Basement Boys Blog

I focused on in-person tokutenkai in my previous post HERE and only mentioned online ones in passing at the end but since we still live in a global pandemic and online events and tokutenkai have more or less become the norm, I'll talk about that a bit more today.

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.

All idol groups vie for the support of their fans. In return, fans try to support their favourite idols and favourite members. How do you support your favourites? You buy their goods and merchandise. In the underground idol world, the "Goods/Merchandise Sales" (物販 Buppan) is not always about buying actual goods (e.g. penlights, t-shirts, etc.) but can be about buying 'time' in way. AKB48 created what is called the trend of "idols you can meet" and the Underground idol industry is very much about that. It all happens in "reward sessions" for fans called "tokutenkai" (特典会), which are similar to what is called a "Meet & Greet" in the West.

Warning: LONG POST Defining or thematic colours are everywhere in Japanese pop-culture. Characters have 'image colours' and some groups have a 'group colour' and then even within groups the members have their own 'member colours'. The main reason for having these colours is for "identification purposes" e.g. how to identify with your group or your favourite member of the group. Groups featured in this post in length are: ☆ WhiteA ☆ 9bic

Since I just updated the main website with the "What are Basement Boys?" section, I'd like to elaborate a little bit about the topic here on the blog.