He was taken into custody

At last, he was taken into custody

This might not be so much of a breaking news as it was posted on twitter since a month ago.

Johnny’s Entertainment announced that NEWS members Yamashita Tomohisa and Nishikido Ryo have both left the group. Yamapi will be focusing on his solo career, while Ryo will focus his activities with Kanjani8. NEWS will continue as a 4-member group; Koyama, Shige, Massu, Tegoshi.

The battle of ‘custody’ over Ryo between Kanjani8 and NEWS, at last ended up with Kanjani8 as the winner.

Ryo has once mentioned in an interview, it’s hard for him to be active in both groups; Kanjani8 and NEWS. Plus being active in acting, it sure is tiring. He discussed a lot with Johnny-san, thinking about pursuing with either one of them.

Who knows which group Ryo really preferred (of course for the fans sake, he won’t make this public) but well… I’m glad he’s now in Kanjani8. I personally think he suits there; taking into account his personality and all. Plus everyone in Kanjani8 is from Osaka, so he won’t have to hold back using Kansai-ben!

On the other hand, I feel bad for NEWS; NEWS with 4 members? How would it be? Sure fan will mourn over this. How would they sing their old songs in concerts after this? Maybe ad-lib or recorded version. Now listening to NEWS songs gave me some extra emotional sentiment.

Somehow being Johnny-san, of coure he needs to properly consider both groups (Kanjani8 and NEWS) emotion on this, as well as Ryo’s personally. But most importantly for this CEO, is the marketing value. We all know the selling point of Kanjani8 is mostly because of Ryo, this is probably the major reason why Ryo gets to be in Kanjani8 permanently.

Well after 9 years of running back and forth between NEWS and Kanjani8, there goes our Nishikido Ryo in Kanjani8. I don’t have much comment on Yamapi though. Looking at his pace, I knew it there’s no way other members could keep up with him. With his popularity at its peak, yappa going solo is the best way.

NEWS
from left: massu, koyama, ryo, shige, tegoshi, yamapi

Kanjani8
from left: okura, yokoyama, yassu, subaru, murakami, ryo, maruyama

Ps: till this very day, I’m still searching for Nishikido Ryo’s Half Down music video. I guess they really won’t make one huh!