D-Boys

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D-Boys
Origin Tokyo, Japan
Occupations Actors
Years active 2004 - present
Labels Watanabe Entertainment
Website Official site

D-BOYS is a young male actors group under the management of Watanabe Entertainment. The D in the group's name stands for "Drama" (acting work), "Dream", "Debut", "Discovery" and "Development" (growth and advancement).

Although the D-BOYS are promoted as a group and members occasionally work together on the same projects, each actor develops his career independently from his fellow members in their own television, cinema and theatre projects. New D-BOYS members are regularly selected through public audition events with interactive participation of fan club members.

Contents

[edit] Members

[edit] Current D-BOYS

[edit] Former D-BOYS

  • Yamazaki Ichitaro (一太郎 Ichitarō Yamazaki?, born July 19, 1980)
  • Katsuki Nakamura (中村 勝樹 Nakamura Katsuki?, born March 23, 1990)
  • Shintaro Tetsu (鐵 進太郎 Tetsu Shintaro?, born September 29, 1986)
  • Yuma Minakawa (皆川 佑馬 Minakawa Yūma?, born October 1, 1984)
  • Yuu Shirota (城田 優 Shirota Yū?, born December 26, 1985)
  • Kouhei Kumai (熊井 幸平 Kumai Kōhei?, born July 27, 1990)

[edit] Member History

  • 2004 July 27 - The first open D-BOYS audition was held and Grand Prix Winner Yuichi Nakamura, Grand Prix 2nd Winner Shunji Igarashi and Katsuki Nakamura joined.
  • 2005 March - Yamazaki Ichitaro left the group to pursue solo representation. He was shortly followed by Katsuki Nakamura and Shintaro Tetsu, who have since left the entertainment business.
  • 2006 July - The third open D-BOYS audition was held and Grand Prix winner Tomo Yanagishita joined the group shortly afterwards. Grand Prix 2nd placer and winner of sponsor D-View Magazine's Choice award Tetsuya Makita would be added to the group in the following year.
  • 2008 April - Former member Osamu Adachi rejoined the group. The fifth open audition started.
  • 2008 May - The final stage of the fifth open audition was held, with Yusuke Yamada (山田 悠介?) coming as Grand Prix winner, Yukito Nishii (西井 幸人?) as Semi-Grand Prix, and Ryo Mitsuya (三津 谷亮?) receiving the judge's prize.
  • 2008 June - It is announced during the Tokyo run of D-STAGE 2: Last Game that member Yuu Shirota would soon graduate from the group; remaining under the management of Watanabe Entertainment.
  • 2008 July - Yuu Shirota graduated on July 6.
  • 2008 September - Kouhei Kumai left the group; remaining under the management of Watanabe Entertainment.
  • 2009 September - The final stage of the sixth audition was held, with Shintaro Akutsu as the Grand Prix Winner and Ryosuke Ikeoka as the Semi-Grand Prix winner. Yoichiro Oumi and Ryuichi Tanigawa took two special judges' awards. At 14 years old, Akutsu is now the group's youngest member.[1]

[edit] Group Projects

In addition to their individual careers, the D-BOYS are also involved in collective projects, as part of the group promotion work.

[edit] DD-BOYS

DD-BOYS was a drama-documentary variety series, featuring the D-BOYS members as themselves. Each episode had a short staged section following the plot of the members living in the fictional D-House and seeking ways to raise money for rent, followed by a documentary section showing the members undertaking tasks or challenges to raise that money. Some tasks were inspired by the actor's own personality -e.g., a member who was known to enjoy singing or dancing would have a task related to that hobby, etc. The show was 23 episodes long and aired from April 10 2006 to September 25 2006 on TV Asahi.

[edit] Stage Works

  • 2004 - 1st D-Live - live entertainment show, featuring all members.
  • 2004 - 2nd D-Live - live entertainment show, featuring all members.
  • 2005 - 3rd D-Live (March) - live entertainment show, featuring all members.
  • 2006 - 4th D-Live (May) - live entertainment show, featuring all members.
  • 2007 - Out of Order (March) - live entertainment show, featuring Yuya Endo, Masaki Kaji and Kohei Kumai as regular performers, with guest performances by all other members.
  • 2007 - D-BOYS STAGE Vol. 1 (June) - first stage play featuring all members, with Yuu Shirota, Masato Wada, Shunji Igarashi, Hiroki Suzuki and Hirofumi Araki as guest performers.
  • 2008 - D-BOYS STAGE Vol. 2 (June) - second stage play featuring all members, with Endo Yuya, Yuichi Nakamura and Kohei Kumai performing on Guest Cast A, and Shunji Igarashi, Koji Seto and Masahiro Usui performing on Guest Cast B.
  • 2009 - D-BOYS STAGE Vol. 3 (April and October) - third stage play featuring all members separated into Cast A (April performances) and Cast B (October performances).

[edit] Fanclub Events

The D-BOYS hold special events where fan club members have the opportunity to meet the actors in person and interact with them in camp activities and games such as cook-offs, tug-of-war, etc, in which the members are split into teams, leading groups of fans to compete with each other.

  • Official Fan club Day Camp Bus Tour (November 13, 2005)
  • Official Fan club Limited Bus Tour (August 25 to August 27, 2006)
  • Official Fan club 3rd Anniversary Bus Tour (6 - 8 September, 2007)

[edit] Other

[edit] Media

D-BOYS members have released merchandise in the form of photobooks, DVDs and CDs individually, or in relation to a work project (eg. character image CDs/photobooks). As a group, they have released the following items:

  • Yearly desk calendar featuring all group members, published since 2005.
  • D-BOYS photobook (Tokyo News Agency, April 2005, ISBN 4-924566-42-X)
  • START! photobook (Gakken Co., Ltd., March 2006, ISBN 4-05-403035-1)
  • D-STAGE Volume 1 promotional photobook (June 2007, limited edition)

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.tokyograph.com/news/id-5234

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Boys"