D-BOYS
| D-Boys | |
|---|---|
| Origin | Tokyo, Japan |
| Occupation(s) | Actors |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Labels | Watanabe Entertainment |
| Website | www |
D-Boys (stylized as "D-BOYS") is a young male actors group affiliated with 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.
In addition to their individual careers, the D-Boys are also involved in collective projects, as part of the group promotion work.
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 10 April 2006 to 25 September 2006 on TV Asahi.
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.
During the summer of 2009, 19 D-Boys members, including Yu Shirota participated in performances for fans at Akiba Plaza called "Kotoshi no Natsu wa Mainichi Dokoka de D-Boys Uki-uki Yatta Hohohoy" or for short, Natsu Doko. There were 49 performances in total of dances, songs and skits. New D-Boys member, Yusuke Yamada, was introduced to fans during these performances. Three CD+DVD sets featuring different recorded audio theater by separate groups of D-BOYS members and footage of Natsu Doko were released on December 16, 2009.
Due to the success and demand of Natsu Doko, a live tour called Fuyu Doko 2009 was held in the winter of 2009 with 19 D-Boys members and Yu Shirota visiting major cities in Japan to promote the Natsu Doko 2009 CD+DVD release. It was the first live tour around the nation for the group.
D-Boys members have released merchandise in the form of photobooks, DVDs and CDs individually, or in relation to a work project (e.g. character image CDs/photobooks). As a group, they have released a calendar featuring all D-Boys members and the following items:
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Wikipedia