Mega-hit Japanese boy band Arashi is disbanding
Long hiatus to become permanent following farewell tour.
Founded in 1999, five-member boy band Arashi (meaning 'storm') has spent most of the time since near the very top of the Japanese pop music scene. They had not just Japan's, but the entire world's best-selling album in 2019, and as further proof of the band's phenomenal popularity, there was that time a fan stole over 300 pages of magazine articles about the group from a public library.
But just like every storm eventually dissipates, Arashi's time is coming to an end, with the group announcing that it is officially disbanding.
私たちから、お伝えしたいことがございます。活動休止してから、およそ４年半が経ちました。
私たちは休止前最後の１年、コロナの影響で皆さんの前でパフォーマンスをすることは叶いませんでした。… pic.twitter.com/VvVXAIwRVl — ARASHI (@arashi5official) May 6, 2025
The announcement, made through the group's official Twitter account on Tuesday, might come as a surprise both to hard-core Arashi fans and casual J-pop followers alike, since depending on which group you're in you may have either been fervently waiting for Arashi to kick its activities into high gear or assuming that they'd already broken up. That's because a while back Arashi announced that they'd be going on hiatus, but not before a promised flurry of concerts and fan appreciation events. Unfortunately, those events were planned for 2020, with the group scheduled to enter hiatus at the end of that year, and while the coronavirus pandemic led to Arashi's performances and appearances being cancelled, the hiatus started as scheduled.
The open-ended nature of the hiatus, combined with the gradual, indistinct ending of the pandemic, left it unclear if Arashi was still just on hiatus, or if this was going to be the understated de-facto end of the group. For everyone who was hoping for Arashi to resume activities, the announcement is bittersweet, with the group saying…
'[We] sincerely regret we were unable to perform for all of you during that last year of activities due to the Coronavirus pandemic. So, in order to finally express our deep gratitude directly to all our fans, the five of us have gathered together once again and have begun planning a concert tour as Arashi to be held next spring'
…but also…
'upon conclusion of this tour, we will end our activities as Arashi'
The group says they've spent the past year and a half looking for ways to restart Arashi's activity, but that 'the environment surrounding us [having] changed, in addition to each of our individually changed circumstances compared to before' made finding solutions difficult, likely alluding to events such as the scandal-tainted collapse of Johnny & Associates, the talent agency Arashi operated under, and the marriages of group members Sho Sakurai and Masaki Aiba.
Details such as dates and locations for Arashi's 2026 farewell concerts are yet to be set, but the group says that priority will be given to Arashi fan club members, and also that it is temporarily suspending new membership applications to help ensure ticket supply for existing members. The group says it plans to reopen new fan club applications at a later time, but also that the club will cease operations in May of 2026.
▼ The English-language version of the announcement refers to both a 'fan club' and a 'family club,' but this appears to be a mistranslation, as the original Japanese-language announcement only mentions the 'fan club.'
We have something the five of us would like to share with you all.
It has been almost four and a half years since we went on hiatus, and we sincerely regret we were unable to perform for all of you during that last year of activities due to the Coronavirus pandemic. So, in… — ARASHI (@arashi5official) May 6, 2025
Arashi says that they will be announcing further details about the spring 2026 concert tour through their Twitter account as soon as they have been decided.
Source: Twitter/@arashi5official
Top image: Pakutaso (edited by SoraNews24)
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