Hey! Say! JUMP is a J-pop group under Johnny & Associates, made up of ten members. Hey! Say! JUMP is considered an expansion of the original Hey! Say! 7. The name Hey! Say! refers to the fact that all the members were born in the Heisei period and JUMP is an acronym for Johnny's Ultra Music Power.
History
In a KAT-TUN spring concert on 3 April 2007, 5 members of Johnny's Jr's were named to be part of a new group called Hey! Say! 7. These members were Yuya Takaki, Daiki Arioka, Ryosuke Yamada,Yuto Nakajima, and Yuri Chinen. Initially, the temporary status of the group was unclear, worrying a lot of fans of Johnny Jr's groups J.J. Express as it could mean that the group was splitting up and that Yuya Takaki and Daiki Arioka would permanently be in this group instead
On 16 June 2007, it was announced that Hey! Say! 7 would release a single, Hey! Say!, which was then used as the opening song for the popular anime Love★Com (Lovely Complex). The single also contains the ending song used for the same anime, titled BON BON. This is the first time a Johnny's Jrs group released a single since Ya-Ya-yah in 2002, and there was uncertainty in whether if the debut is permanent or just a CD release.
On 1 August 2007, the single Hey! Say! was released. The following week, on 8 August 2007, Oricon Style confirmed that Hey! Say! sold 120,520 copies in its first week and this made it top the Oricon Weekly Charts.[1] At the same time, Hey! Say! 7 broke an all-time record by being the youngest male group to ever reach the number 1 spot in the Oricon chart, with their average age being just 14.8 years.[2]
In the month of August, the single Hey! Say! topped the Oricon Monthly Charts, outselling even their Johnny's Entertainment seniors, Tackey and Tsubasa and TOKIO. Since then, the Hey! Say! single had been certified gold by the RIAJ.[3]
Transition to Hey! Say! JUMP
On 24 September 2007, in a live television event from the Johnny's Jr's concert in Yokohama Arena, it was announced that the group would debut under a new name. Hey! Say! JUMP consists of all 5 members of Hey! Say! 7, now split into two subgroups and are joined by 5 other Johnny's Jr's. It has also been announced that they will debut their single on 14 November 2007, titled Ultra Music Power, and the song will also be used as Japan's Volleyball World Cup Relay 2007 Theme S
In July 2008 it was announced that the groups third new single Your Seed would be used as the image song for Kung-Fu Panda's japanese release. As of now the group is currently inactive.
