VOCAL BATTLE AUDITION 4
On September 1st of 2013 LDH created a Facebook page to announce their upcoming VOCAL BATTLE AUDITION 4, with the main theme of Yume wo Motta Wakamonotachi he (For those youngsters that pursue a dream). This fourth edition of the VBA was again dedicated only to boys. With this announcement, there were questions about whether a new male group was on the making or not. The audition started its first round in October and lasted until November, seeking boys from 15 to 25 years old. The first round was held in the cities of Tokyo and Osaka.
After the first audition round, where the contestants were selected by simply singing acapella, the second round consisted in testing the vocals skills with GENERATIONS’ song Never Let You Go. For the third round, the song they would be tested for performance was Kaze no Naka, Arukidasu by Sandaime J SOUL BROTHERS. The ones getting to the third round would join a training camp.
On December 19th, 163 contestants were selected for the second round and notified by e-mail, later announced to the audience through the TV show Shuukan EXILE.
The second round took place on February 2014, choosing only 32 contestants to get into the next round. On March, after the next round, 15 contestants were chosen: Ryuta Hidaka, Kazuma Kawamura, Rioske Asanuma, Riku Aoyama, Yutaro Itadoko, Kazuki Hayashi, Ryota Kanno, Kento Horita, Junpei Hashiba, Riki Yoshida, Kenta Shimizu, Ryota Tsurumoto, Hakuto Yoshino, Ryouji Tanaka (he already got into VBA2’s semi-finals) and Kazuma Namisato (another VBA2’s semi-finalist).
The 15 finalists joined a training camp on April 7th, and they did a training very similar to the one E-Girls went through when they prepared the single Follow Me.
During this camp, the contestants sung 3JSB’s selected song and another song of free choice, training their skills monitored by the vocal coach, Keiji Kimura. After the camp’s training, they performed the songs to a jury so the winners could be chosen.
On June17th 2014, the three winners of the audition were announced: Hakuto Yoshino, Kazuma Kawamura and Riku Aoyama.
Hakuto Yoshino
Kazuma Kawamura
Riku Aoyama
Beforehand, the news on the new group that LDH was building called The Rampage had already been released. The winners of the VBA4 were expected to become the singers of the new group.
But, once again, LDH took advantage of the audition to select one of the finalists for a different group. After discussing it with its members, DOBERMAN INC. asked the finalist Kazuki Hayashi to join them on their next chapter.
Image Sources: https://twitter.com/vba4kashoudoga
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/majo3majo3/e/90d9882c7696141ffe9b1dc3404392f1
http://www.vba4.jp/sp/
http://www.vba4.jp/sp/finalist/11.html
http://matome.naver.jp/odai/2139386706091166001
https://twitter.com/exnews24
https://twitter.com/mnaopi
