Produce 101 Japan

***Produce 101 Japan*** is an Japanese reality survival show on TBS and GyaO!. It's a Large-scale project in which the public "produces" an eleven-member boy group by voting for their favorite members from a pool of 101 trainees, This time with trainees who are not tied on any talent agency.

## Background

In April 2019, Yoshimoto Kogyo and CJ E&M announced they would be co-producing a Japanese version of the *Produce 101* reality competition show with the intention of debuting an 11-member boy group in 2020. The group will be permanent and will be handled by LAPONE Entertainment. Auditions for the show took place from April 11 to May 31, 2019 for male Japanese residents aged 16-30 years old who were not tied to any talent agency. A total of 6,000 people auditioned for the show, and trainees were revealed on September 3, 2019, along with the show's theme song, "Tsukame (It's Coming)".

## Trainers

### Mentors

* Hiroyuki Yabe (Ninety Nine)
* Takashi Okamura (Ninety Nine)

### Vocals

* Sugai Hidenori
* Yasukura Sayaka

### Rap

* Cypress Ueno
* Bose

### Dance

* A-NON
* WARNER

## Episodes

### Episode 1

**(September 26, 2019)**

The lights turned on and 101 seats were shown. Unlike the Korean and Chinese counterpart, contestants were all individual trainees and introduced by their audition team\*. They chose where they wanted to sit from seats #1 to #101. Once every trainee was seated, the trainers entered the studio. The contestants then performed in front of the mentors for evaluation. Each individual was given a letter grade from A to F based on their overall talents, organizing them into temporary classes for training. At the end, the vote ranking was shown with Kawashiri Ren taking the 1st place.

\* *since they were all individual trainees, they were grouped for first class placement evaluation*.

### Episode 2

**(October 3, 2019)**

After the contestants were grouped according to their grades, the mentors announced *Produce 101 Japan*'s theme song "Tsukame (It's Coming)". Their positioning on stage was determined by their grades, with A ranked trainees having the most screen time. While F ranked trainees were backup dancers. The trainees had to memorize the choreography and the lyrics, after which they underwent a re-evaluation and had their grades reassigned. The trainees filmed themselves performing the song individually. Each video was then watched and evaluated by the mentors. The trainees were then given their new grades and asked to move into their new practice rooms. The episode ended with a mentor mentioning that there were A-class trainee who demoted to lower grade.

Vote ranking then was shown with Mamehara Issei taking the 1st place.

### Episode 3

**(October 10, 2019)**

The trainees moved to their new class. The new A-class trainees competed for the center position in "Tsukame (It's Coming)". Each of them filmed themselves performing Tsukame as a center and each video was then watched by lower-class trainees, who proceed to vote for their center pick. Kawashiri Ren was chosen to be the center after being revealed to be one of top three candidates along with Mamehara Issei and Miyajima Yugo.

After filmed the music video, Ninety Nine then announced the second mission: the position battle evaluation. The trainees were paired to perform live in teams based on positions they picked: vocal, rap, or dance. There were four songs for vocals (back number's "Happy Birthday", ONE OK ROCK's "Wherever You Are", superfly's "Tamashii Revolution", and Yonezu Kenshi's "Lemon"), four songs for dance (BTS's "DNA", Hey! Say! JUMP's "Over The Top", SEVENTEEN's "HIGHLIGHT", and EXILE The Second's "WILD WILD WILD"), and one original song for rap. Each song had different member limits.

All A-class trainees could select their preferred song first, then other trainees from B to F waited for their names called by the lucky draw. There were no trainee who chose superfly's "*Tamashii* Revolution" at first, in which last 12 trainees were automatically grouped for that song. Then it was announced that trainees who first chose each song can pick members for their own team. For "Tamashii Revolution", since no trainee chose the song, the team selector was determined by the lucky draw as well. Sato Ryuji then was chosen to be the one who can pick members for his team.

Each of the two teams of "DNA", "Wherever You Are", and "WILD WILD WILD" were shown performing in this episode. Vote ranking was shown in the end with Mamehara Issei taking 1st place again.

### Episode 4

**(October 17, 2019)**

The rehearsals and performances of the remaining 12 teams were shown. After all of the performances, the contestants were shown their ranking according to their groups and then overall in their positions. Ozawa Naoki emerged as the winner in the vocal position, Honda Kosuke emerged as the winner in dance position, and Mitsui Ryo emerged as the winner in the rap position.

### Episode 5

**(October 24, 2019)**

After all trainees entered the studio, Ninety Nine announced that one trainee had left the show due to personal reasons, bringing the number of trainees from 98 to 97 left. They also explained that the trainees from 61st to 97th place were going to be eliminated.

It was shown a "special clas" clip where the trainees and Ninety Nine disscussing about their trivias from the questionnaire they had been answered. A-NON and a well-known dancer FISHBOY hosted a dance battle, where in Aoki Masanami was winning the battle and all of D-class trainees received some prizes. The trainess also voted on the top 11 "visual centers", in which Kawanishi Takumi took 1st place.

The ranks of all trainees were announced from 59th place to 1st place, then 60th place; 1st place was Kawashiri Ren, and 60th place went to Furuya Akihito. The 61-97 ranked trainees were eliminated from the show.

### Episode 6

**(October 31, 2019)**

Ninety Nine announced that only 35 trainees would be remain in the next round, and explained about the trainees' third mission: the group battle evaluation. Trainees was split into 10 teams of 6 members and would be given a different song to perform: SHINee's "Everybody", TVXQ's "Why? (Keep Your Head Down)", BLACKPINK's "DDU-DU DDU-DU", BTS's "FIRE", EXO's "LOVE ME RIGHT", AAA's "Wake Up", Miura Daichi's "(RE)PLAY", Arashi's "Happiness", DA PUMP's "if...", and J SOUL BROTHERS's "RAISE THE FLAG".

