©Courtesy of Starto Entertainment, Arashi (from L) Kazunari Ninomiya, Sho Sakurai, Masaki Aiba, Jun Matsumoto and Satoshi Ono.

On May 6th, “Arashi“, a popular J-pop group formed in 1999 which has been on hiatus since the end of 2020, made a statement on its fan club website that the group will disband by the end of May next year.

The five members of the group, including leader Satoshi Ohno (44), Sho Sakurai (43), Masaki Aiba (42), Kazunari Ninomiya (41), and Jun Matsumoto (41), all of whom had been on hiatus, appeared together in the video.

The five members lined up side by side and reported to their fans for 3 minutes and 19 seconds. Aiba said, “In order to directly express our gratitude, we, the five of us, will gather together again and start working toward holding a concert tour as Arashi, scheduled for next spring,” and Sakurai said, “With this tour, we will end our activities as Arashi.

After 26 years since their debut in 1999, “Arashi” will close the curtain with a genuine last tour to meet their fans who have been waiting for them since their hiatus.

Arashi officially formed on September 15, 1999, in Honolulu, Hawaii, and made their debut CD on November 3, 1999. The group was initially signed with Pony Canyon and released one studio album and six singles—beginning with their 1999 eponymous debut single before moving to the Johnny’s subsidiary label J Storm in 2001, which was initially set up for their succeeding releases.

The group sold more than 58.8 million copies of albums, singles, and videos by October 2020, making them the best selling boy band in Asia. Arashi has remained an influential figure in Japanese media while also releasing chart-topping singles and albums, performing in sold-out concert tours, hosting a number of variety shows, and continuing to release chart-topping singles and albums.

　[Arashi’s announcement]

It has been a while, ladies and gentlemen. We are Arashi. We would like to share something with you. It has been almost four and a half years since we went on hiatus.We were not able to perform in front of you for the last year before our hiatus due to the effects of the Covid.

In order to directly express our gratitude to all the fans who have supported us, the five of us will gather together again and begin working towards holding a concert tour as Arashi, which we plan to do around next spring.

Also, with the establishment of Arashi Inc., there was a time when we explored the possibility of assembling a new form with new staff members, but we would like to create that scenery with the many staff members who have helped us over the past 20 years. And with this tour, we will be ending our activities as Arashi.

For about a year and a half now, the five of us have been meeting together at various times to discuss the possibility of “working as Arashi once again”.

However, it was not easy to reach an answer to this question, as the environment surrounding us has changed and each of our circumstances have changed from the previous one.

After much time and repeated discussions, we came to the conclusion that we would get together again and hold a concert as Arashi, and that we would be able to “directly express our gratitude” and “directly show our performance” to our fans, which we were unable to achieve through the Covid. We decided to end our activities as a five-piece group with a concert as Arashi to “express our gratitude directly to our fans” and “have them see our performance in person,” which was not possible with Corona.

It was unthinkable that we would go on a hiatus again after resuming our activities. We are preparing for next year’s tour with the help of many people, but we are not in a position to tell you all about it at this time. As soon as it is decided, we would like to inform our fans first, from ourselves and in our own words. And with the end of Arashi’s activities, the fan club will also end its activities at the end of May 2026.

However, we will continue to provide as much content as possible to our fan club members for one year until then, and we hope you will enjoy watching it.

We are also preparing to resume accepting new memberships so that those who are not currently in the fan club can enjoy the next distribution. The next distribution of contents in the Arashi Fan Club is scheduled for the middle of next month. Again, the five of us will get together again and hope to deliver content that will please and thank all the fans who have continued to support us.

Please look forward to it.

Arashi

Masaki Aiba

Jun Matsumoto

Kazunari Ninomiya

Satoshi Ono

Sho Sakurai