Good-bye, A.B.C-Z’s Kawai Fumito! Notes on a graduation.

Kawai Fumito’s stage outfit, on display at JOYPOLIS, Odaiba (LET’S JOY!)

A.B.C-Z has been my favorite idol group for over a decade and Kawai Fumito is—was—my favorite member. From the moment I saw his long, pointy face in that fateful 2013 music show, he has always had a sparkle around him. 

Okay, so, maybe it was a sparkle that only I could see, but I saw it. The ridiculous laugh that sounds like a turkey bleating. The barely hidden desire to be seen as cool despite the dorky stage costumes that gradually faded as he matured and accepted that A.B.C-Z were never going to reach even the mid-tier heights of popularity that Kis-My-Ft2 or Hey Say Jump had and while I found him very pleasant to look at, he was also never going to be the type of chocolate box idol handsome that gets you leading roles in dramas even when you aren’t from a SMAP or Arashi-popular group. 

Over the years, I watched Kawai try his best on the theater stage. I was even lucky enough to catch back-to-back showings of a production of Coin Locker Babies in which he and fellow A.B.C-Z member Hashimoto Ryosuke switched off the leading roles. I always dropped a letter in the letter box for him, saying that he had a fan in America—a fan who traveled halfway around the world to watch him sing and dance on stage because she liked him that much.

But, speaking as a fan, Kawai never seemed to relish live performances and interactions with fans the way the other members did. Despite attending well over a dozen concerts and other productions in the past decade of being a fan, I’ve received more fan service from the stoic Goseki-sama than I ever did from Kawai, despite diligently waving a Kawai uchiwa at every single concert I attended. But I didn’t mind. You can’t, as a Kawai fan. He’s just like that.

Besides, the high-fives from Tottsu, the (attempted) sign ball from Hasshi, and the numerous encounters with cheerful, lovely Tsuka-chan over the years more than made up for Kawai’s shyness with the fans.

So, while I was as shocked as anybody when Kawai announced that he was leaving the group to focus on doing variety television work… I’m also not surprised at all. As a long time fan. And I wish him luck in his future endeavors although I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how much support I can offer from my perch in America. My interest in idols is in the performance. The music. The dance. The stages. The costuming. I enjoy variety but I don’t love it. Not like I love performance.

For better or worse, one of the things I appreciated was that Kawai had carved out a niche for himself as the Keeper of Johnny’s & Associates lore. There was the annual Legend of Johnny’s stage play (I had the pleasure of seeing what turned out to be the final production in December 2022) which he took more seriously than any of the other members. Tottsu and Tsuka-chan, in particular, had an air of… let’s say irreverence, when faced with the Legend of Johnny Kitagawa. But Kawai always played it straight. Then there was Kawai’s role as the elder statesman of NHK’s Shonen Club (少年倶楽部), on which he would dive deep into the back catalog to recreate classic Shonen Club stages with the current crop of Juniors. He also developed (infamous) impressions of some of the senior talents at Johnny’s & Associates, teaching them to the younger kids, acting as a bridge to long defunct acts like Shonentai (少年隊). His extremely specific impression of Shonentai’s Nishikiori changing positions on stage can only have come from hours and hours over years spent in rehearsals and on stage as part of Playzone, Shonentai’s annual stage play that ran through 2008. (The J-Fan wiki lists 27 different impressions that Kawai has done over the years).

The only person who for sure knows why Kawai is leaving A.B.C-Z is Kawai Fumito. It’s not like A.B.C-Z is overflowing with group activities but perhaps he feels he is getting too old to perform the way that he did a decade ago. The “A” in A.B.C-Z stands for “acrobatic” which is something that Kawai was competent enough at but he wasn’t on the level of Goseki or Tottsu, let alone the Johnny’s & Associates acrobatic ace Tsuka-chan. And backflips when you start closing in on 40 are a very risky venture. Or maybe he just felt that he’d done as much as he could as part of a group. Or the thought of another concert tour at the same old venues in front of the same old faces was just impossible.

Whatever his reasons, I’ll miss the Kawai Fumito of A.B.C-Z and I’ll miss the group that A.B.C-Z was with him as a part of it but I’ve been his fan for long enough that I can’t begrudge him a chance for a new chapter in his career. And I’ll still be in the audience for whatever four-member A.B.C-Z does, whenever I can get to Japan. I’ve been with them for this long and they sure as hell won’t lose me as a fan now. I’ll just have to switch my color from purple to… maybe yellow? Tsuka-chan, will you take in this soon to be ex-Fumito-tan??? Goseki? Hasshi? Tottsu? I’m really very loyal and will always drop a letter in the letter box.

In conclusion, Stan A.B.C-Z! They rule!