How I got into this whole thing

I wrote myself that being a fan of these "underground groups" is not something that is common among foreign fans, so how did I get into this?

Not surprisingly, I get this question quite a bit, both from international and domestic friends and fans I talk to and I can't blame you all. So let me try and answer the question.

IF you want to be really really accurate with it, you'd have to start with my old fandoms, Tokusatsu and Tenimyu. Actors from both of those franchises have been part of more 'underground' and less mainstream music acts or groups. So those were my first brushes with the 'basement boys' genre.

It is hard, however, to really be involved and active in the scene without being in Japan because before the pandemic, almost everything that happened in the basement, stayed in the basement so to speak.

The term used by the fans here is 現場 (lit. scene, spot, location). You have to go to things in person as they happen live in a certain place, be it a live house or even out on the streets. And the streets is where people usually get pulled in. Most, if not all, of the underground groups have free street lives where they perform in spots near busy stations such as Shinjuku to draw the attention of passersby and maybe of scouts or other people of interest.

During street lives, the groups will usually do a mixture of cover songs and their own original songs.

BANQUET Street Live: Michishirube (Orange Range - Cover)

BANQUET Street Live: Asterisk * (Orange Range - Cover)

BANQUET Street Live: Shall We Dance (BANQUET Original Song)

The groups will then hand out flyers that advertise other events they are taking part in or their official social media channels etc. which is how you can get more information on them and their activities.

I often came across street lives in the places I lived or worked in and sometimes groups did draw my attention and I'd get their flyers and check them out, which is how I got interested in some of the events. With my schedule being pretty restricted it was hard to go but there were some events I could go to and so I went. And I had a lot of fun, so I kept going.

The better known evens in the underground dance&vocal circuit could be "Men's UTAGE" and "SWISH" (both have hence moved online, with streaming on MixChannel and Nico Nico Douga respectively).

UTAGE Plus Spot Commercial

There are also events in the underground idol circuit and some events have some overlap (the Harajuku JOL lives or the Ikebukuro JOL stages had groups from both sides of the aisle), so they offer a big variety and people will usually find a group or two they might be interested in.

I have to say I learned a lot at those and from those events. Having come from a large scale fandom like JE, this was a completely different world to me and compared to musicals and stage shows, both the fandom and the events worked differently as well. And what can I say, I LIKE it.

 

Like, in JE, there were many different groups to watch and follow and all have their unique points etc. but everything is somehow still very very Johnny's. In the basement, the groups can be very different. Refreshingly different, weirdly different, idk you name it lol

There will be a separate entry about the different types of events, so I won't go into detail about them here.

So yeah, I fell hard and fast into this thing after seeing a group (WhiteA) at an event at a mall close to my old work place. I checked out their YouTube, forgot about things for a while, then got notifications about their YouTube again and then things went from there. At the same time I also got into another group via YouTube recommendations, called 9bic, a newly formed idol boys group. So I found myself going to both dance&vocal events as well as idol group events.

 

WhiteA at said event, performing their original songs "Turn It Up" and "Fire Burning"

9bic's first one-man live (I think?), their biggest concert at that time. I'm in the crowd somewhere lol

I have since stopped going to 9bic stuff and am no longer following them as closely as I did before because man, idol fandom is crazy lol but it was a learning experience.

Anyway, that's how I got into things. It's hard to become a fan from overseas - or at least it was before the pandemic. Now that the 現場 has moved online, it is a lot easier to connect with the groups and stumble across them on the world wide interwebs.

Thanks for reading!