Yeah, I kinda figured, but his star is rising so high now I was still kinda hoping against hope that the announcement would be him anyway (my kids at school are nuts over him to an insane degree, it's not just the girls either, even the boys are like, "That guy playing Nakatsu in Hanakimi is so, so cool!"). :/ I heard he's the only junior in the history of SMAPxSMAP to be a guest on the show, you'd think that kind of popularity would count for something even if it's really too late for him. ;P

As for Hey!Say!JUMP, they said tonight that they will have a Dome concert in November, and Nino was remarking on how it took Arashi this long to be allowed to have a dome. And yet these kids are getting it right out of the gate...?

I'm really looking forward to the next tour, really, since it was just so overwhelming figuring out what to do. Definitely cool watching the interaction, though! They really did keep stressing the "hitori-hitori" during their speeches when thanking the audience, I thought it was really impressive how with like the wave bit they were managing to get even the girls in the very last top row involved in the fun. :)