The members of what would one day become SMAP met all the way back in 1987 and were known as Skate Boys, the backup dancers/skateboarders for idol Genji Hikaru. The Skate Boys were Nakai Masahiro, Kimura Takuya, Inagaki Goro, Mori Katsuyuki, Kusanagi Tsuyoshi and Katori Shingo.
The six officially became SMAP (Sports Music Association People) the following year. Their debut single came out in 1991 but there weren't many music shows back then to help promote the group and SMAP quickly became the least popular of all the Johnny's groups. It was then that Nakai exercised his role as the leader and convinced the Johnny's office to allow SMAP to have their own variety show to showcase the member's personalities and make people laugh. Shortly after, I Love SMAP debuted and slowly but surely, SMAP started to get noticed.
In 1993, SMAP became popular after the release of their Zutto Wasurenai single. Kimura also starred in the drama Asunaro Hakusho in which he played the cute, but shy character Osamu Toride. The drama was a huge success and it help put SMAP on the map, so to speak. The group also sang the opening songs for a few anime series, of which some of the members even lent their voices to.
Despite their ever-growing success and popularity, Mori Katsuyuki decided to leave the group in 1995 to pursue a career in motorcycle racing. Even though they were one member less, SMAP simply would not be stopped and continued on with one chart-topping release after the other.
The next year, the group started their variety show SMAP X SMAP (S x S/SmaSma). On the show they sing, cook and act all-out crazy and unruly. Because of some of the zany events that occurred on the show, SMAP became known as "the super idol group that can do anything." SMAP X SMAP allowed for new opportunities, for the individual members and the group as a whole, in the fields of acting, CM shooting and the like.
To many fans' dismay, "Japan's most eligible bachelor," Kimura, got married to Kudo Shizuka in 2000. Also in this year, Shingo became the cross dressing, but lovable, character Shingo-mama and pulled all sorts of crazy stunts on variety shows. Some of which involved drinking mayonnaise and attempting to kiss Gackt. Shingo-mama trademarked the phrase Oha (short for Ohayou/Good Morning) and even released the best selling single Shingo-mama no Oha Rock. Because of his friendliness, as well as the lyrics of Oha Rock, Shingo-mama and was named as "ambassador" of sorts and set out to promote family communication and togetherness from 2000-01.
The following year, Goro was unfortunately involved in a traffic altercation. He was accused, and found, of being in the wrong and the dorama series that had finished filming only weeks before the incident occurred was cancelled, and he was forced to retreat from the spotlight for some time. Even some new SMAP X SMAP episodes weren't shown and were replaced with reruns. SMAP, as a whole, hit their all-time popularity low. But, as shown in the past, the group didn’t let this slow them down any.
The following years saw the release of the mega-popular singles Lion Heart and Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana, both of which sold well over one million copies. The lyrics in Sekai ni Hitotsu Dake no Hana, which was released in March 2003, are dear to many fans' hearts as they seemed to be a plea for peace during the time of war. The release was so popular that it made it to the No. 1 spot on Oricon's 2003 Yearly Singles Top 100 Chart and was the only CD released in Japan that year that managed to sell over a million copies as the economy was in a bit of a slump at the time. Yet another example of SMAP's unstoppable popularity!!
SMAP had not a single release in 2004 yet their previous releases still held slots on the Oricon Charts. The lack of releases was due to the member's previous commitments to new dorama series and movies and the like and rumors started circulating of the group’s breakup. Then out of seemingly nowhere, SMAP released a new single of January of 2005 and many more releases followed, signifying the group’s successful "comeback."
Last year, with the release of their Dear WOMAN single in April, SMAP has tied B'z record of consecutive No. 1 hits, which was at thirty-nine.
With their last release in May 2007, the single Mermaid is yet another prove to show that nothing can keep them down for long and SMAP will most likely be around for many years to come, if not forever.
