Today is the Kinro Kansha no Hi (Labor Thanksgiving Day) national holiday.
With their latest chart topper, Kinki Kids have now had more No.1 albums than any other male idol act. With their 9th album going straight to No.1, they surpassed their Johnny’s Jimusho stablemates SMAP and V6 on eight. “H Album-Hand” has sold almost quarter of a million copies in its first week. Meanwhile, member Domoto Koichi (photo, 26) is going to be taking his job even more seriously. As one half of the hugely popular duo – the other half being Domoto Tsuyoshi (no relation) – he has been an idol for over a decade. But Koichi has always been the more serious of the two and now he is being rewarded with a new level of responsibility. From 2007 he will take over the running of an annual stage show at Tokyo’s Imperial Theater which, for the seven years up to the 2006 production, has been run by his boss Johnny Kitagawa. Koichi will be responsible for the production, casting, music and creation of the show. “Endless Shock,” the 2006 show, will be put on in February and March of next year. Tickets are already extremely hard to come by.