#i do occasionally wanna grab suribo

[thistaleisabloodyone]

I just got into Exile tribe as a whole. I love it here, btw lol. But I have a question: What do you mean by "the musha shugyo did cause a collective mental breakdown"

I noticed The Rampage debuted but then was put on a hiatus. Is that the main reason? Or was a reason given?

Hello! Welcome, glad you're here and enjoying it 😊

Due their intensive training, the musha shugyo, before the final line up was decided, they all thought members would be cut. It wasn't clear how large the intended lineup was and how many candidates would be kept.

The vocalists especially thought only two would be in the final line up, because Exile Tribe had never had more than two vocalists to a group before - Exile, Exile the Second, JSB3 and GENE were the only other groups at the time and they were all the twin vocal set up. [random aside - While Exile flirts with being a three/four vocal group occasionally, that's a very recent development.]

So the members were living together in the dorms and competing with each other (so they believed) for a final spot in the line up. Considering they were teenagers, for the most part, at the time, that's a lot of stress for a bunch of kids to be under.

Likiya was 23. Zin turned 20 not long before the intensive training started. And those are the oldest two! There were four birthdays during the musha shugyo - Makoto turned 16, Riku turned 20, Rui turned 19, and Ryu turned 16. Takahide and Takuma did not turn 16 until after the line up was finalized. They were both 15 the whole time

Because they were under so much stress, in such a "You're living with and fighting with these boys for your future" way, as essentially teenagers, they - didn't know if they wanted to continue being in the Rampage even after the lineup was finalized. That was part of the hiatus, from finalized lineup to debut, was they sent everyone back home, the members picked up jobs at EXPG schools and other places, and had to decide if they wanted to keep going, if they wanted to stay the Rampage. All three vocalists apparently told their parents they wanted to quit.

Thankfully, they decided to stick together, but that - wasn't a guarantee, as far as I can tell.

Since Riku is my boy, I've spent a lot of time poking around and he brings up being thankful that he didn't quit in a few places, and I found a voice clip that was subtitled in Japanese, which I transcribed and threw into a machine translator:

Q: Was there ever a time when you thought Riku-san wasn't cut out to be a vocalist? Riku: Of course I did. There were times when I thought it would be better if I quit, and there are many times when I think, "RAMPAGE doesn't need me,'' or "The other fifteen members can do it without me.'' But I can't lie about my feelings like, ``I love music, I love singing.'' I just love RAMPAGE.

I am wondering if that intensely stressful time is why it feels like they spent so much of their early career stressing that they're sixteen. The Rampage is 16, you can't take away one and still have the Rampage. Now I feel there's less of an emphasis on being 16 and they seem to be branching out individually more.

But, yeah. They had a group mental breakdown because they thought they were competing with each other for space in the final group.

#the rampage from exile tribe #the rampage #my boys my beloved idiots #i do occasionally wanna grab suribo #and be like 'guys guys wtf was the audition for if not narrowing it down to you three' #and go on the rampage was the song written for their musha shugyo #a song that is almost perfectly evenly divided between three #exile tribe #thistale answers #numinousredpanda