On August 13th, the final episode of "THE FIRST", a boy group audition show produced by SKY-HI, was aired on the television program "Sukkiri". During this episode,
SKY-HI announced the contestants who will be making their debut and revealed the new group's name.
However, right before, it was suddenly announced that SKY-HI had changed his mind about the number of members, raising it from five to seven.
The group is called BE:FIRST, and it consists of world championship-winning dancer Sota Shimao, former "a-genic PROJECT" contestant Shunto Kubo, aspiring singer-songwriter Manato Hirose, actor Ryoki Miyama,
former avex trainee Leo Kamimura and two relative newcomers to the entertainment industry: Junon Ikegame and 14 year-old Ryuhei Kuroda.
However, after announcing the seven members selected for the group, SKY-HI also surprised viewers by offering singer-songwriter Shota Watanabe a solo artist contract with his management company/label BMSG. He stated
that he can envision working on music with him in many different forms, but decided to leave him out of BE:FIRST because he feels that the non-musical activities that go along with being in a boy group may not suit his disposition over the long term.
He also offered trainee contracts to the two other top 10 contestants excluded from the group, dancer Ran Furuie and newcomer Reiko Cadsawan.
BE:FIRST's first release has already been announced as well. Their "pre-debut" single Shining One will be hitting digital platforms on August 16th, and a music video will be unveiled on the same day. The song was produced by m-flo's ☆Taku Takahashi and SKY-HI. The top 10 contestants
originally performed the track in two competing groups of five as part of their final challenge, but this will be a new seven-member version.
In addition, BE:FIRST will perform live for the first time on "Sukkiri" on August 25th.
SKY-HI stated that the group's official debut will likely happen sometime this year, but a specific date has not been set just yet.
In the meantime, an official website and social media accounts have been launched for the group. Overseas fans can also keep an eye on BMSG's YouTube channel, which is still uploading full English-subtitled episodes of "THE FIRST" at a slower pace than the Japanese broadcasts.
A teaser for the Shining One MV can be viewed below, followed by a video recapping the training camp stage of "THE FIRST" and ending with SKY-HI and the top 11 contestants dancing to the show's theme song To The First together to celebrate its conclusion.
