We are ARASHI: 27 Years with the Storm, and What Comes Next [Part 1]

May 31, 2026. Tokyo Dome. Amid 55,000 swaying lights, five men took the stage for the last time. "ARASHI LIVE TOUR 2026 'We are ARASHI'," which began at Sapporo Dome on March 13, drew about 490,000 people over 15 shows in five domes and came to a close that night. Now aged 42 to 45, the members carried 26 and a half years of story in their faces.

Let's rewind to the sea off Hawaii that day. It all began on a ship.

On a Ship off Honolulu: September 15, 1999

A cruise ship floated off Honolulu, Hawaii. The 20 to 30 members of the press rode a separate cruiser and only saw the faces of the debuting members as they drew close, an elaborate piece of staging. The host was Noriyuki Higashiyama of Shonentai. But the mood on board was far from celebratory.

"Takki and Yamapi aren't even here!" "Are these guys really OK to debut?"

Comments like these slipped out among the photographers. The five boys were 16 to 18 years old; Masaki Aiba, Kazunari Ninomiya and Jun Matsumoto were still 16.

Remarkably, three of the five were thinking of quitting at the time. Leader Satoshi Ohno had already told Johnny Kitagawa twice that he wanted to quit. Sho Sakurai was considering studying abroad and joined thinking "Arashi will break up once the Volleyball World Cup job is over." Most dramatic of all was Masaki Aiba. Just three days before the trip, Johnny Kitagawa asked him, "YOU, do you have a passport?" He arrived in Hawaii knowing nothing, only to find that he, too, was now in Arashi.

Candidate group names included "Akebono," "? (Questions)" and "Five." Three reasons are given for the final choice of "Arashi" (storm): the wish that they would stir up a storm around the world; that the name comes first in both Japanese syllabary and alphabetical order; and a practical reason Higashiyama revealed years later: "Because it's a single kanji character, it will always appear in newspaper TV listings no matter what show they're on." At the time, English names such as SMAP, V6 and TOKIO were the norm. Some members felt uneasy about a kanji name, but Jun Matsumoto later said, "We've been able to work with a tremendous attachment to it."

Sho Sakurai later looked back on the day: "Fifteen years ago, until the day before the Hawaii press conference, we were nobodies. From the moment we held that press conference on the ship, we became 'Arashi.' We were, in a sense, born."

Satoshi Ohno, the Man Who Kept His Phone Off for Two Weeks

Satoshi Ohno was Arashi's leader, yet the member most reluctant about show business.

In 1997 and 1998, after performing five shows a day in the Kyoto stage production "Johnny's Fantasy KYO TO KYO," Ohno felt he had "mastered dancing" and twice told Johnny Kitagawa by phone that he wanted to quit. But he was called in to "help with a recording," and the score he was handed read "Arashi" and "Ohno solo part." "I'd already gone all the way to Hawaii, so I couldn't really say I was quitting there (laughs)." That was the reality behind the birth of the leader of one of Japan's biggest idol groups.

Right after the debut, Ohno ignored calls from the agency and kept his phone switched off for about two weeks. His doubts about show business had not disappeared even after the celebration on the ship.

Eighteen years later, in 2017, Ohno would tell the other members, "There's something I want to talk about." But at this point, no one knew that future.

From 970,000 Copies to a Slump: Records of the Years When They Didn't Sell

Their debut single "A·RA·SHI," released on November 3, 1999 as the image song for the Volleyball World Cup, sold 557,000 copies in its first week and about 973,000 in total. It was a rocket start, just short of a million. The lyrics were credited to J&T, the pen name of Tsunetoshi Kikuchi, father of Fuma Kikuchi, later of timelesz.

But what followed was a long winter.

Single sales slid steadily down from the debut's 970,000: 406,000 for "SUNRISE Nippon/HORIZON" in 2000, 249,000 for "Nice na Kokoroiki" in 2002, and just 140,000 for "PIKA★★NCHI DOUBLE" in 2004, the lowest in Arashi's history. The album "How's it going?" fell to 116,000.

It wasn't just the numbers. Even regional arenas failed to sell out, and tickets were given away free to fan club members of other groups and of Johnny's Jr. The fan club had only 150,000 members, one-twentieth of its later peak. Ratings for their own show "Nama Arashi LIVESTORM" languished in the 1% range.

In 2004, when the five told each other on the stage of the 24-Hour TV telethon, "Let's make our dream of reaching the top come true," some of the staff around them reportedly laughed. How many people besides the five on stage took those words seriously?

Still They Didn't Quit: Days of Late-Night Shows and Solo Work

Even with sales slumping, Arashi never let their TV shows lapse.

Starting with "Mayonaka no Arashi" (2001), they kept going in Nippon TV's late-night slots with "C no Arashi!," "D no Arashi!," "G no Arashi!" and "Arashi no Shukudai-kun." The first, "Mayonaka no Arashi," came about when the agency asked the five what they wanted and they answered, "Our own Arashi TV show." Late-night slots were far from prime time, but the variety skills they honed there became the foundation for "VS Arashi" and "Arashi ni Shiyagare," both of which ran for more than ten years.

The individual members were struggling too. Jun Matsumoto made his mark as an actor in the 2002 drama "Gokusen." Sho Sakurai balanced idol work with studies at Keio University's Faculty of Economics and graduated in 2004. Masaki Aiba was hospitalized with a collapsed lung in March 2002, and Arashi faced the ordeal of performing as four for a while. In 2004, Satoshi Ohno designed the charity T-shirt for the 24-Hour TV telethon, and his artistic talent became known for the first time.

They may have been far from the glamorous spotlight. But the fact that "the five kept going even when they didn't sell" became the unshakable foundation for their later rise to national stardom. Fans remember how, in those years, the five sang, danced and laughed with everything they had in venues full of empty seats.

In autumn 2005, an offer for a drama arrived for Jun Matsumoto. It was the live-action adaptation of a girls' manga: "Hana Yori Dango."

At the time, no one knew that this one drama would change the course of Arashi, and of Japanese entertainment history.

Continued in Part 2, "To the Center of an Era: 2006-2017"

Is there an artist or group in your country that made it big after years of struggle?