Chapter 101 Ogura Wants to Go to the Concert
In Japan, Johnny's male idols are a huge business.
Compared to female idols who are replaced every few years, boy groups can bring huge profits to the company for decades if managed well. In this sense, female idols are at a disadvantage from the start.
After decades of operation, Johnny's male idols have become a genuine monster company.
What's AKB's research student system? What's H!P's trainee system? Don't be kidding, Johnny's has had Jr. trainees for a long time too. These trainees follow their seniors to concerts and brush up on their presence. As long as they can hold out until their debut, the large number of fans accumulated before that will immediately boost their sales to a very high level. This is why many of Johnny's boy groups' debut singles are also their best-selling singles.
The fan base that supports these boy groups is also different from the Chinese concept of a "fan". In China, fans are mostly young people who are easily attracted to idols, but for those over 30 years old, it's considered weird to still be chasing after idols.
But in Japan, it's different. The majority of Johnny's idols' fans are housewives in their thirties who have families and careers!
You should know that in Japan, the vast majority of women choose to quit their jobs and become housewives after marriage. This allows them to have a lot of free time while still controlling the household's finances. These housewives are only second to otaku (geeks) who have no girlfriends and control all their own income. What's even more frightening is that these housewives occupy half of society, whereas otaku are just a small minority. In Japan, you can see many housewives following Johnny's idols for years, and they'll even follow them abroad to attend concerts!
In recent years, Jenice's peak is naturally Smap.
Although Kimura is the well-deserved emperor of SMAP, the other four members are not inferior at all. Each person has their own development and they want to hold concerts. That would naturally be a sold-out scene.
Housewives like SMAP, and young girls also like them. Especially Kimura, he is the dream lover of most girls, even if they are not fans of SMAP, many Japanese girls still love SMAP very much. As for their concert tickets, that's a highly sought-after thing, if someone can get it, it will definitely be something to make friends envious and jealous.
For example, Ogura Yuko... was very unhappy because a girl who trained with her got the ticket.
That girl is a member of the SMAP fan club, but in fact, she doesn't particularly like SMAP. It seems that Ogura Yuko is just using them to increase her own style and attention. I have what you don't, so I'm better than you. From this point of view, SMAP's concert tickets, I can buy them directly while you can't even get them no matter how hard you try. So I'm better than you.
Ogura Yuko didn't say she likes SMAP that much, and if we look at the situation from AKB's perspective, Ogura Yuko is absolutely a floating voter. She won't chase after SMAP all over the world, nor will she be familiar with every single thing they do. And she definitely won't spend too much money on them. But now being able to watch one of their concerts is not just a matter of personal preference, but rather a social phenomenon, it's a trendy thing to do. The day after SMAP's concert, if you can tell people around you that you went to see it yesterday, that would be an absolutely face-saving thing to say. But as a small-time artist who hasn't even debuted yet, of course she wouldn't have any connections to get tickets for tens of thousands of people fighting for them, so she could only accept the reality of not being able to participate after trying her luck with lottery tickets.
Just been boasted by a friend on the phone, Ogura Yuko pinched her round face in dissatisfaction. In fact, it's not entirely impossible for him to get tickets. There are several men in the company who have expressed their willingness to go with them, as long as she wants to go. However, this kind of thing, can't she understand? Those men look like ugly pumpkins, and one of them is fat like a pig. Don't they even look at themselves in the mirror? I'm Ogura Yuko, 17 years old, looking so pretty and lovely, how could I possibly be interested in you guys?
A seventeen-year-old girl is somewhat realistic and somewhat shallow, but undoubtedly at the age of pursuing youth and handsomeness, pursuing strength. At this stage, she basically can't look up to people in the company who are far inferior to her in appearance.
"But... I won't be able to go to the concert, and then the day after it ends, they'll just brag about it again..." Ogura Yuko lay on her bed, her snow-white thighs in her hot pants moving reluctantly. This girl wasn't some kind of extraordinary beauty, but if you said she was cute, I'd say she's lovely. At this flower-like age of seventeen, she's absolutely the best in all of Japan.
"Ding dong." The doorbell rang.
"Coming!" Yoko Ogura got up to open the door, but halfway through, the girl suddenly stopped, thought for a moment, and then put on another skirt before heading back to the entrance.
The person standing outside the door was Zhou Xiao. After finishing the variety show, he had been working on the film editing for the past few days. Uncle Inoue from the TV station found a very good editor to help Zhou Xiao with the final step of the movie, but when it came to actual editing, Zhou Xiao finally felt how painful this thing was to do.
"A One-Liter of Tears" was originally a 90-minute film, but Zhou Xiao's adapted version increased the length to an estimated 120 minutes due to added plotlines. The total footage shot by Zhou Xiao exceeded 150 minutes, at which point the editors had to start cutting. However, every second of this footage was painstakingly created with the entire production team, and for him, cutting away even one second felt like cutting off his own flesh.
At the time of editing, the editing room became a battlefield for Zhou Xiao and the editor to contend with. As for Nagata Kotono, she was well-versed in the trade and knew that at this point, she should give the reins to the editor, so even if it pained her, she wouldn't interfere too much.
Actually, Zhou Xiao also has self-awareness. When inviting the editor, Zhou Xiao said to the other party at the first meeting: "I am an outsider, you are an insider, so you have the right to decide everything. During editing, I will argue with you and try my best to prevent you from cutting out the scenes I like. But when that happens, if you think you're right, please be sure to argue with me reasonably. I would never do anything to monopolize power."
This is a person's self-awareness, Zhou Xiao is very clear that if he really wants to control everything with his half-bottle of water, it will ultimately only harm this hard-won film. Only when everyone does their part can this film possibly achieve more success than Zhou Xiao's "A Liter of Tears". And the reason why he worked so hard to argue with the editor is that through this behavior, he also learned a lot and not just blocked the other party from cutting the film, because in the end, the film still needs to be cut to a suitable length. This movie is not some kind of super-strong masterpiece without any flaws, 120 minutes is already long enough.
When Zhou Xiao, who had been cutting the footage with a worried look on his face, came out of the editing room in the early hours of that morning, he suddenly realized that it was already November 23rd. Tomorrow night, the most exciting show of the year 2000 would begin.
He had already received the tickets he wanted from Janice, and as an artist, the two tickets were absolutely good seats, enough to make other ticket buyers jealous to death.
What's even more amazing is that, as it was an artist seat, the people sitting around were basically all artists too. This kind of concert can be considered a grand occasion for socializing among artists, where they get to know and familiarize with each other to a certain extent. Being able to attend such an event might not be a big deal for Zhou Xiao, but for some lesser-known artists, it would definitely be a valuable opportunity.
When Zhou Xiao got the tickets, it was no longer a problem for him to invite someone to fill the extra seat. Having lived next to Ogura Yuuko for some time without being able to improve their relationship, Zhou Xiao felt that with Kimura Takuya causing such a big commotion and himself not being too busy during this year-end period, it was about time he worked on everyone's relationships!
