Total of 2.6 billion video views and a vision of Tokyo Dome concert—Junior and senior high students are crazy about, who is 'Sutopuri'?
'Strawberry Prince' (Sutopuri) is an entertainment unit group consists of six men who originated on the internet, with the total number of video views on YouTube and TwitCasting exceeding 2.6 billion times. Basically, you can only meet the members to see their real faces at their live performances and handshake events while working with illustrations in place of avatars. This unique "2.5-dimensional" style helps to create a somewhat mysterious atmosphere. In this interview, we find out why they have such a loyal fanbase, especially among junior and senior high school students.
Johnny's? LDH? Illustrated Version of K-POP?
In 2016, Nanamori (25) formed Sutopuri, a group of 6 members who are active in the internet. They perform music activities based on live broadcasts on Twitcast and Youtube, usually using the illustrated characters. They sometimes described as "two-dimensional idols on the internet" but their leader, Nanamori neither denies nor approve it but laughed, "I hope you can enjoy it in the way you like."
Last year, it marked a major shift in the tide, starting with their CD debut on March with "Strawberry Start" which was followed by decorations on FamilyMart stores across the country through corporate collaboration and successfully performed 2 Days MetLife Dome and their first national tour. In the live attendance data published in Nikkei Entertainment December 2019 issue, they were ranked as fifth on 'Top 5 Artists within 3 Years of Debut'.
According to Yahoo!Japan search data, the overwhelming majority of people searching for "Sutopuri" are women, many of them are in their teens and 40s. When we assumed that there are parents and children who were enjoying themselves as a fans like Johnny's idols, Nanamori nodded with a smile.
I feel that the number of listeners who say "I'm supporting you with my parents" are increasing. However, I also know that there are many listeners who feel frustrated when their parents tell them to "stop liking these ambiguous people". One of the reasons why we do activities that go out in real life is so that we can be a group which our listeners can proudly say 'I like you'. In this interview, we want to deliver a message not only to our listeners, but also to their parents as well.
For our parents' generation, we're often described in various ways which similar to Johnny's, LDH and illustrated version of K-pop. But, 'Sutopuri' is an entertainment group made up of six people who are able to deliver a variety of activities based on video streaming. We don't have an easy to understand name such as "V-tuber" or "Youtuber" which is why we've been struggling with it lately...
There is no lie in live broadcast
The Sutopuri members were originally do different kind of genres such as Nanamori who mainly do livestream project plan, Colon (24) and Satomi (27) who are good at playing video games, Jel (24) who posts original anime videos, Root (22) and Riinu (22) who do music-related activities. After the formation of Sutopuri, they also actively do livestream, release CDs and do live performance as a group. How did Nanamori come up with the idea of this new form of activity?
I wanted to see a group of 'activists' from various genres. I want to see a group of people who are active in a variety of different genres. It seems like the audience is divided like an island for people who do 'Utattemita', 'Game broadcast' and 'Youtubers who shows their face'. There was a time when fans felt uneasy when people from other genres crossed paths with each other. When I was told (as someone who does livestream project plan) that I shouldn't do anything idol-like when I sang. I thought to myself, "There are people who are worried about me doing something that I've never done before. I felt like what I thought the internet was a free place was actually becoming a little bit cramped and I was bothered by it. When the feeling of "we could do something more fun" grew, I formed a group and asked everyone to join me.
As a result, the total number of views of the group as a whole has surpassed 2.6 billion. It's not only the number of view of the group's main channel, ut also the number of views of each member's video has increased like a synergistic effect. Why have they gained so much support in just 4 years since their formation? Nanamori replied:
As we mainly broadcast live videos as Sutopuri, we have more and more chances to deliver our words directly to our listeners. There are many of our original songs which express 'Thank you' and 'I love you' in a straightforward manner. When I was a student, I never had the opportunity to express my gratitude to my friends, lover, and family except at special times. Now that we're active as Sutopuri, we get direct feedback and gratitude from our listeners through comments on our video distribution and Twitter. That's why we want to continue to express our honest 'thank you' on a daily basis. I think that the six of us and the listeners thoughts overlap because of Sutopuri's current activities.
The other thing is that we don't act or lie and rather deliver it as it is. For example, if it's recorded video, I think it's easy to edit our and redo it. But with us, it's live broadcast, so we can't edit or redo it.
The long hours of live broadcast were done when middle and high school students are on spring and summer break. In 2019, 192 relay live broadcast was done. They were also live streaming their preparations for their performances at Nagoya Dome in March and Tokyo Dome in summer, which were scheduled for this year. All of the members said that live broadcast is the appeal of Sutopuri.
