MONAKI

#1In March 2026, something strange was happening at shopping malls in Japan.

#2A rookie group that had not officially debuted yet was drawing more people than organizers had expected. At one event, they ran out of autograph boards. After that, the format of other events had to be changed. Some appearances were canceled because the expected crowds had become too difficult to handle safely.

#3The group was called MONAKI.

#4Officially, they were a male kayō chorus group. There were four members, and their average age was well past what people usually imagine when they hear "rookie group."

#5Their résumés made even less sense.

#6An office worker.

#7A first-class architect.

#8Two former Super Sentai actors who had already stepped away from entertainment.

#9How did people like that suddenly become the kind of rookies who could overwhelm a shopping-mall event?

#10To answer that, you first have to be careful with the number that followed MONAKI everywhere that spring.

#11700 million.

#12By the time of their April debut, reports said MONAKI-related social-media videos had passed 700 million total views.

#13That did not mean one MONAKI video had been watched 700 million times.

#14It did not mean 700 million different people had seen them either.

#15It referred to the combined views of the growing ecosystem of videos connected to MONAKI, their song, and their dance.

#16Which only makes the real question more interesting.

#17Why were so many people making MONAKI videos in the first place?

#18At the center of MONAKI stood Oyone.

#19Before any of this, he worked as an engineer at a factory, troubleshooting problems on production lines.

#20He did not hate his job.

#21He got along well with the people around him, and at one point he could imagine simply staying there.

#22But music never really went away.

#23He had been applying to auditions since high school. At university he sang a cappella. He spent time at a karaoke café. Even after becoming a company employee, he kept applying whenever an opportunity looked possible.

#24Mostly, nothing happened.

#25He did not frame those rejections as some grand tragedy. His attitude was closer to: try it, fail, try another one.

#26Then in 2023, while he was at karaoke, he came across an audition notice.

#27`セカンドチャンスオーディション`.

#28The Second Chance Audition.

#29It was a project created by Kazuyoshi Sakai, leader of Junretsu, to form a new male group.

#30Oyone saw it and thought: this is it.

#31Sakai Jr. came from almost the opposite direction.

#32He was not escaping a failed corporate career.

#33He had completed graduate school at Chiba University with strong academic results, joined a major railway company, and worked on stations and station buildings. Later he moved into large-scale real-estate development and redevelopment.

#34He also earned Japan's first-class architect qualification.

#35By conventional standards, he had already built a very successful life.

#36But in his mid-thirties, another thought started bothering him.

#37Until then, he had created places that excited people through the name and resources of large companies.

#38What would it feel like to make people happy simply as "Sakai Jr."?

#39Then the Second Chance Audition appeared.

#40He had essentially no singing or dance background.

#41He applied anyway.

#42Jin had already been visible to the public once before.

#43He had worked as an actor and musical performer, and in 2014 played Tokatti, ToQ 2gou, in `Ressha Sentai ToQger`.

#44But after the COVID-19 period, he left entertainment and became a company employee.

#45Then an actor friend suggested that maybe he should try again.

#46That friend told him about the audition.

#47Kenken also had a Super Sentai past.

#48He had played Tusk, Zyuoh Elephant, in `Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger`, and had later taken a leading film role.

#49Then he too stepped away from show business.

#50For a period, he worked in food service, including at a yakiniku restaurant run by former Junretsu member Yuya Tomoi.

#51Sometimes customers recognized him.

#52"I watched Zyuohger."

#53His old life kept showing up across the table.

#54And somewhere along the way, the wish to stand onstage again returned.

#55Kenken's route into MONAKI was different from the other three, though.

#56Of roughly 1,000 applicants, the members actually selected through the audition were Oyone, Jin, and Sakai Jr.

#57Kenken joined later.

#58The members sometimes jokingly called him the group's "backdoor admission."

#59Eventually, all four would end up dancing in the same frame.

#60The way Kazuyoshi Sakai chose the group was unusual too.

