SPEED celebrates their 25th anniversary

The popular pop group straight from Okinawa, SPEED, which were born from the same Okinawa Actors School that their seniors Amuro Namie and members of MAX were from, may have not been as active as they were since the mid-to-late ’90s but the members still make the headlines.

With a 25th anniversary box set titled “SPEED MUSIC BOX – ALL THE MEMORIES-” containing all their singles, album songs and unreleased songs released on January 13th.

And while most anniversaries lead to some reunion concerts (which the group did for their 10th anniversary), due to the members being busy with their own individual careers, don’t expect SPEED to perform together anytime soon. especially due to the novel coronavirus.

Imai Eriko is a politician for the Liberal Democratic Party.

Shimabukuro Hiroko is still active as a solo singer.

Arakai Hitoe (HITOE) got married in 2013 and has been out of the spotlight.

While Uehara Takako remarried in December 2018 and gave birth to her first child.

Imai was able to bounce back from a scandal when she and another politician had a relationship and it was revealed the man was married (which he then came out to say he was divorcing his wife).

But news of SPEED has been focused on member/dancer Uehara Takako.

While Uehara has been embroiled with scandal due to marrying TENN of the group ET-KING, who committed suicide in 2014, leaving a suicide note saying it was due to his wife having an affair (because he was unable to have children). The affair had been exposed by her deceased husband’s family. Since getting married, her new husband director Kokazuya went on attack against hateful comments that he would do anything to protect his wife and child from attacks which somewhat backfired and left the theater company he belonged to.

Uehara has since made her return, becoming an apprentice of world famous garden designer Ishihara Kazuyuki. And since her return to social media, showing that she is pursuing a career as a landscaping designer.