Yaen (野猿, "Wild Monkey") was a

Japanese pop J-pop (often stylized in all caps; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively known simply as , is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in trad ...

group composed of

Takaaki Ishibashi is a Japanese comedian, singer and actor. He is best known as a member of Tunnels (owarai), Tunnels and Yaen with his partner Noritake Kinashi. Early life Born in Katsushika, Tokyo, Katsushika, Tokyo, Japan. When he was in the first grade o ...

and

Noritake Kinashi is a Japanese comedian, actor, singer and artist. He is the short member of the comedy duo Tunnels (owarai), Tunnels, with whom he was a member of the pop group Yaen. His partner is Takaaki Ishibashi. He is the executive vice president of the ent ...

of the comedy duo The Tunnels, and nine staff members from their television variety show '' The Tunnels' Thanks to Everyone''. From 1998 to 2001, Yaen released three studio albums, eleven singles, and four concert videos, all of which reached the top ten on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics Statistics (from German language, German: ', "description of a State (polity), state, a country") is the discipline that ...

charts.

History

Yaen was created by music producers

Akimoto Yasushi is a Japanese record producer, lyricist, and television writer, best known for creating and producing some of Japan's top idol groups, Onyanko Club and the AKB48 franchise. Total sales of the singles he has written exceed 100 million copies, maki ...

and

Tsugutoshi Gotō Tsugutoshi Gotō (後藤次利 Gotō Tsugutoshi), born February 5, 1952, is a Japanese songwriter, bassist and music producer. Gotō broke into the Japanese music industry playing bass on tour for artists like Sadistic Mika Band, Bread & Butter ...

, who wrote

parody songs Parody music, or musical parody, involves changing or copying existing (usually well known) musical ideas, and/or lyrics, or copying the particular style of a composer or performer, or even a general style of music. In music, parody has been us ...

for The Tunnels beginning in the 1980s. The group was originally formed for the purpose of performing a parody version of a

KinKi Kids is a Japanese duo consisting of Koichi Domoto and Tsuyoshi Domoto under the talent agency Starto Entertainment (formerly of Johnny & Associates). Domoto was formed in 1993 as Kinki Kids and officially debuted on July 21, 1997. With more than 30 m ...

song on the music variety show ''

Utaban was a Japanese music variety show, broadcast weekly from October 15, 1996 until March 23, 2010 on TBS. The name of the show is an abbreviation of , meaning "music program". A special version of the show, running for two hours, was occasionally a ...

'', but subsequently signed with the record label

Avex Trax is a record label owned by Japanese entertainment conglomerate Avex Inc. The label was launched in September 1990, and was the first label by the Group. History Two years after Max Matsuura began a career distributing studio albums from othe ...

and made their debut as a legitimate pop group on April 29, 1998. The group's name is derived from , a famous

love hotel A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found around the world operated primarily for the purpose of allowing guests privacy for sex. The name originates from "Hotel Love" in Osaka, Japan. Although love hotels exist all over the world, the ...

located in Tokyo. Despite their novel origins, Yaen achieved considerable mainstream success: the group released three studio albums, eleven singles, and four concert videos, all of which reached the top ten on the

charts. The group sold three million albums, and performed at ''

Kōhaku Uta Gassen , more commonly known simply as ''Kōhaku'', is an annual New Year's Eve television special produced by Japanese public broadcaster NHK. It is broadcast live simultaneously on television and radio, nationally and internationally by the NHK net ...

'' in two consecutive years. Several of the group's singles were choreographed by Sam, Etsu, and Chiharu from TRF. Yaen announced on February 8, 2001 that they would disband, citing a desire by its members to return to their original jobs. The group formally disbanded on May 13, 2001, following their final concert at

Yoyogi National Gymnasium Yoyogi National Gymnasium, officially is an indoor arena located at Yoyogi Park in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, which is famous for its Suspended structure, suspension roof design. The arena holds 13,291 people (9,079 stand seats, 4,124 arena sea ...

. Several of the group's members continued to work at ''The Tunnels' Thanks to Everyone'' in their original roles, and made occasional appearances on the series. In 2009, Yaen reunited to mark the 21st anniversary of The Tunnels, where they participated in a one-off televised performance in which they attempted to replicate the choreography to their singles from memory. On March 9, 2011, in commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the group's disbandment, Yaen's songs were released on the digital streaming platform

Recochoku Avex Inc. ( kabushiki gaisha , commonly known as Avex and stylized as avex) is a Japanese entertainment conglomerate led by founder Max Matsuura and headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1988, the company manages J-pop talents like Ayumi ...

. On September 17, 2019, Taka announced the formation of , a pop group composed of himself, Terurin, and Kanchan.

Members

Original roles on ''The Tunnels' Thanks to Everyone'' are noted in parentheses. * Taka (

), vocals (host) * Nori (

), vocals (host) * Terurin (Teruchika Hirayama), vocals (acrylic decorations) * Kan (Norihito Kannami), vocals (costumes) * Naru Naru (Kazuhiro Narui), dancer (large props) * Jerry (Ikuomi Iizuka), dancer (special effects) * Baca (Takashi Ohhara), dancer (large props) * Shu (Takahisa Amino), dancer (props) * Hossy (Michiaki Hoshino), dancer (driver) * Gote (Kazumichi Handa), dancer (photographer) * Takaku (Seiji Takaku), dancer (camera crane) Past members: * CA (Chika Arai) (voiceover) * Yoshiroucchi (Yoshiro Asano) (writer) * Takashi Kanbara (director) * Yan (Kazuya Ota) (director)

Discography

Studio albums

* ' (March 10, 1999) * ' (March 1, 2000) * ' (March 14, 2001)

Singles

* "" (April 29, 1998) * "" (September 17, 1998) * "" (December 16, 1998) * "" (February 24, 1999) * "" (August 4, 1999) * "" (November 10, 1999) * "" (February 2, 2000) * "" (May 31, 2000) * "" (October 12, 2000) * "" (January 24, 2001) * "" (February 28, 2001)

Tour and concert recordings

* ' (July 7, 1999) * ' (July 19, 2000) * ' (May 3, 2001) * ' (July 25, 2001)

References

External links

Official website
(defunct, link via

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

) {{authority control Avex Trax artists Japanese boy bands Japanese pop music groups Musical groups established in 1998 Musical groups disestablished in 2001 Musical groups from Tokyo 1998 establishments in Japan