#61Around 1,000 people applied to the Second Chance Audition.

#62Sakai personally went through the applications.

#63But he has said that he was not simply trying to rank people by who sang or danced best.

#64His question was closer to this:

#65What would happen if I threw this person into show business?

#66He wanted people who made him curious about what the public might do with them.

#67Oyone was the clearest example.

#68While going through applications, Sakai stopped on him.

#69He wanted to see him again.

#70This was supposed to be an audition for a younger-brother group connected to Junretsu, and yet there was something oddly out of place about the man in front of him.

#71Sakai found that mismatch interesting.

#72Very early on, Oyone became the center.

#73Sakai later described him as a `変人`—an oddball—and compared his unpredictability to `パルプンテ`, the Dragon Quest spell whose result can be impossible to predict.

#74Instead of putting the most polished person in the middle, he put the person most likely to make viewers ask:

#75Who is that guy?

#76The rest of the group was mismatched in a useful way too.

#77Jin understood performing.

#78Sakai Jr. understood organizations, logistics, and professional discipline.

#79Kenken was good at dealing with people and already understood parts of the entertainment world.

#80Oyone had the strongest singing identity and the least predictable presence.

#81Later, the members themselves described their roles in similar terms.

#82Oyone handled the singing.

#83Jin understood stage presentation.

#84Kenken was strong at communication and external relationships.

#85Sakai Jr. naturally handled things like manners and scheduling.

#86MONAKI was not built only from whatever they learned after joining.

#87Their first lives had followed them into the group.

#88They were not introduced to the public immediately after the audition.

#89Training had already begun in June 2024.

#90MONAKI was not officially unveiled until November 26, 2025, during a Junretsu concert at LINE CUBE SHIBUYA.

#91That was also when their group name was revealed.

#92`名もなき者たち`.

#93People without a name yet.

#94The project meaning overlapped with the older Japanese expression `もなき`, which carries several shades of meaning connected to being unknown, without much to one's name, or without fixed identity.

#95Sakai even described the members at one point as `無味無臭`—almost blank, without a strong preexisting flavor.

#96Then came January 24, 2026.

#97At Your Elm Yachiyodai, MONAKI held their first release event.

#98That day, they performed their debut song in front of an audience for the first time.

#99`ほんまやで☆なんでやねん☆しらんけど`.

#100Even the title sounded like a joke that refused to end.

#101"Seriously."

#102"Why?"

#103"Who knows."

#104Three Kansai-flavored expressions bouncing around in a chorus.

#105The song came with simple movements that people could imitate.

#106And at that first event, footage was shot of the four members doing the dance.

#107On January 27, the first official `ほんまやでダンス` video went up on TikTok.

#108Look back at the early clip and they do not look like a perfectly drilled dance group.

#109They look noticeably rougher than they would a few months later.

#110Those slightly awkward four men were about to land in the middle of Japanese TikTok.

#111The first people to move were not strangers.

#112They were people who already had a reason to care.

#113Junretsu fans came to see the new group connected to Junretsu.

#114Audience members filmed them.

#115Those fans uploaded MONAKI clips to their own social accounts.

#116Oyone later recalled that one of the first moments when the group sensed something unusual was happening was not on MONAKI's own account.

#117It was when fan-posted videos started pulling views.

#118Then the circle widened.

#119Ordinary TikTok users copied the dance.

#120Other idols did it.

#121Influencers joined.

#122Then more established artists appeared.

#123MONAKI also had an unusual visual problem—or advantage.

#124Your eye might go to Oyone first.

#125His expression is strange.

#126His movement is strange.

#127Then you watch again and notice Sakai Jr.

#128Watch once more and Kenken's expression starts bothering you.

#129Then Jin looks strangely comfortable compared with everyone else.

#130The members themselves joked that MONAKI had too many `ツッコミどころ`—too many things that made people want to point at the screen and comment.

#131They did not need every viewer to think they looked cool.

#132"What am I looking at?"

#133That could work too.

