J-FRIENDS was a special unit made up of

Johnny & Associates is a Japanese talent agency, formed by Johnny Kitagawa in 1962, which trains and promotes groups of male Japanese idol, entertainers known as . History 1962–1989 In 1962, Kitagawa launched his first group, Johnnys. In its early days, Kitagawa ...

groups TOKIO, V6, and

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. It was formed in 1997 to raise money for schools affected by the

Great Hanshin earthquake The , or Kobe earthquake, occurred on January 17, 1995, at 05:46:53 JST (January 16 at 20:46:53 UTC) in the southern part of Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan, including the region known as Hanshin. It measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale and h ...

in 1995. Until their disbandment in 2003 they were able to release 6 singles and held some charity concerts and events. In the end they were able to donate 836,951,855 yen.

History

In 1995, there was a big earthquake in Hanshin and Awaji in Japan. About 6,500 people were dead and 513,000 houses were crushed. To help such people, in 1998,

, along with fellow Johnny's groups V6 and TOKIO, came together to form a special charity-oriented group called J-FRIENDS, they sang songs to raise the money for Hanshin and Awaji earthquake victims especially for children, in which all the songs are created and being produced by many famous international musicians such as

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, and

Koshi Inaba (born September 23, 1964 in Tsuyama, Okayama) is a Japanese vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter. He is best known as the singer and lyricist of the rock duo B'z, the best-selling music act in their native Japan. He has also had a su ...

. J-Friends's first single , released on January 21, 1998, went on to sell over a million copies and ranked 12th on the annual Oricon charts by the end of the year.

Discography

EPs

Singles

Videos

References

{{authority control Johnny & Associates Japanese boy bands Japanese idol groups Japanese pop music groups Musical groups from Tokyo Musical groups established in 1997 Musical groups disestablished in 2003 Charity supergroups