February 12, 2004. I’ll never forget that day. It was the day that started it all for me. Everything you see around here, this blog and its affiliated sites, my five trips to Japan, that embarrassingly stupid letter I wrote to Shoon, nothing of all that would have happened if it weren’t for that Thursday night three and a half years ago when I first came across a Ya-Ya-yah video on the internet. I’m not foolish enough to claim that I instantly knew that something extraordinary had just entered my life, but it didn’t take too long for me to realize it. Just 5 months later I went to Japan for the very first time to see Ya-Ya-yah in their play Stand By Me at the Tokyo Globe Theatre, and on that occasion I was lucky enough to be able to touch Yabu’s, Hikaru’s and Taiyo’s hands.
In autumn 2004 season 7 of Kinpachi Sensei started to air, starring Hikaru, Taiyo and Yabu. It was the first Japanese TV drama I ever watched, and probably the best to this day. And again I was so lucky, because out of the 22 episodes of that series I had the chance to watch two (no. 9 and no. 22) in Tokyo. I was sad that Shoon wasn’t in Kinpachi Sensei, but he was in West Side Story, alongside Arashi’s Matsujun, Sakurai Sho and Satoshi Ohno, plus Kazama Shunsuke, Toshin Yoshikazu and Ikuta Toma, and I got to see WSS twice, on December 18 and 20, Shoon’s 16th birthday.
Ya-Ya-yah reached the peak of their popularity on the last weekend of March 2005. On Friday what was then supposed to be the final season of Kinpachi Sensei ended, and especially Hikaru broke my heart with his performance of a 14-year-old heroin addict. On Saturday Ya-Ya-yah played two sold out concerts at Yokohama Arena. And I was there to see it all.
On July 30 I was in Japan again, to see Ya-Ya-yah’s Summary concert. At one point during that concert Hikaru, then 14 years old, stood in front of me, looked up to me (back then he was some 20cm shorter than today, today we’re about the same size), smiled his marvelous smile and shook my hand. For a few short seconds I was the happiest Ya-Ya-yah fanboy in the whole world.
One year later I was at the Daibouken 2006 concert in Odaiba. As it turns out now this was probably the last time I would ever see Ya-Ya-yah perform together. Shortly after my return home rumours came up about a possible Ya-Ya-yah debut in April 2007. At
around the same time Amazon.co.jp listed a Ya-Ya-yah CD and DVD in their catalogue for a few days, and Ya-Ya-yah were quoted in the papers as saying “We want to be the Japanese Beatles”. A few months later, during the Johnny’s Jr. concert at the Budokan they even got to perform the Beatles’ song A Hard Day’s Night.
In April the Ya-Ya-yah TV program moved to a new (and supposedly better) timeslot, accompanied by a relatively big marketing campaign that included all four members announcing their new program from the huge electronic billboards in Shibuya. No doubt, at that time a Ya-Ya-yah debut was just a matter of time.
But something must have gone terribly wrong.
That debut never happened, and now it seems that it never will. Spring came and went, and along came Hey! Say! 7. We will probably never know what exactly happened, but it seems that while Ya-Ya-yah’s TV ratings were plummeting Hey! Say! 7 scored a success that nobody, not even silly old man Kitagawa, had expected. And that was probably when he decided to drop Ya-Ya-yah and put all his power into pimping the Heisei kids. You can’t blame him for that. Johnny Kitagawa doesn’t strike me as someone who likes to piss people off by deliberately making wrong or unpopular decisions. I think he hates being wrong. But when he’s wrong he doesn’t start whining. Instead he’ll try to put things right. I believe that Kitagawa put his money on Ya-Ya-yah, and that he wanted them to debut. He knew that Ya-Ya-yah had a big fanbase, the biggest of all Junior groups. But that wasn’t enough. He tried to pitch Ya-Ya-yah to a broader audience, but for some reason the boys didn’t click with that audience. However, Hey! Say! 7, who I still believe were just meant to be an experiment, did. The mob has spoken, and Kitagawa has listened.
Somewhere along the way Ya-Ya-yah have lost their target audience. If you’re a 19-year-old fangirl today you’re probably more into NEWS or Kanjani8. If you’re 14 you’re probably a fan of Yuto or Yamada or some of the other younger Juniors. If I had to point out the one moment when things started to go bad for Ya-Ya-yah I’d say it was when the younger Juniors disappeared from the program. That was a huge mistake. 12-year-olds don’t fangirl 16- to 18-year-old guys. And they don’t watch a TV program if there aren’t any guys their own age like Yuto or Yamada or the Morimoto brothers. I’m sure that if Ya-Ya-yah’s TV program had continued to feature some of the younger Juniors, the ratings would have been considerably higher. It wouldn’t have been Ya-Ya-yah’s merit, but it would have been perceived that way because the program is bearing their name. They tried to go for a more mature audience, but they left the young ones behind in a void, a void that was eventually filled by the Heisei (or Hey! Say!) kids. Maybe that’s the reason why the longtime producer of the Ya-Ya-yah TV program was replaced earlier this year. He got rid of the younger Juniors and lost the younger audience as well, and for some reason the new producer couldn’t or didn’t want to or didn’t dare to rectify that mistake. Maybe he didn’t even realize that it was a mistake. But it was.
On November 17 Ya-Ya-yah would have celebrated the 250th episode of their show. I’ve been looking forward to that episode so much. Now that episode will never happen. And that hurts. It hurts a lot.Back in March or April 2004 I bought my first Ya-Ya-yah episode on Ebay, from Swedish journalist and Johnny’s fanatic Marita Lindqvist. Later I bought dozens of episodes from a very kind person in Taiwan named marsarenny. The rest I got from other fans who uploaded episodes, most notably Fiona from HappyTown. And I ended up running the – to my knowledge – only website that continues to offer every single Ya-Ya-yah episode that ever aired for free download to fans all over the world. And I take great pride in that. I don’t run that site for money or for fame but for the sole reason that I love that program and I want to share it so others can love it too.
Episode 247 on October 27 will probably be the last one to air. All 247 episodes together add up to almost exactly 100 hours. I enjoyed those 100 hours a lot, and I will continue doing so over and over again. Thank you, Ya-Ya-yah. It was fun while it lasted.
The Ya-Ya-yah TV program will be no more, but there will be Hi! Hey! Say!, and for the reasons I described above I’m sure that Hi! Hey! Say! will be a more than satisfactory success in terms of TV ratings. I will watch it, and I’m looking forward to it because it’ll have many people that I love to see.
The kings are dead. Long live the kings.
Learn Japanese in the Fastest, Easiest, and Most Fun Way
