Produce 101 Japan season 2

Produce 101 Japan is a Japanese reality competition show bringing 101 trainees with the intention of producing an 11-member permanent boy band. Premiering on April 8, 2021, the second season is being broadcast on GyaO! every Thursday at 9 pm JST (GMT+9). The show is being streamed on YouTube every Friday at 9 pm JST (GMT+9) with English subtitles available in certain countries.

The series is an official spin-off of the South Korean television series Produce 101 and is a co-production between Yoshimoto Kogyo and CJ E&M. Weekly highlights are also being aired on TBS.

The top 11 winners debuted under the name INI.

Background
In November 2020, Yoshimoto Kogyo and CJ E&M announced they would be co-producing a 2nd Japanese version of the Produce 101 reality competition show with the intention of debuting an 11-member boy band in 2021 for the global music market. The group created from the show would be permanent and would be handled by Lapone Entertainment. Auditions for the show took place from December 4 to Dec 6, 2020, for male Japanese residents aged 15–27 years old who were not tied to any talent agency. On January 30, 2021, all 101 trainees profiles were revealed and Fuma Murata was shown to have withdrawn; the show's theme song, "Let Me Fly" was also revealed. Prior to the show's airing, another contestant, Fujisawa dropped out, totaling two withdrawing and leaving 99 trainees to compete on the show.

Cast
The show was presented by Hideyuki Yabe and Takashi Okumura of the comedy duo Ninety-nine, who had previously hosted the Asayan talent competition series in 1999.


 * Vocal trainers


 * Thelma Aoyama
 * Hidenori Sugai


 * Dance trainers


 * Rino Nakasone
 * KENZO (DA PUMP)


 * Rap trainer


 * KEN THE 390

Elimination chart
Colors key

Rankings
The top 11 contestants, which determined the members of the final group, were chosen through popularity online voting at Produce 101 Japan GyaO!'s homepage, AR square app, VR square app and audience's live voting. The results were shown at the end of each episode.

For the on:tact, first voting period, viewers were allowed to select 11 trainees per vote. For the second round, the system changed to 2 trainee per vote. For the final round, the system changed to 1 trainee per vote and added live online votes.

ON:TACT voting period
The ON:TACT voting period took place between February 1 at 12 am and February 10 at 11:59 pm (JST).

First voting period
The first voting period took place between April 8 at 9 am and April 30 at 5 am (JST). The total number of votes accumulated was 25,355,977.

 Notes 
 * On Episode 4, an additional 3,000 points were given to all the members of the winning groups, which were combined with the votes given by the live audience.
 * The ranking for Episode 5 is the result of combining online votes and live votes from the previous episode.

Second voting period
The second voting period took place between May 6 at 11 pm and May 28 at 5 am (JST). The total number of votes accumulated was 9,285,810.

 Notes 
 * On Episode 7, an additional 10,000 votes were given to the winner of each group and an additional 100,000 votes to the winner of each position category. These benefits were doubled for the winners of the HIDDEN category. Position winners also received an interview on regular TV, as well as in Anan and Oricon.
 * On Episode 8, the winning group received a total of 240,000 additional votes: 20,000 votes for every member besides the one who placed first, who instead received 100,000 votes.
 * The ranking for Episode 9 is the result of combining online votes and live votes from the previous episode.

Aftermath

 * INI released their debut Maxi single "A" which featured the promotional singles "Rocketeer" and "Brighter" on November 3, 2021.
 * Some trainees formed/joined groups:
 * Ota Shunsei (14th), Kaiho Nakano (19th), Toma Nakamura (20th), Yotsuya Shinsuke (22nd), Kohei Kurita (23rd), Shu Kobori (24th), Wataru Takahashi (30th), and Kose Naoki (17th on Episode 5 but left due to COVID-19 diagnosis) signed with Yoshimoto Kogyo and debuted in boy group Octpath on February 9, 2022. Renta Nishijima (16th) was announced as an additional member on November 19, 2023.
 * Daisuke Morisaki (68th) signed with Keystone Entertainment and debuted in boy group BLANK2Y under stage name Mikey on May 24, 2022.
 * Daigo Kobayashi (13th) and Renta Nishijima (16th) signed with Wake One Entertainment and were added to boy group TO1 as new members on June 17, 2022. On September 22, 2023, Renta announced that he had withdrew from the group and label.
 * Fuma Murata (withdrew before program aired) participated in "&AUDITION - The Howling" and debuted in boygroup &TEAM under Hybe Labels Japan on December 7, 2022.
 * Shoya Fukuda (32d), Vasayegh Hikaru (33rd), Masato Ueda (38th), Yusei Tekoe (39th), Rick Yasue (47th), Ryusuke Kodama (53rd) and Reiji Fukushima (57th) debuted in KEN THE 390-produced boy group Maison B on February 15, 2023, after pre-debuting on August 19, 2022.
 * Okubo Naru (12th), Terao Koshin (17th), Hiramoto Ken (34th), Fukuda Ayuta (35th) debuted on May 10, 2023 as 6-member boygroup DXTEEN under Lapone Entertainment.
 * Anthonny Iinuma (18th) debuted in 4 member boy group TOZ with their debut EP "Flare" on the 27th September 2023.
 * Neo Yoshii (85th) joined WARPs DIG new boy group ONE OR EIGHT under Avex Management as additional member on May 7th 2024.
 * Some trainees signed with labels:
 * Neo Yoshii (85th) announced that he signed with Avex Management on November 7, 2021.
 * Okubo Naru (12th), Terao Koshin (17th), Hiramoto Ken (34th), Fukuda Ayuta (35th) signed with Lapone Entertainment as trainees and were revealed in December 2021.
 * Syunji Koike (15th) and Hiroaki Morii (29th) appeared on YouTube channel 'Peche' on March 21, 2022, and are actively promoting while in Korea as trainees.
 * Anthonny Iinuma (18th) signed with YY Entertainment.
 * Some trainees became independent artists:
 * Hideaki Sasaoka (25th) released 'purple' as a digital EP in April 2022.
 * Some trainees joined other survival shows:
 * Kouki Sakamoto (21st) and Mizuki Shinohara (28th) joined Sony Music's TORA Project in November 2021 and appeared on 'Boku Debut?' (a joint project with Sony and Yoshimoto Kogyo) airing on BS Yoshimoto in July 2022.
 * Fuma Murata (withdrew before program aired) participated in "&AUDITION - The Howling" in 2022.
 * Anthonny Iinuma (18th) and Yuki Miura (67th) participated in Boys Planet.