When MANATO’s “Rain on me” Changed How I Saw Him
BE:FIRST’s MANATO — and BMSG’s “One of the BE:ST” project — may point toward a different way of developing artists inside a group.
I did not expect to react this strongly to a solo side project.
But after listening to Rain on me ~One of the BE:ST-05 MANATO~, I genuinely felt startled.
Not because MANATO had suddenly become talented. BE:FIRST fans already know how strong he is as a vocalist and performer. But this felt different somehow — quieter, more personal, and far more musically assured than I expected.
The song moves like a slow waltz with subtle country and gospel influences, carried more by atmosphere than sheer vocal power. Nothing about it feels exaggerated. In fact, part of what surprised me was how restrained it was.
It did not sound like someone trying to prove he could make “serious music.”
It sounded like someone who already knew exactly what kind of emotional space he wanted to create.
Thinking back, the signs were probably already there.
Fans familiar with Show Minor Savage — MANATO’s unit with SOTA and Aile The Shota — already knew he had a strong affinity for R&B-oriented sounds and more atmosphere-driven music.
At BMSG Fes 2025, MANATO participated in “Bubble,” an R&B ballad performed by a cross-group unit featuring KAIRYU from MAZZEL, REIKO, and KANON from STARGLOW. MANATO was also involved in the song’s writing and production, which perhaps explains why the performance already felt closely tied to his musical instincts.
Even then, his sense of phrasing and emotional control stood out to me. The song relied less on dramatic power and more on atmosphere, softness, and tension held just below the surface.
But Rain on me pushed that impression even further.
More than anything, it changed how I see MANATO as an artist.
There are many great Japanese singers associated with R&B, both past and present. But MANATO’s approach feels less rooted in vocal dominance and more in emotional texture — in creating a mood that quietly lingers rather than overwhelms.
And perhaps what makes it especially interesting is the environment surrounding him.
BE:FIRST is already a group known for crossing genres freely, moving between pop, hip-hop, dance music, rock, and R&B without sounding trapped inside a single identity. Yet projects like One of the BE:ST allow individual members to go even further into their own musical instincts rather than smoothing those differences out.
That may be one of the most unusual things about BMSG’s structure.
In many groups, strong individual artistic identities can eventually feel like a threat to group cohesion. Here, they often seem to be viewed as something worth developing.
Projects like One of the BE:ST suggest that BMSG may see individual musical identity not as something that threatens the group, but as something that deepens it.
I wrote more about BMSG’s “Don’t Kill Talent” philosophy here:
Written by Lily-K | BMSG Pulse