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With the popularity of Morning Musume and Hello! Project and just a few years before AKB48 became popular, the music label avex trax was embarking on their own idol project known as Girl’s BOX.
Similar to Hello! Project which had Morning Musume, Country Musume, Coconuts Musume, Taiyo to Ciscomoon, Berryz Kobo, Mini-Moni, Melon Kinenbi, °C-ute, Goto Maki, Matsuura Aya, Heike Michiyo to name a few.
Avex Trax had numerous idol groups, with the most popular being dream (2003-2017) (featuring Matsumoro Mai, Tachibana Kana and Hasebe Yu), a group which was formed in 1999, and with Matsumuro’s graduation in 2002, the group expanded to include six more members: Ai Risa, Abe Erie, Takamoto Sayaka, Nakashima Ami, Nishida Shizuka and Yamamoto Sayaka. Many who were developed as trainees and students at Avex Artist Academy and many who would transition to become members of E-Girls (a vocal/dance project featuring members of Dream, Happiness and Flower).
The idol group Fruit Punch (2002-2007) born from the children’s TV series “Oha Suta”.
Avex Trax also had SweetS (2003-2006), a group featuring five of the winners of the avex audition 2002 who immediately appeared on TV Tokyo’s variety show “Platinum Ticket” in 2003.
The label also had PARADISE GO!! GO!! (2004-2006) featuring students from Caless Vocal & Dance School Osaka.
Avex would collaborate with Japanese automobile exhibition “Tokyo Auto Salon” who had image girls for their events known as A-class (Avex worked on an original son and an official CD album for Tokyo Auto Salon).
Avex would also feature the group “with”) which included gravure model Wakatsuki Chinatsu (who is now the owner of the design company, WC JAPAN), gravure model Iori, Takasugi Satomi (who would become the 2007 Nihon Record Taisho Newcomer Award winner) and Hoshino Kana.
vivace was the female idol group that served as image girls for the 2004 All Japan GT Championship.
And solo talent which included Becky, actress/model/seiyuu Kato Natsuki, gravure idol Ogura Yuko, Hoshii Nanase (who also had a rock n’ roll alter ego, Seventh Tarz Armstrong), singer and actress Kayo Aiko, singer/actress (now yoga instructor) Saito Michi and tokusatsu actress/singer Nagasawa Nao, who was known as Nono Nanami/Hurricane Blue in the 2002 super sentai series, “Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger”.
The project would feature compilation albums, TV series and events featuring various groups and members. Including members becoming part of the Sphere League, a soccer league featuring female futsal players and there was no doubt that Avex was gearing for a showdown between the Girl’s BOX group vs. the Hello! Project group, Gatas Brilhantes HP (who would end up leaving the league after the 2005-2006 season). Team Dream didn’t do as well, but their participation would get them notice among those interested in the Sphere League.
Music-wise, the project would featuring Christmas collaborations among groups. The first was in December 2003 featuring dream, Fruit Punch and SweetS, 2004 with dream, SweetS and Kayo Aiko and in 2005 with dream, Nagasawa Nao, SweetS, Hoshii Nanase, Kayo Aiko, PARADISE GO!! GO!! GO!! and Saito Michi.
And Girl’s BOX compilation albums featuring the music from these talents and singers would be released.
I had the opportunity to work with various departments and to possibly find a way to bring the artists to events outside of Japan and the major push was for dream, Kayo Aiko, Nagasawa Nao and a few others. Interesting enough, the other idol group that was being pushed but not part of the Girl’s BOX umbrella, was HINOI Team.
Nagasawa Nao drew a lot of interest because of her role in “Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger”. Also, because of her gravure, that she became a major draw for that.Nagasawa was with King Records through 2002 but by March 2005, she officially transferred to Avex.
But musically, I wasn’t sure if the label knew how to capitalize on Nagasawa’s popularity. They eventually chose the sexy route by focusing on “Love Bodies”, music that would showcase Nagasawa being sexy because “sex sells”.
While the opposite would be done for Kayo Aiko, who gave off the more idol vibe. Cute and vibrant but so popular that the label wanted to push Kayo as well. A long time trainee of Avex Artists Academy, there was a lot of hope that her style would captivate idol fans outside of Japan.
In fact, Kayo was in the final selection for Morning Musume’s LOVE Audition 21 and she had already had done voice acting roles. In fact, she made it her slogan, “A-MUSIC-kai no Seijun-ha Aidoru” (An Innoncent idol in the A-MUSIC world!).
By 2006, there were major restructuring taking place with Avex Trax and many of the idol groups were disbanded.
SweetS was a group that seemed as it was on a road to potential with their 2004 single “Grow into shinin’ stars/Never ending story” which reached no. 19 but every other single afterward was a struggle to reach the top 40. By 2006, as the members were preparing for high school entrance exams, the group would release two more singles and the final, “Color of Tears” would be a graduation single. The members would reunite in 2013 to hang out and talk about memories. At least, the group was able to say goodbye with their final single.
As opposed to Paradise Go!! Go!! who had a party on August 6, 2006 to commemorate the group’s July 2006 live DVD “PARADISE GO!! GO!! LIVE TOUR 2006 ‘Dear my friends’. But that party was the last time the girls would celebrate a release as a group.
As I was working with the label for dream and HINOI TEAM, more changes were in store for 2007-2008 to coincide with the restructuring and global economic disaster. For dream, they would change their name to DRM in 2007 and last founding member Hasebe Yu would graduate from the group. My special feature on the group would be pushed on hiatus and the label wanted me to focus on a different group entirely, which would be AAA.
