Why Does Snow Man Keep Selling? The Road to Nine Members (Part 1)

By the time Snow Man debuted, most of its members had spent ten years or more as Jr., the agency's trainee system. Look only at the numbers after debut and you miss the long years spent honing skills on stage and as backup dancers.

Among them, Ryohei Abe spent 15 years as a Jr. Rather than romanticizing a long wait, look concretely at the dance, acrobatics and stagecraft built up in that time.

When fans talk about years of paying dues, they shouldn't compare effort by length of time alone. Asking what roles were entrusted to them on which stages, and which skills led to today's performances, helps avoid the dangerous story that the waiting time was itself the person's worth. The agency also has a responsibility to match experience with suitable roles and challenges.

The time it takes to emerge as a group varies enormously from person to person. Some debut early; some take more than ten years.

That gap cannot be explained by ability alone. Timing, combinations, the company's policy at the time: factors beyond the person's control account for a good part of it.

For someone who discovered a member through a solo appearance, a group's long history is not easy to grasp from the start. If they can begin with the current member profiles and then trace the songs and performances that caught their attention, they can deepen their interest without feeling they must learn the whole past first.

In the six-member period, they gained experience in making a single stage work while showing off each member's skills. Rather than leaning on one standout, each member took a different role, which raised the group's polish.

The synchronization and adaptability honed on stage are not a brand that can be built easily later. The skills accumulated before debut stayed at the core of what makes Snow Man Snow Man even after the group grew to nine.

In a group with a shared language, the remaining members can hold the base when someone steps forward. Fans who watch beyond the center and the standout moments, to position changes, supporting movements and transitions, can read the "skill of holding the whole together" cultivated in the six-member era. If the production side can explain that core, it can show what was carried over after the lineup changed.

In this business, even people with the ability sometimes never get the chance. If the line of those waiting is long and the way ahead is blocked, no one can move.

That is why being ready when a chance does come is decisive. What you did while you waited is tested in that single moment.

From the outside, years of paying dues look like waiting time. In fact, some things can only be learned there: a feel for the stage, judgment about where to stand, how to build stamina.

That is why talking only about the number of years is also disrespectful to the person. Take the view that they were not made to wait; they were building up, and the axis of evaluation changes.

For fans, too, knowing this period gives their support more depth, because they know not only how the group looks now but the road that led there.

In January 2019, Koji Mukai, Ren Meguro, and Raul joined, and the group changed from six to nine. The big change unsettled existing fans, but the group built its next form while carrying that unease.

Mukai's variety-show talent, Meguro's acting career, Raul's modeling presence: the new members brought not just numbers but new ways in. It can be seen as a re-editing that added different roles without erasing the existing skills.

Fans accept change at different speeds. Loving the earlier lineup and recognizing the value of the new members can coexist. When the agency does not erase the past and shows concretely who took on what role after the new members joined, there is a path to understanding that is more than just for or against. The new members are also spared the one-sided burden of being "the ones who saved the group."

Debuting late ended up giving the group depth. They came out into the world with experience already built up.

The number six was also settled in this period. When the number of members changes, so does the way to present the group, and what has been built up has to be rearranged.

Even so, the group held its shape, probably because each member's skills stood on their own. A composition that does not depend on any one person holds up well against change.

On January 22, 2020, Snow Man and SixTONES debuted on the same day. Snow Man put dance and variety forward, SixTONES musicality, and the contrast turned the day's buzz into a way in for each.

By refusing to reduce the rivalry to a comparison of who is better, and putting their different appeals into words, they widened attention to the whole market. The closer in time groups appear, the more important it is to explain their individuality.

An easy-to-grasp story like a same-day debut also produces comparison articles and a race over numbers. Fans can convey a group's appeal without putting another group down by saying which songs, stages and posts drew them, rather than treating sales and rankings alone as proof of support. The agency, too, should use the shared topic as a way in while making sure a different experience awaits once people move on to each group's own work.

The story of this period is now told almost like a legend. It also helps that people who lived through that time are still there to testify.

Being praised as a group of skilled performers has another side. Many people support them not because they are good but because they watched them get good.

Someone who came in at the finished product and someone who watched along the way see the same stage differently. Neither is right; both ways of seeing exist, and we want to start from that premise.

The decision to change the number of members was received in this context too. Whether new members are welcomed depends on whether what had been built up before reached the audience.

When strengths in dance, intellect, beauty, acting, anime, hosting and more are made clear, nine members, nine colors let fans enter through the one who suits them. Being able to move on to the other members afterward is the strength of the whole group.

When talking about years of paying dues, hardship must not be taken for granted. By conveying, alongside the story of effort, the person's own will, rest and an environment in which they can keep going in peace, we can hold a view in which success is not the only right answer.

The size of a fan club is not the goal itself; it is the result of varied ways in and a long story piling up. If we can understand who came in through which activity and which member or work they moved on to next, individual work can grow as movement around the whole group rather than a fight over members. Both are needed: many ways in, and a place to return to the stage everyone builds together.

What the first half of the Snow Man story shows is not measures taken after they became popular, but the skills they honed before and the way roles were designed after the change. They did not leave the long years as one person's hardship story but translated them into the value of the group, and that supported their growth. At the same time, not using today's success to justify past burdens is a condition for continuing future activities in peace.

That accumulation cannot be seen from the outside, which is why it needs to be told.

For new fans who did not know this period, the stories of paying dues are just history. Even so, they keep being told because they are the reason for what we see today.

Knowing the past is not a condition of support. But knowing it does change how you see.

It takes time for what has been built up to show. Having people who spent that time alongside them is the strength of this field.

In Part 2, we look at how this accumulation turned into support.