Just last night, JYP Entertainment (JYPE) dropped NiziU’s pre-debut mini album “Make You Happy.” NiziU is the newest Japanese girl group under JYPE and the company’s third group to be formed through a reality show.
Earlier this year, JYPE (in collaboration with Sony Music Japan) started another survival reality show called “Nizi Project.” But this time around, JYPE CEO Park Jin-young challenges 26 Japanese trainees to step up and prove themselves worthy to be in the new Japanese girl group the Korean entertainment giant is forming. The “Nizi” in “Nizi Project” means rainbow in Japanese, which manifests the project’s mission to “create a group that emits beautiful light with various colors like a rainbow.”
On June 26, JYPE announced the final lineup. Out of the 26 initial contestants, only nine made the cut. NiziU’s official members are Nina, Ayaka, Mayuka, Miihi, Maya, Rio, Rima, Riku and Mako.
Back in 2015, JYPE launched their first reality survival show “Sixteen” which produced one of the biggest girl groups in the world today, TWICE. They had another show in 2017, “Stray Kids,” which produced a boy group of the same name. “Stray Kids” also gave us a glimpse of JYPE’s latest girl group prior to NiziU, ITZY.
JYPE isn’t the only entertainment company to use reality survival shows as a means to produce girl and boy groups. Some groups formed through these shows are IZ*ONE, I.O.I. (disbanded), MOMOLAND, fromis_9 and WANNA ONE.
Screengrab from the “Make You Happy” MV
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