every single note and word

Some time in 2001, V6 released their first compilation album VERY BEST, which had a great ad campaign that hit our screens. One of the bits was an ojisan saying he bought the album for his daughter and liked it so much that he bought another one for himself (or something along those lines). Intrigued, one of my classmates bought VERY BEST, and then Wink Up because she saw V6 on it. In the pages of Wink Up, we discovered Arashi. And one day I saw 君のために僕がいる on MTV and decided yes I like them. That’s the day I learnt the words kimi and boku, and that 嵐 means storm.

My first “comeback”, so to speak, was 時代, and I loved it. I remember willingly skipping Rush Hour 2 with my parents in the cinema just to stay home and watch 日韓瘋 on MTV, hoping to catch more Arashi songs, not realising they would just be playing 時代 and nothing else. Here We Go! came out my first year in a new school and I listened to that album (and of course also ARASHI No.1 〜嵐は嵐を呼ぶ〜) to bits. All or Nothing Ver 1.02 was my jam through many nights, I guess looking back I had been a lonely child. My Arashi love peaked when I got the How’s It Going Summer Tour 2003 DVD, obsessed over Ohmiya SK and sent it round to aforementioned V6/Wink Up buddies. I think I still got pretty decent grades that term and hence concluded fangirl life was ~uplifting~. I remember the single releases up till 5x5 pretty clearly – I adored ハダシの未来/言葉より大切なもの, PIKA★★NCHI DOUBLE, 瞳の中のGalaxy was the sweetest song, and then maybe サクラ咲ケ? And here I have to say thank you Taiwan for MTV with Chinese subs and affordable 台壓版 albums that nurtured my love for words in the liner notes. I kept lyric notebooks throughout school, and guess what, the first entry is 太陽のあたる場所 (V6) and the second is A・RA・SHI. They were also full of sakuraps that were so vivid in imagery.

My memory is hazy after that, meaning yes, I fell off the wagon even before 花より男子 happened. I know, it's horrifying, and I deeply apologise to Matsujun. I've heard it's the best version and you were very cute. I think translated Japanese content was just not easy to find at the time and I moved on to Mandarin (hello 周杰倫 ＆ 方文山's imagery) and English music in my late teens and kinda lost touch with J-pop. Soon after K-pop (specifically Sorry, Sorry) took over my life and the rest is history. I revisited Arashi around the Beautiful World era, and found some new favourite songs e.g. Truth, Troublemaker, My Girl, Lotus, Nino's 虹. And also the most most beautiful 5x10.

So fast forward to January 2019, I hear about Arashi’s planned hiatus while in Fukuoka on holiday. Sho addresses it on the news that night. I was laughing at first, then, unexpectedly, I was in tears. Then I’m in Tokyo for work in July, and I go to Tower Records to buy 5x20 for me and my buddies. Later that year Arashi make it to SG on a whirlwind presscon tour, I go see them and expect a tour stop announcement, but no, they were just making their music available for streaming which I don’t need because I was raised on a Walkman (yes have one to this day). Me and my buddies joked that we have got to try and see them once in our lives, even if the only song we know is A・RA・SHI. Beijing 2020 here we go! Again, the rest is history.

I had put the hiatus/disbandment out of my mind in the years between and carried on with my life. Wasn't really following the final tour news either, until this Arashi fan account on IG posted about getting the finale streaming ticket, and it dawned on me that this was really going to be the last last lastest day of Arashi, like ever. For old time's sake, I thought.

I tune in live from 3pm JST, the special footage starts and 感謝カンゲキ雨嵐 comes on. I’m already sobbing. There were a bunch of songs I didn't know, and I made notes to myself to find out. The Hope in the Darkness choreo was so cool. I knew Arashi as chaotic boys, and now they've become seasoned performers. I could hear each of them distinctively, loud and clear. I did watch the Arashi's Diary documentary on Netflix earlier, but it's just hitting me that I’ve missed so so much.

Then the concert starts. It’s over the moment I hear their voices. As they say hi to those watching the livestream, I bawl because watching a DVD could never compare to this. There were so many songs that I didn't know, but also so many that I did. I would never say Arashi were the best singers or dancers, but through it all, as I revisit time and again, there is always something so warm and uplifting about their music, about them, in a way that only Arashi could be. And here they were (almost) in the flesh, but it would be the first and last time I saw them "live" and my heart broke.

I suppose part of my grief here is my inner child reluctantly saying goodbye. They were my 始まり, the start of my life as a fangirl, the reason I picked up rudimentary Japanese as a kid (that formed the base for my less rudimentary Korean), the window to my lifelong obsession with Japanese culture and that young summery aesthetic, and now they were going to be no more. The part of me that loved Arashi was so much bigger than I realised. I was the one to fade first, but Arashi had become so big that I never imagined we would lose them someday. But they did it in the most beautiful way, forever as Five. It's been a wonderful journey even though I was only there for maybe 1/5 of the way. To my cutest sweetest Aiba, cheekiest acclaimed acteur Nino, most おしゃれ professional producer Matsujun, most hip yet mature(ish?) Sho, and most effortless(ly) awesome Riida: お疲れ様!! この長い間、楽しかった。気づいていなかったけど、本当に幸せだった。❤️

I'll be off to watch the finale concert again (this time with subs and fully prepared to sob pro max) with one of the buddies who now lives in the US. And you'll live on in my slow rediscovery of your discography, as well as in my YouTube shorts algorithm, you variety kings. 🥲