I still had placeholders in my articles of “Coming soon…dream” and as for HINOI Team, an article was published with comments made by a member that looked like it wasn’t vented properly and to make a long story short, the group was no more.
I really wanted to cover the idol angle of things and at the time, I was already receiving promotion material from a new idol group at the time known as AKB48 and what was being planned in Akihabara.
By 2008, DRM changed to Dream and Avex Trax’s Matsuura Max was going to disband the group, until their manager begged Matsuura to allow them to continue activities. So, Dream was given a second chance as the group members was transferred from Avex Trax to LDH (Love, Dream and Happiness), an entertainment company established by very popular group EXILE and the company was led by EXILE member, HIRO.
Fortunately for Dream, they would find new life a few year later through LDH as the members would become part of E-Girls.
As for Girl’s BOX, Avex tried one final effort to bring together three of their existing and most popular members to form a group, Kingyo featuring former dream member Hasebe Yu, Nagasawa Nao and Kayo Aiko.
But unfortunately, it was the nail in the coffin. The global economic affected not just the music industry but the animation industry. Japanese companies established in the US shut down, there was major trimming of artists and groups from many labels.
Kayo’s contract was terminated at the end of 2007.
Nagasawa Nao would also end in 2007, but a final best album and best video clips were released in 2008 and she would be rebranded as Vo.NAO as part of a rock band known SONIC MEGAPHONE (the weapon she used as Hurricane Blue) and on the cover, she would be featured in a green bikini.
OG dream member, Hasebe Yu would focus on her acting career after moving to LDH.
And that was it. It was the end of the Girl’s BOX project.
I’ve often thought about Girl’s BOX and was the timing just right or just bad timing?
Of course, no one would have predicted the global economic crisis, but even before that happened, things were changing with avex trax. The label was always known for its dance music, but at the time, there was a major shift of what people listened to and that was Japanese rock music.
During the mid-2000s, we saw D&D member Olivia and Tsuchiya Anna achieve good success with the “NANA” campaign. We saw avex sign more Japanese rock acts, while for dance music, the dominance was more towards soul R&B. EXILE and m-flo were leading the charge and the idol wave which Morning Musume brought, was showing signs of slowing down as original members started to leave the group.
The resurgence of idol music was growing and AKB48 started to show glimpse of something special through it’s theater promotions in Akihabara.
But 2009, was when we started to see the resurgence of idol music and AKB48 recorded the million seller with “RIVER” and the AKB48G and also the Zaka46 groups continue to be as dominant. Granted, signs of popularity has been seen in the past few years, but there are more and more idol groups from major and independent labels.
But I have seen this before. Idol popularity surging and waning has often happened. When AKB48 producer Akimoto Yasushi worked on songs for Onyanko Club, we started to see a rise in idol groups in the ’80s, Wink, CoCo, Tokyo Performance Dolls to name a few. Then popularity waned again for several years until Morning Musume debuted in early 1998, idol interest was high once again and Fuji TV producer Mizuguchi Masahiro would introduce Chekikko who were seen on their own TV show “DAIBAtteki!”. But Chekikko would only last from 1998-1999.
While Hello! Project would have a foothold and were dominant, you have to give credit to avex trax for taking on the challenge as any competition is good competition and they were showcasing idol acts and artists, but instead of a television presence, to capitalize on onlilne technology available at that time.
So, I feel the timing was just right. 2003-2007 were good years, otherwise, if they were to debut anywhere between 2010-2017, I just don’t think anyone could stand up against the power of the AKB48/SKE48/NMB48/HKT48/Nogizaka46 dominance. There have been numerous idol groups, including the Hello! Project groups that were still ongoing, but they were unable to be on the level of sales dominance that Morning Musume once had. And surely, avex trax idol groups were not able to get into that competitive space that Hello! Project had in the 2000s, there was no way they would even garner any semblance of what they achieved in the 2010’s.
With that being said, I do feel that the Girl’s BOX talents would have benefited with today’s streaming technology and faster bandwidth. May it be SHOWROOM or YouTube. The choices today are much better than what was available between 2003-2007. Although, I can’t say for sure if SNS would be better or a detriment to the project.
In addition, I think that time shows that things ended up being the best for Dream, who transitioned to LDH and LDH giving the group of injection of excitement with their new project, E-Girls, which the group would be known until disbanding in 2020 (note: The original Dream members had left or were disbanded as part of the reformation of the E.G. Evolution campaign of 2017).
Nagasawa Nao’s venture into acting after SONIC MEGAPHONE would lead her to appearing in the film “Hotel Chelsea” in which she won the “Best Actress Award” at the Myrtle Beach International Film Festival. And she would establish herself as a Tokusatsu favorite in appearing in several “Kamen Rider” films and appeared on many TV series since then. And most recently, in the web drama “Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger with Donbrothers” reprising her role as Hurricane Blue.
Hasebe Yu has ventured into stage acting, while Kayo Aiko changed her stage name with Aiko in Hiragana instead of Kanji and is now focused on modeling, costume design and stage work.
But for the most part, while the project may not be remembered by the masses, for those who were fans of these idol groups or idols, would remember a project that had tremendous potential but due to circumstances, didn’t fully achieve the success that was to be expected of it.
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- Ongaku Cafe (The 2000s): Nagasawa Nao – To You (2007)