Happy March, everyone! Spring season is around the corner, Japanese students of all grades are going through their graduation ceremonies, DST (Daylight Savings Time) is on the 10th, ¹ and Spring Break is nearby for all the students in countries that do have a spring season. It should be a wonderful, happening month for all of us! MADKID included.

Originally, I was going to call this What’s Happening? #22.5, since there isn’t much detailed reporting for this post. Whenever I put a “.5” on the title, it basically means that it’s a quick entry with some quick (but quite important) news. I posted the last What’s Happening? post last weekend because the RISE release campaign period ended. If you’ve been a long-time Axcel, especially when you started around the time the boys made their debut in the mainstream J-Pop scene, you all should get used to the fact that the MADKID staff just loves to surprise everyone. Everyone including the members themselves.

But, I decided to spread the news as #23 instead. Let’s see what this is all about.

March Calendar

I don’t normally post the monthly calendar ² anywhere on AXCEL STYLE because the majority of the events in the calendars hardly involves their global Axcels. The red color represents live events and the green color represents media appearances, like radio, TV, magazines, etc. There isn’t much detail in this calendar yet, so not so much to report.

I only write about events that we global Axcels are able to participate, whether it’s a livestream show or a Twitter media campaign. But, in a nutshell, March is somewhat of a rest period for the boys. What I mean by rest period is that there won’t be any major campaigning and release events, however, they use this rest period to prepare for the next event. So far, before today, we only know that their upcoming spring season live tour CIRCUS this coming May. That is, until today.

The Rising of the Shield Hero 2nd Anime Opening: “FAITH”

I haven’t been watching that much anime for several years, but I do know that the pattern of having new opening and ending themes in a series do occur sometime in the middle of the current season. In this case, The Rising of the Shield Hero. ³ But, the good news is, MADKID and Chiai Fujikawa will still be performing these brand-new opening and ending themes.

Starting in April, ⁴ MADKID’s new 2nd opening theme FAITH will premiere on the anime series, one month from today.

In addition, there will be an advanced release of the single digitally on April 4th on iTunes/Apple Music. ⁵ Eventually on April 11th, the single will be released on other digital audio streaming platforms like Spotify, Google Play, LINE Music, Rekochoku, etc.

Keep in mind that RISE just came out early February, and that was considered a major single. There was a CD release with two types and a whole series of weekend release events that began in December and ended last weekend. Because March is somewhat of their rest period, there won’t be any huge release event series or even special CD releases for FAITH. The boys have to prepare for their May live tour Circus, so they won’t have any time to heavily promote their 2nd opening theme.

If you’ve been a fan long enough, they did the same thing when they released GIANT KILLING last November. The song was released digitally and it wasn’t heavily promoted. Still is a bop.

Major Press Conference

This was released on MADKID Twitter quickly not too long ago as of this writing. There will be a major press conference that will take place next Wednesday, March 6th at 8:00 p.m. JST. ⁶ Yes, it’s the same day as the Shield Hero anime airing.

The press conference will be streamed on LINE LIVE, so even global Axcels will have a chance to watch this. If you haven’t done so yet, all you need is a LINE Messenger account ⁷ and scan the QR code on the home page of this site. You also have the option of downloading LINE LIVE stand-alone app, but you would have to follow the instructions here.

I don’t know what this is about because there wasn’t any info provided with this announcement, but it looks like it’s got something to do with FAITH and probably more. Let’s all look forward to it!

That’s it for today’s post. Till next time, Axcels!

1. Not practiced in Japan, but for countries who do observe Daylight Savings Time period. In Japan, they call DST as “Summer Time.”
2. Calendar is provided by MADKID Twitter and Nippon Columbia Twitter.
3. 「盾の勇者の成り上がり」(Tate no Yuusha Nariagari)
4. April 3rd to be specific since the anime airs every Wednesdays.
5. Doesn’t say if this is region-locked, but I have a feeling it is.
6. Please check your time zones. Where I live, that would be 3:00 a.m. PST, but I’ll try to wake up at that time.
7. Download the app on the App Store or Google Play, or go to the LINE website to download the Windows PC version if you plan to view it from your laptop/desktop.