u/MontyHallProb

With Richard joining Famimall, it got me thinking, would Starto ever do a joint Famimall concert? currently Famimall is Starto's fan club for idols/talents/actors that do not have their own fan club:

Koji Uchiumi, Atsuhiro Sato, Hiroki Uchi, Jun Hasegawa, Keito Okamoto, 4U [Yuki Koshioka, Yusuke Matsuzaki, Yuta Fukuda, Yudai Tatsumi], Shota Hayashi, Ryuta Muro, Sho Takada, Daichi Imae, Kota Matsumoto, Kensho Tomioka, Yuki Nozawa, Fujii Naoki, Keita Richard Kusama

I know 4U does their own concerts, including at Budokan in August this year, and Koji Uchiumi and Atsuhiro Sato formed "U&S" and did a tour. I guess I was wondering if they could do some sort of "joint concert" where there are perform starto songs: in different combinations, solos, 4U performs some of their group songs, etc. - kind of like a joint jr concert or a mini version of countdown.

I know that some of these people, like Keito Okamoto, are very focused on acting and left their groups to focus on being actors. I just miss that Fujii and Richard won't be dancing, and thought this might be a way for them and everyone else to do a concert on the stage.

"KAMIGATA EXPO PARK FES 2026" will be held on 10/31/2026 (Sat) and 11/1/2026 (Sun) at Osaka Expo Commemorative Park. the KAMIGATA BOYZ groups and the Kansai Juniors will be performing.

Performing artists
・SUPER EIGHT
・WEST.
・Naniwa Boys
・Ae! group
・Kansai Junior.

Oricon has comments from Ryuhei Maruyama, Nozomu Kotaki, Ryusei Onishi, Yoshinori Masakado, and Toa Shimasaki.

Edit: adding website link:https://2026.kamigataboyz.com/

A new junior group "Howzit" has been formed among the juniors. It includes the following five members

Nao Oriyama,
Takuya Nishimura,
Koki Kuroda,
Kosei Hiyama,
Wataru Vasayegh

This is group that had a previously announced to be holding "Junior Tour 2026" this summer now renamed to "Howzit 1st LIVE 2026 NICE TO ME YOU"

When Ae! group released the music video for their song PRIDE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PQ_UXGZ2A) while playing instruments, it made me note that they have lost both bassists😭. I was wondering if Ae! group might do for a bassist, as most rock songs have a bass and a lot of their junior songs have bass. I remember reading that when TOKIO lost their bassist, they stopped their music because they were not able to find a way with touring to make it work. Did Ae! group use a session musician for their latest tour? If so, any reactions from fans on if it worked?

The play will run in November 2026

https://mdpr.jp/news/detail/4800234

The play also stars the Juniors Koki Kawasaki, Waku Motoki, Sota Uchimura, Hideki Ajima, Takumi Kitagawa, and Tatsuru Matsuo.

I wonder if this represents a return of Starto produced stage plays with predominantly Starto idol casts (in 2025 we only had ANDO, while in 2024 we had Dream Boys, Shock, Massara, ABC Big Venus)

The play will run in November 2026

https://mdpr.jp/news/detail/4800234

The play also stars the Juniors Koki Kawasaki, Waku Motoki, Sota Uchimura, Hideki Ajima, Takumi Kitagawa, and Ryu Matsuo.

https://x.com/jr_official_X/status/2066528770539098133
Yuri Oka and Ichita Inoue from AmBitious for "Dodesuka"

Travis Japan held overseas tours in September–October 2024 (Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York) and again in July–September 2025 (New York, Anaheim, Taipei, Hong Kong, and Bangkok). However, they have not announced any overseas dates for 2026.

I've been reading about some Western artists scaling back or canceling tours because of rising travel and production costs. That made me wonder whether increasing expenses, caused by higher fuel prices/inflation, could affect Starto's ability or willingness to send Travis Japan on a tour outside Japan this year. Could they not tour outside of Japan this year, or might do Asian cities but not the US. any thoughts?

At the same time, STARTO has announced Asian tours for Kento Nakajima and Takuya Kimura, so the company is clearly still investing in overseas activities. Anyone have any speculations on what Traja/Starto might do? And might Starto make other changes in response to inflation, such as raising concert prices for Travis Japan or other acts?

I realize that the countdown concert was months ago, but I have been thinking about whether Starto would not do another countdown in the back of my mind. The main thing is this notice about defamation Starto released the day after the concert. In it, they talked both about both the slanderous comments about some of the idols and the difficulty in coordinating schedules for all the groups/individuals. I know Starto cancelled Hey!Say!jump's arena tour in 2019 because of fan's behavior, so I wonder if the online attacks on the idols is in the same category that would lead Starto to not do countdown, and just do end of year shows?