We were lucky enough to head to Singapore last week to catch Arashi’s whirlwind four-city press tour titled Jet Storm. The band departed from Haneda Airport late evening on the 9th to visit four cities, Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok, and Taipei – logging a total of 12,982 kilometres in mileage and 39 hours in flight time!

During the press tour, the band personally thanked their fans in Asia for their support since their debut in 1999. It has been 13 years since the last ‘Jet Storm’ was held in 2006, but their fan base is still going strong. “Since we have been active mainly within Japan, I was so unbelievably happy that we have been receiving so much support from overseas,” raves Sakurai.

Arashi’s next concert is set for May 15-16 in the National Stadium in Tokyo, where they have a lot of fond memories of performing. They are excited to perform there before the Olympics open. They will be performing in Beijing next spring, too.

Sadly, Arashi also announced that they will be going on hiatus in 2020. They assure us that we don’t need to feel sad, though, because they have opened five official social media accounts to ensure that we don’t feel lonely. And if we do feel lonely, we can still listen to their music online, even when they’re on hiatus.

“By starting to use social media, I think overseas fans will feel closer to us more than ever,” says Sakurai. “Although in distance, we are far apart; we would like to provide various contents so that fans can feel that we are connected even across the sea. So please do follow us.”

“Hopefully, they will want to get to know more about us and Japanese’s entertainment scene as a whole this way,” they add. They also ask for everyone to comment whenever they post. “The more responses we receive, the happier we will be, so please send as many responses as you can,” they plead. “Let’s do a lot of fun stuff through social media,” urges Ohno.

And oh, in case you haven’t seen their latest music video ‘Turning Up’ yet, here it is:

 

Although the group will be going on a hiatus in about a year’s time, they will be going digital as part of their long dream of “causing an ARASHI (ARASHI – direct translation of ‘a STORM’ in Japanese) world-wide. Stay in touch with them here:

Arashi

Website: https://www.j-storm.co.jp/arashi

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Arashi5Official

Twitter: @arashi5official

Instagram: @arashi_5_official

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ARASHI_5_Official