As the 1st ranked trainee on previous ranking announcement, Kawashiri Ren was be able to pick members for his team. However, the highest ranked of remaining trainees was only be able to pick each 4 for their teams. There were formed 1 team of 6 members (Kawashiri Ren's team) and other 9 teams of 5 members; also remained 9 trainees who were not picked by anyone. The remained 9 trainees had the opportunity to freely choose the team they would like to be in. All of the teams then competed to choose the song through an obstacle course relay race.

The teams of "LOVE ME RIGHT", "if...", and "FIRE" were shown performing in this episode. Vote ranking was shown in the end with Kawanishi Takumi taking the 1st place.

### Episode 7

**(November 7, 2019)**

The rehearsals and performances of the remaining 7 teams were shown. After all of the performances, the contestants were shown their ranking based purely on their individual live votes without the benefit. Kawanishi Takumi took first place, and was further revealed to have taken first place overall as his team won the group battle.

### Episode 8

**(November 14, 2019)**

National Producer Representations Ninety Nine announced the beginning of the next evaluation prior to the second round of eliminations, meaning that all 60 trainees that have survived so far would continue to practice for the performances, but only survived 35 trainees in the next ranking announcement would get to perform. The evaluation was revealed to be a concept evaluation where viewers chose group formations from a poll online. Ninety Nine introduced the five songs: Future Pop "Black Out, Dance Hip-Hop "KungChiKiTa", House "Happy Merry Christmas", Retro House "Yancha BOY Yancha GIRL", and Future Bass "DOMINO".

In this episode also shown a clip "Friends' Insider Stories" where trainees share each other's secrets that they found out while living together during the show, and a clip where Tsurubo Shion and Kitagawa Reito being interviewed about their hidden friendship that had became the topic of talk in SNS.

The second round of eliminations took place during the second half of the episode. Names of the top 35 trainees were called by Ninety Nine one by one starting from rank 34. Kawanishi Takumi received the 1st place in the ranking announcement while Urano Shuta ranked 35th. The 36-60 ranked trainees were eliminated from the show.

### Episode 9

**(November 21, 2019)**

The staff announced that since there was an uneven number of members after the last elimination, team with more than seven members ("DOMINO") needed to vote on who stayed and who was kicked out. Then, the trainees who were kicked out of the song needed to move to the songs with less than seven members ("KungChiKiTa", "Yancha BOY Yancha GIRL"). Starting from the song that had the trainee with the highest rank, "KungChiKiTa" team got to choose which trainees they wanted in their team. After they chose, the rest of trainee, Ohira Shosei, automatically became part of "Yancha BOY Yancha GIRL" team. Right after that, all of the teams reallocated each member's position.

It was also shown "What's Inside the Box?" clip where all trainees were paired or going alone for playing hidden box challenge. Shiroiwa Ruki and Urano Shuta won the challenge and became the fastest after they guessed what's inside the box within 2 seconds. The teams of "Black Out" and "Yancha BOY Yancha GIRL" were shown performing in this episode. Vote ranking was shown in the end with Mamehara Issei taking the 1st place.

### Episode 10

**(November 28, 2019)**

It was shown a clip titled "Princess Visual Center". The trainees voted who they want to see them crossdressing. The seven winners of the poll then did crossdress, then the rest of trainess voted on "princess visual centers", in which Ando Tomoaki took 1st place.

This episode showed the live performances for the teams of "KungChiKiTa", "DOMINO", and "Happy Merry Christmas". "KungChiKiTa" team was declared the winner of the concept evaluation. The individual ranking for this concept evaluation showed Inoue Minato in 1st place.

### Episode 11

**(December 5, 2019)**

After all trainees entered the studio, Ninety Nine announced that one trainee had left the show due to personal reasons, bringing the number of trainees from 35 to 34 left. They also explained that the trainees from 21st to 34th place were going to be eliminated. The ranks of all trainees were announced from 19th place to 1st place, then 20th place; 1st place was Kawashiri Ren, and 20th place went to Imanishi Masahiko. The 21-34 ranked trainees were eliminated from the show.

With the top 20 confirmed, Ninety Nine announced the next and final mission: the debut song evaluation. They introduced "YOUNG" and "GrandMaster" as the final line-up's debut songs and explained that the trainees would be split into two teams of 10, each team composed of one main vocal, some sub vocals, and some rappers. The trainees chose their positions beginning with rank 20 up to 1, with the higher ranked trainees being given the advantage of replacing the lower ranked trainees and bumping them into another position. After positions were confirmed, they began practicing the choreography and memorizing the lyrics in preparation for the final stage.

However, in the end, it was shown an announcement that three days after the final debut evaluation training camp started, Jeong Younghoon and Kim Yoondong had withdrew from the program due to their personal reasons. Their messages to National Producers was shown as well. Because of it, all of 21st to 34th place trainees' rank moved up. The 21st place Sato Raira became 19th place, and 22nd place Miyajima Yugo became 20th place. They would continue to the final debut evaluation.

## Controversy

*See: Mnet Vote Manipulation Investigation*

The production committee for *Produce 101 Japan* stated on their official website that they were not affiliated with the Korean production team and have a separate voting system, with votes analyzed by a group of third-party lawyers, removing them from the scandal.

## Results

The name of the group was revealed in Episode 12 to be JO1.

## Aftermath

* JO1's debut single was released on March 4, 2020.