#134But there is one thing the outside evidence cannot tell us.

#135Why exactly did TikTok's recommendation system push MONAKI as far as it did?

#136Was it Oyone?

#137The hook?

#138The dance?

#139Junretsu fans giving the clips an initial audience?

#140There is no public internal TikTok data that lets us isolate the answer.

#141So "the algorithm randomly discovered them" is too simple.

#142But "the whole viral explosion was planned from the beginning" is too simple as well.

#143The more revealing moment came next.

#144By February, people were already using the song's sound in videos.

#145The problem was that the song had not officially been released.

#146Around February 21, MONAKI's TikTok following was growing by more than 1,000 people a day and had already passed 20,000.

#147The team did not wait for April.

#148They made roughly a minute of the chorus available early on TikTok.

#149That decision is one of the clearest ways to understand what happened.

#150MONAKI's team had not built a 700-million-view machine before the public reacted.

#151But they also did not sit back while the public did everything for them.

#152Something unexpected started happening.

#153They noticed it.

#154Then they changed the plan.

#155After that, they actively fed the loop.

#156When another artist did the `ほんまやでダンス`, MONAKI sometimes answered by dancing to that artist's song—an `お返しダンス`, a return dance.

#157One artist posts MONAKI.

#158MONAKI responds.

#159That artist's fans see MONAKI.

#160Somebody else makes another clip.

#161Eventually, the fact that MONAKI videos were getting attention became another reason to make MONAKI videos.

#162The fire may not have started exactly as planned.

#163But once they saw it, they kept adding fuel.

#164Then the online numbers started changing what happened offline.

#165On March 3, MONAKI returned to Your Elm Yachiyodai.

#166More people came than expected.

#167The autograph boards ran out.

#168At an Osaka event a few days later, the turnout created serious delays, and subsequent event operations had to be changed for safety.

#169At later appearances, live autographs were replaced by pre-signed boards.

#170Some events were canceled altogether.

#171MONAKI had not officially debuted yet, and organizers were already having to reduce or restructure appearances because too many people might come.

#172By around March 27, reports put the total views of MONAKI-related social videos at roughly 490 million.

#173By their April 8 debut, the figure being reported had passed 700 million.

#174Again, that was not one 700-million-view MONAKI clip.

#175It was an aggregate figure for related videos.

#176And the exact methodology behind what was counted is not publicly auditable from the available material.

#177Still, something undeniable had happened.

#178People were no longer merely watching MONAKI.

#179They were using MONAKI to make things themselves.

#180April 8 finally arrived.

#181MONAKI made their official debut at the fountain plaza in Ikebukuro's Sunshine City.

#182About 2,500 people came.

#183A short time earlier, these four people had barely existed as a public group.

#184Oyone had been fixing factory problems.

#185Sakai Jr. had been working on stations and development projects.

#186Jin had left entertainment for company life.

#187Kenken had spent part of his post-acting life doing other jobs while occasionally meeting customers who still remembered him.

#188Now they were performing their debut song in front of people watching them from floor after floor of the atrium.

#189Then another announcement came.

#190MONAKI would do their first Zepp tour.

#191Osaka.

#192Nagoya.

#193Tokyo.

#194Kenken cried.

#195Zepp was where he had gone since he was young to watch artists he admired.

#196Now he was going to perform there himself.

#197Then Oyone cried too.

#198Not simply because his own dream had come true.

#199He knew what Zepp meant to Kenken.

#200Online, the two were constantly bickering and teasing each other so much that fans sometimes asked whether they genuinely disliked each other.

#201But when Kenken cried over Zepp, Oyone cried for him.

#202For months, people had laughed at MONAKI's strange faces and awkward energy.

#203By then, there were also four people inside those clips who understood where the others had come from.

#204The debut single reached No. 3 on Oricon's weekly singles chart.

#205In April, estimated physical sales were around 48,000 copies.

#206That does not mean MONAKI suddenly had 48,000 individual fans.

