Re: Japan | 日本 | WV66: Masaki Aiba
For WV66, Japan is proud to be represented by 33 year old pop superstar
Masaki Aiba! Despite being a household name in Japan, Aiba is best known as a member of the boy band Arashi, which saw him - and the band's other four members - shoot to fame around the turn of the millennium. To know Aiba, you need to know Arashi - so, if you're interested, here's a little info!
In 1999, a young Masaki Aiba was scouted by talent agency 'Johnny's' as part of their new boy band project
Arashi (meaning 'Storm'). After bursting into Japan's music scene with the popular self-titled single
Arashi, the band enjoyed great success for a few years until running into a gradual decline around 2003. For a while, the band's popularity continued to wane.
In 2005, however, Arashi secured a deal with the producers of a new television drama
Hana Yori Dango: the band's new single
Wish would be used as the show's theme song, and band member Jun Matsumoto would play the role of the main love interest. The series proved to be a smash hit, and its popularity propelled Arashi back to the top of the charts. Capitalising on their momentum, Arashi found continued success - and this time, it stuck. Since the drama's 2005 release, the band has released ten albums and thirty-five singles - every one of which went straight to #1 on the national charts - and become one of the country's most famous acts, both at home and internationally.
Arashi's popularity turned them into a multimedia sensation and national icon: Japan's most popular boy band, the five have promoted the country in official Japanese tourism campaigns, and can be likened to girl group AKB48 in terms of popularity. Over time, the band has to date produced no less than
twelve separate long-running variety and game shows on TV on top of countless specials, hosted a wide range of events and broadcasts, and spawned a successful acting career for each of its five members.
This ubiquity in Japanese media has elevated the band's status even further - and now, almost seventeen years after their formation, the band shows no signs of losing steam. Gaining tickets to an Arashi concert remains infamously difficult: despite every tour passing through stadium after stadium (including full weeks of sold-out nights at the famous
Tokyo Dome, with a capacity of 55,000), tickets are so sought-after that only official fanclub members can purchase them -
if they get lucky in the ticketing ballot, which most don't. There's no shortage of fans!
Now, for a little more on our WorldVision star: Aiba! I've talked a lot about Arashi here, and to be completely honest, I'd actually intended at first to send the band as a whole. They've got some fantastic songs and quite a good variety of styles, so there was plenty to choose from, and there's one in particular that I love. Looking through their songs, though, I found myself unable to go past one of Aiba's solo performances, which puts a huge smile on my face however many times I watch it. As the quirky dork of the group, most of Aiba's solos are pure cheese: kitschy funk, silly disco and more. I don't want to spoil too much, but I think the song I'm sending here is pure Aiba - hopefully you'll enjoy it. Look forward to the reveal!
I've never experienced a visual novel before (know of them) but i'm getting my Japan fix at the moment with the new Guilty Gear videogame
to the country just above me or something 
A huge thanks to everyone that voted for me - I'll do some callouts when the final results are released, but even just looking through the SF3 thread I can see a nice spread of voters.
