Japanese Drama star Yamashita Tomohisa opens an Instagram account and reaches 1 million followers in 7.5 hours!
Edit: This article was originally written on May 16. As of May 20th, he has reached 2.1 million followers.
Yamashita Tomohisa is currently starring in the drama In Hand. He is best known for his roles in Code Blue , Buzzer Beat, Kurosagi , Nobuta Wo Produce, and Algernon Ni Hanataba O .
He has released 6 studio albums since 2011.
Why is this news? I mean everyone has some form of social media account, especially if you're a celebrity, right?
Not if you work for Johnny & Associates. J&A until recently even banned digital images of stars in magazines. It often looked like this when you bought a magazine or photobook.
Over the past two years Yamapi has been photo bombing other people's sns accounts.
This is a J&A no-no as their faces are moneymakers and the company wants to control that. They're very protective of exactly how their Idols are perceived.
Last year, Yamapi opened a Weibo account (think Chinese Twitter) and fans went crazy, but this is even more visibility.
The current Guinness world record for an Instagram account to reach 1 million followers was set last April by Prince Harry & Meghan’s account in 5hrs 45mins. Yamapi didn’t reach this but he exceeded Korean idol Daniel Kang’s record of 11hrs 36mins. This makes Yamapi’s record of 7.5 hrs the 2nd fastest in the world. (source)
Akanishi Jin welcomed him into the network. Also, he is followed by Jaden Smith, Will Smith and the likes of Matsuda Shota and the aforementioned Akanishi. He is only following 6 people at the moment KIM JJ 김재중 ジェジュン 金在中 J-Jun, (MDL link Here), Leonardo DiCaprio, Justin Bieber, Calvin Harris, Jaden Smith and Will Smith
Johnny's fans are eager and hopeful that perhaps in this new Reiwa era, things may change. Just maybe, J&A will enter the modern age and allow their artists to join the internet officially.