In the afternoon of March 11th,
Johnny’s Entertainment’s
charity project ‘
Marching J’ began with 180 members from various groups such as
Kondo Masahiko,
Higashiyama Noriyuki,
SMAP, Tackey & Tsubasa, Yamashita Tomohisa, Hey! Say! JUMP, Sexy Zone, as well as Johnny’s Jr. members. The event attracted 173,000 fans to
Tokyo Dome. The talents, who could not participated in this event, such as
Arashi and
Kanjani 8, sent in video messages.
At 2:46 pm, Kondo (also known as
Matchy) called out to the fans, “
Exactly a year ago, the whole Japan was distraught with grief, and many lives were sacrificed. I would like to stand in silence for a minute with everybody here.” The crowd complied and at that moment, a silence hung over the Tokyo Dome.
During the event, Kondo held a press conference announcing that they had raised a total of 826,553,991 yen (approximately $10,020,051 U.S. dollars) from their entire Marching J project, which was started in April of last year. All the donations from Marching J will be sent towards children funds established by Miyagi, Iwate, and Fukushima.
Kondo stated, “
We will deliver all the donations to the last yen to Tohoku responsibly.”
At first, there was a plan to spend a portion of the donations to invite Giant Panda from China to the zoo in Sendai. However, they have since changed the plan. Now, Johnny & Associates, Inc. and its associated companies will cover all the expenses on their own.
Though they will continue their support for sending materials, this marked the last official fundraising event. At the end of the event, Kondo stated that “
Marching J will continue our support for Tohoku.”
Source: Sanspo (1 + 2) + Sponichi Annex via Tokyohive
