Are there any OSUKE fans out there?
I watched every episode of Produce 101 Japan from Season 1 〜Shinsekai in real time. Ever since the show began in 2019, they’ve talked about forming a “global group” and aiming for the world stage. Shinsekai, in particular, seemed to be the season that most seriously pursued that global goal.
However, I don’t know how many votes actually lived abroad. Compared to the girls, the number of Japanese viewers for Shinsekai clearly dropped. I expected that since even Japanese viewers were few, those living abroad would be even fewer. Despite that, since overseas votes accounted for 30% of the total, the votes from people living abroad became increasingly important. On Twitter, there were many comments saying it was truly impossible to predict how the overseas votes would turn out.
My fave was Osuke. According to fan statistics, his individual spotlight segments totaled only 6 minutes across the entire broadcast. It was as if he’d vanished—he wasn’t shown on screen at all. I wanted overseas votes for Osuke, but I didn’t see many of his fans living abroad on Twitter. There was a sentiment in the fan community that he might have a few more overseas fans since he appeared on Boys Planet, but I feel like he didn’t really reach that audience.
Personally, I think one reason K. Takuto and Osuke didn’t debut was that, despite their strong popularity in Japan, they didn’t receive many overseas votes. Of course, part of it was simply that the pool of Japanese voters wasn’t large enough.
There were even posts on Reddit saying people had no impression of Osuke. It’s sad, but many Japanese people share that same impression.
On the day of the finals, I watched the live broadcast. At first, I couldn’t accept the fact that Osuke’s name wasn’t called, but little by little, I’m coming to terms with reality now.
Is anyone following his Instagram? He hardly ever updates his social media. It’s expected that he won’t be doing any live streams either. Will there be any spin-off groups this time…?