Strawberry Prince Makes International Debut
Award-winning Japanese pop group Strawberry Prince, composed of utaites, is now making its international debut in Singapore, at Anime Festival Asia 2022 this November.
Japanese pop group Strawberry Prince is making its international debut at Anime Festival Asia 2022 this weekend.
- Strawberry Prince was formed in June 2016, currently consisting of six members: Nanamori, Jel, Satomi, Colon, Rinu, and Root.
- Nanamori founded the group which is composed of fellow utaite (singers who post covers on Nico Nico Douga). Currently, each member has its own streaming activities.
- SutoPuri has worked with popular producer HoneyWorks
- The group's members are represented by their avatars. As a group, they perform on stage as their real or virtual selves—its YouTube channel has an archive of some of their live concerts for everyone's viewing pleasure.
Four of its members are going to performs at the I Love Anisong concert this Sunday, November 27 (GMT+8):
- Rinu (Red), who was a part of HoneyWorks' Dolce unit (2018-2019), streams as a VTuber and also does voice acting roles (including Yokai Watch) under the name Koinu.
- Satomi (Pink), the oldest among the group, is known as a fan of Identity V and is a pet lover.
- Root (Yellow), the youngest, has music composing and audio mixing skills. He is also known for loving Pikachu.
- Colon (Blue), who currently streams Minecraft, started as an utaite in 2014.
The group expressed their excitement in this major milestone:
“We are thrilled to be making our international, virtual debut in Singapore at the iconic Anime Festival Asia this November!
The last few years of the pandemic have been challenging for everyone and our virtual world has been a happy, positive space for our fans across the globe to escape into.
We are excited to use Sutopuri’s positivity to bring people from all over the world together in one venue.
Singapore is a great stepping stone for us to reach our fans across Southeast Asia and use our colourful performances online to inject joy in our fan's everyday life.”
Their international debut in Singapore also includes the following activities:
- An exhibition booth inside AFA SG 2022 (Booth C5, from November 25 to 27) will be set up to showcase its content—don't forget to take a selfie with the standees!
- Five buses from SBS Transit (Service numbers 7, 8, 55, 65, 157) will be wrapped in Strawberry Prince visuals and drive around Singapore's roads from November 8, 2022 to January 10, 2023.
- Hobby retail shops in Singapore is set to have Strawberry Prince merchandise available soon.
- Management confirms a plan to increase English-language content on its social media channels. Its English-language Facebook page is now being followed by 505,000 users.
Strawberry Prince has hit the weekly charts and received several accolades:
- Their first commercial release was Strawberry Start in 2019, which landed a second-place spot in the Oricon weekly album ranking after it sold 80,000 CD copies.
- Its second album, Strawberry Love, reached the top spot in the Billboard Japan Sales Preliminary Report using Soundscan data (July 1 to 3, 2019), besting ARASHI's 5×20 All the BEST!! 1999-2019 album by more than 5,000 copies.
- Japan Gold Disc Awards recognized the group as one of the Best 5 New Artists in Japanese Music (2020) and Best 5 Albums in Japanese Music (2021)
- Its first digital album Are You Ready? has reaced the top spot of iTunes Japan's daily album ranking.