Japanese Boy Band V6 Will Disband This November

Johnny & Associates announced that its Japanese boy band V6 will disband on November 1, 2021. The musical group, best known for providing theme songs to InuYasha and Ultraman Tiga, will disband on their 26th anniversary. [Thanks, Bunshun.]

The main reason for V6’s disbandment is that Go Morita, one of the group members, is set to leave Johnny & Associates on November 1, 2021. The agency, better known as Johnny’s, manages the group along with all its members. As V6 cannot perform unless all six members are present, the remaining members decided to disband the group altogether.

The six-man group debuted on November 1, 1995. V6 has two sub-groups: The 20th Century group consisting the three older members Masayuki Sakamoto, Hiroshi Nagano, and Yoshihiko Inohara, and the Coming Century group comprised of the younger members Go Morita, Ken Miyake, and Junichi Okada. Although Coming Century will also disband with Go Morita’s exit, Johnny’s is still keeping 20th Century intact.

V6 is well-known in the subculture community for contributing theme songs to video games, tokusatsu, and anime shows. The group was most famous for performing “Take Me Higher,” the theme song of Ultraman Tiga, “Change the World,” the first opening of InuYasha — the prequel to Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon — and “Brand-New World,” the eighth ending of InuYasha.

V6 also sang “Break Out,” the eighteenth opening of Fairy Tail, “Super Powers,” the twenty-first opening of One Piece, and “Rock Your Soul,” the theme song of the 2012 video game Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 2. The two sub-groups also performed theme songs for Eyeshield 21 separately: Coming Century sang the first opening, “Breakthrough,” while 20th Century performed the second opening, “Innocence.”

A video game dedicated to the boy band was also available on the PlayStation in Japan. On February 26, 1998, General Entertainment released Project V6, a simulation game where the player assumes the role of a female manager tasked to manage V6’s members for a full year.