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Okay, I’ve been thinking about this whole “new Johnny’s group” thing and trying to figure out why it scares me so much. And I’ve come to a surprising conclusion.

Four score and seven years ago three and a half years ago I became a Ya-Ya-yah fan. It wasn’t that I discovered Johnny’s and then picked Ya-Ya-yah to be my favourites, I discovered Ya-Ya-yah first and then very slowly I learned that they’re just a small part of something so much bigger. When I went to Japan for the first time in July 2004 I didn’t know anything about this whole business. When I saw Ya-Ya-yah in Stand By Me I didn’t even know that 2 weeks later they’d be on stage with dozens of other Juniors in Summary. Today I don’t even feel sorry that I couldn’t see them in Summary back then, because they played a relatively small part in it, and I would have hated having to sit through a 2-hour concert of people I didn’t know – or care about – for a couple of minutes of Ya-Ya-yah.

8 months later I had come to understand and love the whole system of Johnny’s a little more, but it was still all about Ya-Ya-yah for me. At the Yokohama Arena concerts in March 2005 Kamenashi Kazuya performed Kizuna. I love that song, and Kame is one of the few Seniors that I actually adore. But back then I hated him for being there. I was there to see Ya-Ya-yah, and Ya-Ya-yah only. Today I hate myself for actually having seen him sing that song and not being able to cherish it, because back then I just didn’t care. I just cared about Ya-Ya-yah and nobody else.

But things have changed a lot since then. I’ve come to understand that Ya-Ya-yah are just a part of something much bigger, something without Ya-Ya-yah or any of the other groups wouldn’t even exist. Today I know so much more about Johnny’s than just Ya-Ya-yah, and I’ve come to love and adore so many more than just those four people, although they are still the ones that started it all for me. If it weren’t for them I wouldn’t be here today (and by “here” I mean the Johnny’s fandom). These four people will always be No. 1 for me, and no matter what happens in the distant or not-so-distant- future, they will always occupy a very special place in my heart that probably no one else will ever be able to reach. But as great as I think they are, they’re not all and everything there is. And while I think that it’s likely that I’ll still be around in 2037, I know that Ya-Ya-yah may not be. So I know that one day I’ll probably have to face the end of a very beautiful and inspiring part of my life. But that’s okay because I’m old enough and I have – to a certain extent – learned how to deal with loss. I survived the end of The Beatles, I survived the death of River Phoenix. Heck, I even survived the end of Gilmore Girls. But even if Ya-Ya-yah won’t still be around in 30 years, I think that Johnny’s Entertainment will be. The question is: will I still like it?

The announcement of a new Johnny’s group doesn’t scare me because it it might be the end of Ya-Ya-yah. It scares me because it might be the beginning of something that I want to like, but can’t.

If they put together a new group of, say, five people (no Ya-Ya-yah members), and I like two of them and I’m indifferent about two more and I don’t like one of them, that’ll be fine with me. Because that’s enough for me to like that group while still being able to enjoy Ya-Ya-yah.

If they put together a new group with one or two Ya-Ya-yah members, and three other people, that’ll be fine with me too. I’ll be sad that Ya-Ya-yah won’t be anymore, but I’ll be incredibly happy for the two members who made it to a debut.

But if they put together a new group with a bunch of people I don’t like or care about… the only thing I’ll be happy about is that Ya-Ya-yah will still be around. And while that would be great, at the same time it would hurt so much. I love Johnny’s. I love Johnny’s because I believe in the system, and I enjoy its diversity and its enormous potential. If they come up with a new group I want to like it. I really do. What scares me is that they might come up with a group that I want to like but can’t, no matter how hard I try.

Egoistic as it may seem, not being able to share the joy and excitement of a debut, feeling indifferent when the rest of the world is celebrating, being left out… this is what really, really scares me the most right now.

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