So I skipped the concerts where possible and went straight for the Backstage footage to have fun and see how the dynamics within the band really were at the time.

General notes

I felt like the balance within the band was very good, it seemed better than all the bands with 5 members. Basically I guess you can really split NEWS into 3 teams: Ryo-YamaPi, Koyama-Shige and Massu-Tego. I still can't really comprehend that Massu is older than Shige.

However, I was really surprised to see that Tegoshi actually hung out with Shige a lot at the time. And I barely saw him with Massu. Come to think of it, Massu doesn't appear much on any of these 3, even less than Ryo. But anyway, the youngest two were a lot closer than I thought. They were actually very much partners in crime doing stupid pranks and stuff. Though Shige roomed with Koyama they sat together a lot at meals. That, and Shige was Tegoshi's personal hairdresser.

In a more general view I was really surprised at how much Johnnies bands are self-governed. Like, seriously. In 2008 they had a freaking dome tour but it seems like they didn't even have any stylists at all. They seemed to decide all of the coordination, costumes and they even did their own hair and make-up. I haven't seen a single staff around, not even managers. They filmed the documentaries themselves too. How convenient.

In terms of songs NEWS really had it bad, didn't they? Apart from Weeek and a couple more their songs are incredibly lame. As for the vocal skills I don't even know. There were time when I actually thought that they sounded pretty decent. I mean of course Tegoshi stands out a lot and he's the only one who has a proper voice but at times the other guys were pretty good too. Say, YamaPi sounds pretty good at some songs and terrible at others.

But I guess apart from the songs what really got to me was all these Juniors. There are so many of them and they totally ruin the mood sometimes. Like the only time I though they were kinda appropriate was when they sang chorus for NEWS Nippon.

Also I'm not very good at reading people but according to my impression Massu and YamaPi seem very straight. The others are questionable.

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