to the operation he
had to undergo. Aiba interacts with various wild animals as a co-host
of the TV show, Tensai! Shimura Doubutsuen. He also excels in
sports, especially basketball. He has been known to have considerably
short attention span and often jumps between topics during talks and
interviews, thus earning himself his reputation as the endearing, flaky
member of Arashi. Sometimes Aiba makes some mistakes with Japanese,
particularly in reading kanji.
He can be seen making various reading mistakes in talk shows and live
performances. During the earlier years following Arashi’s debut, Aiba
was appointed the “Image Leader” of Arashi.

Kazunari Ninomiya, nicknamed Nino, is the first member of the group to crossover to American films as he starred in Clint Eastwood’s critically acclaimed Japanese language film, Letters from Iwo Jima.
Along with bandmate Jun Matsumoto, he is one of Japan’s leading young
actors and have been said to be able to “act with his eyes”. Ninomiya
stated that he is left-handed but has been forced to write with his
right hand by his parents when he was a child. He plays the guitar,
piano, composes songs and write lyrics. However, he is usually seen
with a game console in hand instead and had publicly admitted that he
was an otaku when he was an elementary school student. During Arashi’s early years, Johnny’s appointed Ninomiya as the “Performance Leader”. He is also the other half of Ohmiya Sk.

Jun Matsumoto, nicknamed Matsujun, is the youngest member of Arashi. Matsumoto is known for his starring roles in dramas such as Bambino, Hana Yori Dango, Hana Yori Dango 2, Kimi wa Petto, and Gokusen.
He is the first Japanese male to grace the cover of Marie Claire Japan.
Ohno has labeled him the “concert master” because of his take-charge
attitude and attention to detail during their live performances. During
the years after their debut, he was appointed by the Johnny’s as the
“Comedy Leader”. By now he has more or less lost the comedic image and
has even gained the nickname DoS from the other members (S standing for
‘Sadist’ and Do means ‘extreme’ in Japanese Kanji). Jun is one of the
three idols who are considered elites in the Johnny’s because he was
called to join the company by Johnny Kitagawa himself, without having to go through auditions. Matsumoto won the GQ Man Of The Year Award under the Singer/Actor category.

c/o: Wikipedia lols