Image via Storm Labels Website
© Storm Labels
All five members of boy idol group Arashi announced on Wednesday that they have established a new company. The announcement is available in both English and Japanese on talent agency Starto Entertainment's official website, which also opened on Wednesday. The announcement did not specify the relationship between the Arashi members' new company and Starto Entertainment.
In the announcement, the members noted that they are now all in their 40s but still want to be “more independent than ever, make more independent decisions than ever, and act more independently than ever before.” .”
Arashi was founded in 1999 under Johnny & Associates, which included Jun Matsumoto, Satoshi Ohno, Shō Sakurai, Masaki Aiba, and Kazunari Ninomiya. The group has released 17 studio albums and several compilation albums, in addition to singles. The group's more recent studio album, This Is Arashi, came out in 2020.
The group has suspended all joint activities and has been on hiatus since December 31, 2020. The members made the announcement in January 2019, nearly two years before the group's hiatus began. Ohno has since taken a hiatus from entertainment activities, while the other members are still pursuing their solo careers.
The members of Arashi, both as a group and as individuals, are one of many Johnny & Associates-affiliated groups that have paused commercial appearances after the agency first publicly acknowledged it in October. 2023 that Johnny & Associates' late founder Johnny Kitagawa sexually abused a large number of teenage aspiring pop stars from the 1970s to 2010.
Renewed accusations in 2023 led to the resignation of then-president Julie Keiko Fujishima (with actor and character Noriyuki Higashiyama assuming the presidency), which established compensation measures for the sexual abuse victims in Kitagawa, the change of the agency's name to Smile Up (a legal entity specializing in compensation for victims) and the renaming of many of its related acts. A new talent agency was established under president Atsushi Fukuda in October 2023 to manage entertainers formerly managed by Johnny & Associates, and that new agency received its final name. was Starto Entertainment in December.
Arashi performed the theme songs for the live-action television series Hana Yori Dango [2005] and Hana Yori Dango 2 [Returns]the live-action television series Honey and Clover and the animated series Kochikame.
Members of the group have also acted in television series and movies. Ninomiya has starred in the live-action projects Gantz, Gantz II: Perfect Answer, Assassination Classroom, Assassination Classroom: Graduation, and Ōoku: The Inner Chambers. He also starred in the animated film Tekkonkinkreet. Matsumoto has starred in multiple live-action Hana Yori Dango projects, as well as live-action projects Gokusen and Kimi wa Pet. Ohno starred in the live-action series Kaibutsu-kun, Shō Sakurai starred in the live-action films Yatterman and Honey and Clover, and Masaki Aiba has starred in the live-action Bartender, Sakanoue Animal Clinic Story) and My Girl series.
Source: Starto Entertainment via Music Natalie