We get together every Sunday for live broadcast but even on the days when we don't have an official broadcast, members will live broadcast everyday. Including the members' solo live broadcast, we do it 15 times a week. When you put all the videos and twitter pots together, the volume of real-time information arrives steadily in a tremendous volume. It seems that the listeners who support us are having a hard time keeping up with it (laughs). Rather than trying to deliver a perfect product, we tell them everything we want to deliver in real time. When people hear about out live performance at the Budokan or Dome, it feels like it's a long way off but by listening to us talk about our preparations and watching the photos and videos of the scenes, we feel like we're moving forward as one and I think it's great to have the listeners feel the same way.
I don't think the world really understands the appeal of live broadcast. With live broadcast, I feel like I'm able to interact with the listeners at a really close distance, just like a friend or lover. I think that's why so many of our listeners have started coming to us, because they sense the unique appeal of broadcast.
Our goal as a group is to be a group that can be proudly say "I love you" to friends, lovers and family. We want to be the activists who are closest to our listeners. When things get rough, you can listen to Sutopuri songs and feel encouraged, listening to live broadcast and laugh a little bit. I want us to be a healing place. I really hope that by working hard in doing all Sutopuri activities, It will be a first step to make the listeners feel "Maybe I should do my best too".
Nagoya Dome and Tokyo Dome were cancelled due to the coronavirus, but it was said that they were immediately looking forward with live broadcast.
We talked with the members about how frustrating it was. But soon, we were talking about how we had to make something new and fun for next time. A few hours of being depressed, we were live streaming as usual, so we were able to change our minds very quickly.
Realism is the key to mobilisation
In the live attendance data published by Nikkei Entertainment, they were ranked as fifth on 'Top 5 Artists within 3 Years of Debut'. However, the artists who were ranked higher than Sutopuri were artists from K-POP, Johnny's and LDH. Sutopuri, who just released their first CD in 2019 is a different kind of artist in this ranking.
From our perspectives, we are very honoured and grateful to be introduced with such prominent people. We will continue to value the 'sense of distance' between us and our listeners. Many of our listeners are very sensitive to that sense of distance. Some of them are happy that we are doing interviews like this and getting our stories out into the world, but others feel bewildered by it. The fact that the distance between us is so distant makes me feel stressed out, or maybe I'm just looking for something more real. I think that's one of the reasons why the reaction is concentrated on YouTubers. Younger people are more sensitive to that kind of thing and there are people who don't want to download the apps that are shown in the commercials and I think there is also a sense of value of believing only what they see and receive. I feel like our realness is being received every day.
One of the reasons for the mobilisation power of Sutopuri is that you can only meet Sutopuri real face only at live performances and handshake events.
For us, we're live broadcasting almost everyday 365 days a year but we only perform about 15 shows in a year when we're on tour. If you think about it, that's about 4% of our total activity. That's how special this place is, so we want to deliver it more realistically.
Various emotions packed into one device
Looking at the members' voices, it seems that one of the reasons Sutopuri are gaining support from middle and high school students is that they value the perspective of teenage life, which is difficult to live with.
We've been using various of SNS to communicate with our friends and get information, and I feel like we have the need to publish only good-looking photos on Instagram and feel little depressed when we see negative things on Twitter. We've been feeling all kinds of emotions stuck in one device. I think people are getting tired of it. I'm sure the listeners are thinking "What my parents and teachers say are completely different from the internet. Which way should I go?". I think there are times when you feel troubled about this. Many of our original songs are filled with our desire to push our listeners' back.
There are times when I feel troubled when I was a student. I hope that the existence of Sutopuri which can be enjoyed on your mobile phone without having to go anywhere, will lead to happiness for our listeners.
There were moments when I gave up on my dreams and there were times when the path was blocked. But if you take a step back and look at it, you can see many different path again, I want to tell the kids who are feeling the same way as I did in the past that there are other path which you can go.
I'll never forget the fun I had as a student and I think I was able to overcome my failures because of that experience. I'd be happy if I could make the listeners think "I had a good time because there is Sutopuri".
Sutopuri is set to perform at Nippon Budokan in 2021. On Twitter, fans often describe Sutopuri as 'Ikigai' (reason for living).
The coronavirus makes me feel depressed because we can't have our friend's company and enjoy things as usual. We've had to endure so much for more than half a year because we couldn't do all the events we could meet in real life, so meeting with the listeners in real life at the Budokan is a big step for us. So I would like to do my best to deliver it.
Sutopuri is a place for us and our listeners. It's a place where you can come back and feel safe. We're going to keep bringing you things that will make you happy, so I hope that you'll look forward to it!
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