The Arashi’s Waku Waku Gakkou (Lit: Arashi’s Exciting School) this year will feature the members of Johnny’s West as Arashi’s students. Johnny’s West is a Johnny’s Entertainment group from Kansai that debut in 2014 with the single with the single “Eejanaika”.

Waku Waku Gakkou is a special event by Arashi that’s in it’s 6th year now. It started in 2011 after the Touhoku earthquake as a charity event in Tokyo Dome. Arashi had initially booked the dates in Tokyo Dome as part of their concert tour, but later changed it to a charity event, in part due to considerations of the electricity shortage, to help victims of the 311 disaster. This year, part of the proceeds will go to the victims of the devastating earthquakes in Kumamoto.

In the event, Arashi plays the role of school teachers, instructing their students – members of the audience – on a particular theme. The theme of this year’s event is “毎日がもっと輝く５つの自由研究”, which translates to “Brightening up your daily life, 5 independent research project”.  After having Hey! Say! JUMP as students last year, this year, Johnny’s West members will be taking part as both students and helpers. The research themes of each Arashi member, together with their corresponding helper(s), has been revealed as follows:

Ohno Satoshi: If you know more about fish, they would become even more delicious (魚をもっと知れば、魚がもっと美味しくなる)
Helper: Kiriyama Akito

Sakurai Sho: Thinking about the future and present beyond the starry skies. (星空の向こうの未来と今を考える)
Helper: Fujii Ryusei

Aiba Masaki: Things around you that can be used for training your body (身近な健康につながる体幹の鍛え方)
Helpers: Nakama Junta, Shigeoka Daiki

Ninomiya Kazunari: The important things to learn from the toilet paper core. (トイレットペーパーの
芯に学ぶ大切なこと)
Helper: Takahiro Hamada

Matsumoto Jun: Lucky people, unlucky people… The real identity of luck. (運がいい人、わるい人… 運の正体)
Helpers: Kotaki Nozomu, Kamiyama Tomohiro

The research themes consists of actual independent research projects that the members took on during schooling years in the summer holidays, as well as projects that pipped their interest now.

Arashi member Aiba Masaki said of their collaboration with Johnny’s West: “Because it’s the first time we worked so hard together, it was really enjoyable.” On the topic of independent research project, he comments: “It’s an easy to understand lesson that everyone would enjoy. I really enjoyed doing independent research, and would like to start on it even before summer.” It seems that the lessons are certainly worth looking forward to!

There will be a total of 6 school sessions held, the dates and locations of the ‘classes’ are as follows:

In the past two years, live streaming of the event has been held in Shanghai and Singapore. It is likely that the live streaming events will be held this year as well.