The “stopping” Arashi chose is not an ending but a redesign of the relationship
Since their debut in 1999, Arashi have become a household name in Japan through music, variety shows, TV dramas, commercials and concerts at Tokyo's National Stadium. They went on hiatus at the end of 2020, and announced that they would end their activities as a group with their 2026 tour.
For fans, a hiatus or the end of activities doesn't mean losing what they love. It became a time for the group and the fans to think together about the choice to keep some distance in order to keep going.
People take in a big change at different speeds. Some want to put it into words right away, some want to watch old footage, and some want to step away from the news for a while. When the official side treats no single reaction as the right one, and keeps the announcement and future schedule available to check at any time, fans get time to think.
Fans can feel gratitude and loneliness toward the members at the same time. Even if they hope for a return or a continuation, that hope shouldn't become an obligation for the members. A distance that neither denies feelings nor pressures anyone to change a decision protects everyone's dignity to the very end of a long relationship.
At the scale of a household name, ways of cheering are no longer uniform. People who have watched for years and people who only recently found out are in the same place.
An atmosphere that didn't pit those differences against each other must have counted for a lot here.
Deciding to stop is harder than carrying on. The more people involved, the greater the impact.
Behind the choice to stop anyway are the members' own lives. There is no reason to demand that people who kept going for over twenty years simply keep going.
- 01ActiveLive shows and works
- 02RestingThe members' own lives
- 03RememberingSongs and footage
- 04Passing it onFans' memories
- 05Meeting at milestonesA new form
Oshi-katsu time continues as memories and conversation, even in periods with no new supply.
A hiatus and an end of activities sound similar but mean different things. Keep fans' interpretations and headlines separate from the wording the members officially announced, and you can watch over their current activities without filling in future plans by speculation.
Twenty-seven years of watching five people grow overlapped with fans' own lives
Arashi fans weren't all living the same life when the group debuted. At each milestone, from student to working adult to starting a family, there were Arashi songs and shows. The group's time becomes the fan's own personal history.
That's why the end of activities is both a farewell to something you love and a moment that makes you look back on your own past. The works preserve the memories of fans' lives. For a group that has been active this long, the value of the support can't be measured by the number of purchases alone.
When you sort through your memories, you don't have to keep everything at hand, and you don't have to let it all go neatly. Just choosing one song you played a lot, one concert you don't want to forget and a conversation with a friend can show what it all meant to you. Putting into words what kind of time you received, rather than how much merchandise you own, carries the memories into your next stage of life.
Fans' memories are not all the same. The years they joined and the activities they loved differ, so deciding on a single “real Arashi” pushes someone's memories out the door. Being able to lay different entrances side by side and talk about them is the richness a long career leaves behind.
Choosing a hiatus rather than an end to activities has influenced other groups too. It gave groups one more option.
The word hiatus carried meaning as well. It doesn't say ending, and it leaves possibilities open.
Some people are frustrated by that vagueness. But not spelling things out can sometimes make it easier to keep a relationship going.
- 01Keep listening to the worksThe recordings and footage remain
- 02Follow solo activitiesEach in their own place
- 03Gather on anniversariesShared among fans
- 04Quietly rememberSupport by doing nothing
Organized by The Oshi Lab. Every form is support, and none ranks above another.
Whether to call a stop in activities an ending is for the receiving side to decide. The words the members declared and the meaning fans take from them don't always match.
That's exactly why the careful way it was put earned praise. How you communicate decides the relationship that follows.
The strength of being five, and respecting each person's own life
Arashi's songs and talk worked because of the five members' roles and the distance between them. Without relying on any one person's star power, the group offers the appeal of hako-oshi, supporting the whole group as a box with each member's individuality inside.
At the same time, each member has a life and choices of his own. What oshi-katsu will need from now on is to love the group's story while respecting each individual's decisions.
Hako-oshi doesn't ask all five to make the same choice at all times. Rather than seeing solo activities only as a preview of the group's return, take them as the work that person has chosen now. If you can respect the relationship built as a group and each member's present separately, expectations won't turn into surveillance.
MEMORY CAREFour choices for taking in an important milestone without strain
- Check the full official announcement and its date
- Don't rush to post reactions; make days when you step away from the news
- Choose the works and memories you want to keep by your own standard
- Respect the different ways the members and other fans take it in
When a big group stops, it affects the industry around it: TV programs, advertising, merchandise. A lot of work rested on it.
That the members' own judgment still came first shows how this field has changed. Individual lives were placed ahead of business convenience.
Twenty-seven years overlap with fans' lives too. Someone who watched from their school days now has a family.
Because of that length, stopping means more.
Two values that hako-oshi supports
Through songs, conversation and live shows, they create a sense of unity no individual has alone.
Each decides the pace at which to rest, work and express themselves.
The archive becomes a “home” fans can return to at any time
When activities end, fans start to worry that official videos and streams will no longer be available. It's important to preserve the songs, footage, photos and live records properly, and to provide a place where people can revisit them while rights are protected.
If new fans can enter the past, the end of activities can be an entrance too. Rather than closing the past, edit it into a form people can meet from the present. That is how to hand twenty-seven years to the next generation.
An archive should do more than store footage; it should explain when things were recorded, who appeared, which songs, and which parts can't be viewed for rights reasons. Separate a short guide for first-time visitors from a detailed index that long-time fans can search, and the vast history doesn't become a maze. When a publication period changes, we'd like to see it announced before it ends, along with how to access the material next.
Unofficial records also support a culture, but they have to be considered separately from redistributing footage or photos without permission. If fans can talk about their own memories and impressions and point people to the official works, rules that share memories while protecting rights can steer the wish to preserve toward handing things on rather than toward conflict.
The works remain even after activities stop, and being able to stream them has made it easier to keep the relationship going.
It also matters that past footage is publicly available. Whether there is material to remember with changes how memories remain.
The new oshi-katsu widens support from “owning” to “remembering”
Collecting all the merchandise and following every piece of news is not the only measure of passion. Listening to the songs from afar, watching footage at milestones, telling someone why you love them: there are ways to take part even after activities stop.
Being able to keep a distance you can sustain without strain is a culture that's kind to both the oshi and the fans. Leaving is not betrayal, and coming back is never too late. It is one of the new forms of oshi-katsu that Arashi have left behind.
Communities also have ways of getting through quiet periods. They can acknowledge equally those who gather on anniversaries, those who watch old works together and those who go back to their own lives. If no one is asked to prove their passion when activity drops, people who feel like revisiting the works can come back with peace of mind.
The fact that each member's activities continue also helps sustain the relationship. They haven't vanished from view entirely.
Even when the five aren't together, you can still see each of them in their own place. The form has changed, but the ones you follow are still there.
Each fan decides the relationship after activities stop. Some keep following, some step away, and some quietly remember.
None of these is the right one. The members do not have to decide even how the relationship ends, and that is what sets this case apart.
Being able to treasure the songs and memories even on days with no news protects the fans' time.
Summary: Arashi left a place to return to beyond the ending
- The courage to stopThey took the hiatus as a redesign of the relationship.
- Shared memoryTwenty-seven years of works overlapped with fans' lives.
- Freedom of distanceYou can choose days you don't follow and days you return at milestones.
Arashi's story does not connect fans only when activity is at its peak. The time spent facing the hiatus and the end of activities, looking back on the works and respecting the members' lives has become part of oshi-katsu too. Accept an ending, and the memories of what you loved last a long time.
Forms of support that don't ask too much may well become more common from here.
What people will talk about as a new way of doing oshi-katsu is likely this way of keeping distance: not asking too much, and letting yourself wait.
