Singer Gwen Stefani has been a presence on television ever since she became involved with The Voice back in 2014. Now, she's going in a very different direction with a show of her own, and it's one that not many could have possibly predicted. Stefani has signed on to produce an animated show called Kuu Kuu Harajuku, which will be based on Japanese street culture and follow the adventures of a girl group known as HG5.
Kuu Kuu Harajuku will revolve around the members of HG5 as they travel the world for concerts and engage themselves in all kinds of crazy shenanigans. The girl group will be comprised of singers Love, Angel, Music, Baby, and leader G. The five young women will face off against aliens, politicians, and pets/monsters that want nothing more than to stop them from performing. The first season will be comprised of twenty-six episodes on Nickelodeon.
The Nickelodeon series will likely be quite a labor of love for Gwen Stefani. HG5 seems to be very directly based on her own experiences as a touring singer with the Harajuku Girls backup dancers in 2004. Stefani gave the dancers the names Love, Angel, Music, and Baby, and she even wrote a song about them. She's faced criticism in the years since for what some consider her racially insensitive behavior with the Harajuku Girls, but she has always stood by her actions. It's clear that she remembers her time with the Harajuku Girls fondly, if the new show is anything to go by.
Now, if you're anything like me and remove Stefani's influence from it, you thought that the premise of Kuu Kuu Harajuku sounds kind of like a comedy involving a lot of hallucinogenic drugs that has been loosely based on the "Yvan eht Nioj" episode of The Simpsons. Given that the target audience for the new show probably wasn't tuning in to The Simpsons circa 2001, however, Kuu Kuu Harajuku could be exactly what kids nowadays are craving. An animated show about Japanese street culture isn't going to have a lot of competition in the genre here in the States.
Gwen Stefani revealed to EW that the series aims to help young girls celebrate imagination, individuality, and creativity. Judging by the first trailer for the series, we can safely say that she nailed the imagination. Check it out!
This sure is a thing that's actually happening! The girls of HG5 literally have hearts in their eyes, so we can count on the fact that Kuu Kuu Harajuku won't be a total bummer of a series for all the youngsters who tune in. Something tells me that parents won't all be huge fans of the show if the painfully catchy trailer song is any indication of the music to come, but it definitely looks like an entertaining series. Who doesn't want an occasional sensory overload?
Kuu Kuu Harajuku will premiere on Nickelodeon at 4 p.m. ET on October 3. It will then move to its regular time slot of Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. ET. Check out our fall TV premiere schedule to see what other options you'll have for TV viewing in the near future.
