The music group Junretsu appeared on Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's long-running talk show "Tetsuko's Room" (TV Asahi) broadcast on June 17th. They talked about their impressions of their solo live performance at Nippon Budokan (Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo) and how they have been told that their singing has improved as the number of members has decreased.
They gained popularity as "Super Sento Idols" and held a solo concert at the Nippon Budokan last year, which was their goal. Leader Sakai Kazuyoshi said, "We are a group that started out performing at bathhouses, so (the Nippon Budokan) felt really big to us. We were really happy that so many people came," and revealed, "As we gained more young fans, we continued to sing our seniors' songs like "Love You Tokyo" and "Starry Street Corner," but we gradually sped up the tempo and started to lean more towards pop music."
Shota Ushiro said, "I was happy because the scene that unfolded before my eyes was something I could never have imagined when we were six people (at the beginning)." Yujiro Shirakawa said, "I was really moved when I saw 7,000 customers in front of me, and I never thought Junretsu would become a group that could come this far."
Sakai said, "They're a strange group in that the more people leave the group, the more popular they become, and I don't know why," and continued, "In the end, the members who had left got together and came back. They definitely didn't leave on bad terms; they each had their own reasons for leaving or graduating, so even now, when we're on concert tour, the members still come over to hang out in my dressing room."
They say that the singing has improved since they went from six to three. Regarding the members who left, Sakai said, "LiLiCo's (film commentator) husband (Odai Ryohei) likes to sing, but he's not very good at it, and he was in charge of the noisy parts." "Iwanaga (Hiroaki), who was with us until March this year, also left just as he was getting better." "As a result, when the three of us appear on music shows, people say things like, 'You've gotten better than before.' But our world of enka and pop music is full of talented people, so we can't even come close."