#207Their release campaign included multiple versions, events, and purchase benefits, so one person could buy more than one copy.

#208But the number still showed something important.

#209Some attention that had been consumed for free on a phone was turning into paid consumption.

#210Then, on June 30, MONAKI received an even more visible marker of their rise.

#211`TikTok上半期トレンド大賞2026`.

#212The overall TikTok H1 Trend Award, not merely a music-category prize.

#213TikTok's own explanation emphasized more than raw view totals.

#214People listened.

#215They danced.

#216They imitated.

#217They posted.

#218Those posts encouraged more people to participate.

#219But MONAKI still faced a harder question than winning a platform award.

#220People had watched them hundreds of millions of times on phones.

#221Would they pay money to see them in a room?

#222August 18: Osaka.

#223August 19: Nagoya.

#224August 24: Tokyo.

#225MONAKI's first Zepp tour.

#226At the final show at Zepp Haneda, around 2,900 fans were there.

#227Next to 700 million, 2,900 looks tiny.

#228For MONAKI's future, it may have been the more important number.

#229A social-media view can come from the same person many times.

#230Someone can replay a clip.

#231Someone who barely knows the group can scroll past and still count as part of a view total.

#232A concert audience is different.

#233You have to keep a date free.

#234You have to travel.

#235And you have to spend 6,600 or 7,700 yen on a ticket.

#236Those people were not watching because `ほんまやでダンス` happened to appear in their feed.

#237They had gone to Zepp to see MONAKI.

#238After the first tour, additional Zepp dates were announced in Fukuoka and Sapporo.

#239Fan-club presales followed.

#240Of course, the hundreds of millions of viral views did not all become fans.

#241That was never realistic.

#242But at least part of that enormous cloud of attention had now become people willing to organize their lives around seeing these four men in person.

#243It is still too early to finish the story with "MONAKI made it."

#244By September 2026, the explosive chart peak of spring had passed.

#245Their debut single was no longer sitting near the top of Japan's general singles charts.

#246In July, they released additional versions of that same debut single with new material, but there was not yet a second independent hit that had clearly surpassed the first song.

#247And yet MONAKI had not disappeared.

#248More Zepp shows had been added.

#249Their fan club was active.

#250Television appearances and festivals continued.

#251Brand collaborations appeared.

#252Individual members' previous careers were beginning to become television material in their own right.

#253So describing MONAKI as four unknown men whom TikTok simply "discovered" misses too much.

#254Kazuyoshi Sakai chose them.

#255People already showing up at live events posted the first clips.

#256Then regular TikTok users entered.

#257Then idols, influencers, and more famous artists entered.

#258When the team saw what was happening, they released audio early, made more videos, responded to participants, and kept sending the group into real-world events.

#259Years earlier, Junretsu had spent a long time meeting fans at super sento bathhouse venues before television eventually noticed the scene they had built.

#260MONAKI entered a different era.

#261The audience now had smartphones.

#262A strange little moment at a small release event could leave the venue that same day and appear on thousands, then millions, of screens.

#263That helped compress a process that had taken Junretsu years into a matter of months.

#264But getting one chance and building a career are not the same thing.

#265Oyone got another chance after years of auditions and factory work.

#266Sakai Jr. stepped away from an already successful architectural career.

#267Jin and Kenken returned after both had once left entertainment.

#268Their second chance arrived.

#269Now comes the next question.

#270When the first viral wave is over, will people still come to see these four?

#271Can the people who began as `名もなき者たち`—people without a name—build names that last?

#272MONAKI already got its second chance.

#273What it has not yet proven is whether it can create another one.

#274It took MONAKI only months to become a national talking point. But Junretsu, the group that taught Kazuyoshi Sakai how to build an audience, took nearly a decade to become widely known. At one point Sakai said his annual income from Junretsu was only 25,000 yen, and the group even lost its record deal. So why did they choose super sento bathhouses instead of giving up—and how did that strange survival strategy eventually take them all the way to NHK's Kohaku Uta Gassen?