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Okay, one thing’s for sure: the Johnny’s fandom is a lot more predictable than Mr Johnny-san himself. If you look at the millions of comments left here and all over the place concerning the new permanency of NYC boys you can find everything you’d expect if you’ve spent a couple of years in the fandom.

There are the “Johnny’s senile / got Alzheimer’s” comments that pop up every time he does anything at all. There are the “I want to kill Johnny” comments. There are the “What’s the big deal?” comments (although there are remarkably few of those this time), there are the “But I want A.B.C. / Kisumai / Ikuta Toma to debut!” comments that will never go away, and of course there are the “I don’t believe it until it’s official” comments.

To be honest, I’m not quite sure what “official” means. If Johnny himself moves his 80-something-year-old butt to NHK Hall on New Year’s Eve to make the announcement, is that official enough? Apparently not. People want to see it on the news. But that’s probably not gonna happen. Why? Because it’s not newsworthy, that’s why. It may be a big thing for you and for me, but not for the general public. NYC boys is not a new group. They’ve been around for half a year. Everything that’s changed is that they used to be a temporary group and now they keep going a while longer. If I worked in the TV news business I wouldn’t waste a second of air time on this. Why would I? It would be like opening a news program today with the headline “OMG, WAR IN IRAQ!”. People wouldn’t even bother to shrug their shoulders.

And if you’re expecting NYC boys to get their own section on Johnny’s Net now, that’s not going to happen either. Tegomass don’t have their own section, and yet they’re official, with official concerts and official releases.

Some people are asking “OMG, are they really gonna debut? I don’t want them to debut!”

*sigh*

I’m sick and tired of explaining the word debut. Just go and grab a dictionary and look up what “debut” means and then go to your CD shelf or to an online store and see if you can find a CD there with NYC boys on it. Hint: it may look something like this. NYC boys had their debut half a year ago, and their debut single went platinum.

Be it as it may, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I’m sure everybody has good reasons for the opinion they have. My opinion is: I don’t want NYC boys because I don’t see a need for them. I’d rather have Hey!Say!JUMP and NYwBIS both doing their own stuff. But what do I know? I’m just a fan. Johnny, on the other hand, is a businessman. His job is not only to make money but to make as much money as possible. Hey!Say!JUMP make him a lot of money when they’re doing concerts. They do concerts mostly during the school holidays when they have the time and when their fans have the time. But to have them release a single in November or February or May means you have to fine-tune the schedule of 10 people who are for the most part being busy with school or university, TV dramas and variety programs, musicals and whatnot. If you let NYC boys release a CD you have only two people who are really busy (Yamada and Chinen) and five people who aren’t really doing anything else at all. It’s less of a hassle, and it’s more cost effective. For Yamada and Chinen it doesn’t even make a difference if they release a single with HSJ or with NYC boys, they’re being busy either way. It only makes a difference for the other JUMP members, but let’s face it, they’re just employees and nobody gives a shit if they like their job or not. And it makes a difference for fans like me who’d rather like to buy another JUMP CD. But then again, I did buy the NYC boys CD as did 275,000 other people, so maybe I can’t really blame Johnny for having them release another one.

Like it or not, but from a business perspective Mr Johnny-san‘s decisions totally make sense. They always have, and they still do, whether we agree with them or not.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and make another one of my awful awesome predictions. On January 11th the February episodes of Shonen Club will be recorded. Hey!Say!JUMP are already guests in the January episodes, and I don’t think they’ll be on Shonen Club two months in a row. But Hidarime Tantei EYE starts airing this month, and Hitomi no screen is the theme song. There’s still the possibility that it will be a theme song without a CD release, but if it’s going to be released it will be done by NYC boys and they’ll perform it at NHK Hall for the Shokura recordings on January 11th. Mark my words. I’ve hardly ever been so happy that my predictions are almost always wrong.

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