Thread by @susieckb

Get to know *ChocoLate Bomb!! 🍫💣 (a thread)
ChocoBomb are a 5 person odorite-idol group! They're signed to DD Co, the same as MeseMoa, but there isn't really a big international fandom for them, so I thought I'd try and make an intro thread for English speakers to read!

(Quick disclaimer - my own Japanese is Not Great so if there's any misinformation in here I'm sorry in advance, please correct me if you spot anything! Chocolate Bomb are great and deserve more attention, that's my only intention here 🤗)
Starting with official profiles!!

E~suke (aka Konu) @A_C_E__K
ChocoBo's leader!
Member colour: yellow
Birthplace: Tokyo metropolitan area
Birthday: March 7th
Blood type: AB
Favourite foods: grated yam, pineapple, chicken nanban
Hobbies/skills: body care, fast eating

(chicken nanban is a dish from Miyazaki prefecture - there's a recipe here if you're interested in it )

Panmen @syokupan_men
Member colour: blue
Birthplace: Kanagawa prefecture
Birthday: April 27th
Blood type: AB
Favourite foods: spicy things, potatoes
Hobbies/skills: games, DJing

Leo @Leo_Yukizaki
Member colour: orange
Birthplace: Aichi prefecture
Birthday: June 18th
Blood type: O
Favourite foods: sushi, ice cream
Hobbies/skills: cosplay, making anything seem homoerotic

(brief t/n here - Leo's 'skill' is really hard to explain concisely in English, but he's basically saying that he's a fudanshi and he can make anything seem "rotten", if that makes sense)

Takkun (aka Takuto) @takutokidz
Member colour: purple
Birthplace: Tokyo metropolitan area
Birthday: November 11th
Blood type: AB
Favourite foods: shrimp, omelettes
Hobbies/skills: collecting shoes, his arms are double-jointed

Yujimaru @yujimaru0131
Member colour: pink
Birthplace: Chiba prefecture
Birthday: January 31st
Blood type: B
Favourite foods: cookies
Hobbies/skills: Instagram, make up

Some songs/videos - ChocoBo's music is usually really cheerful and upbeat and fun!

💣 Explosion Squad: Choco Rangers

- a really catchy little song where they're p much their version of the power rangers. A fun place to start, and great dancing!

💣 Cosmo

- such a catchy song, a pretty iconic one for them
- this is from back before Leo was in the group (more on that later); the other person here is their former member, Iripon
- there's a video of them dancing it double speed and it's amazing

💣 Never Give Up!

- personally my favourite costumes
- another dance shot video, but they're such good dancers honestly so this isn't a bad thing at all
- Leo pointed out that this was written before he joined the group so he actually... Has no lines...

💣 Castle in the Darkness

- ChocoBo's Halloween song!
- what better way to introduce our new member (who is kind of a furry) than to shoot a video where he turns into a werewolf and kills everyone except (maybe) Konu
- why are they wearing so much lipgloss

💣 Holy Lights at Night

- they literally walk out of Halloween and straight into Christmas
- one interpretation is that they all died in Castle and this video is heaven?
- anyway. It's a festive hotpot party!! It's a drunken good time!! YAY!!

💣kimi to iu kiseki

(struggling to translate this title well; I've been mentally referring to it as 'miracle of you' but that's not quite right idt. Sorry!)
- Most recent single, and their first ballad!
- really shows off how good their vocals are

💣 ? ~ Question Mark ~

- the other half of the most recent double A-side single
- I really love these costumes again, especially the ? in the collar!
- nande nande nande nande

💣 VIVID DREAMERS
- from their most recent single, back to their second ever
- pros: Konu with glasses, cons: Konu's 'I refuse to style my hair' phase
- this video is weirdly prophetic wrt Iripon? Or like, what could have been, I guess
- still a BOP

This is a good point to segue into some bg about Iripon. He'd been with the group since they started, but left in April 2016, because ChocoBomb wanted to become idols and Iripon didn't. He's still an odorite and choreographer, and he's an amazing dancer - he's @/panpaooo on here!

(English language source for this here, thank you 2525odorite tumblr! 2525odorite.tumblr.com/post/138107644…)
Before this, Iripon was ChocoBo's red member, and Yujimaru was green - he changed to pink after this!

That's pretty much all the 'official'-ish info, but I'm going to carry on and put in some more detail about the members? Thank you for reading up to this point if you have!!

Konu first!! He's probably the most Normal person in ChocoBomb honestly? He's very steady and kind and smiley, definitely the stability these fools need. He also (as far as I know) does most of the group's choreography, which is super impressive!!

Some trivia:
He wears contacts almost always, which is a real shame because his glasses are adorable tbh.
He's in a Kpop dance group called Nyainee with some of the MeseMoa guys.
The other members love him lots & made him this highlight reel birthday video

He's really under-appreciated from what I can tell - there never seem to be that many yellow lightsticks in the crowd at their shows, it kind of breaks my heart. Please love and support him!!! Some bonus pictures, an E~suke for all seasons

Panmen!!
- kind of low-key an absolute mess
- literally named himself after bread
- you know how most odorite make some attempt to conceal their real name/personal details? Panmen has his in his twitter dn, and also posted selfies with his mum and little brother recently

You know that new anime, Sanrio Boys? Panmen is the irl Cinnamaroll boy.

Two of these photos had captions like 'where am I (a 24 year old adult man) supposed to sleep'. He also brought Cinnamon-san on holiday with them.

His costume/character for Onna? Ikki was even Cinnamaroll themed. Please calm down, Panmen.

CINNAMOROLL ASIDE Panmen has also been known to drink too much beer and get lost on public transport on the way home. Rin is his best llsif girl and he likes moe anime girls far too much. He recently started putting WAHAHA in all his tweets. Why are you like this.

Panmen is an honestly amazing dancer though - look under 'media' on his twitter, or check out his nnd, he does these incredible improvised robotic style dances, it's so much fun to watch (although he says it's hard to have stamina for them now, haha). Please support him!!

ChocoBo's other main wonderful weirdo is Leo. I'm still not sure where they found him? He used to be a cosplayer (he still does it as a hobby) and I know that Zecchan introduced him to the group and that Leo and Zecchan co-host a radio show, but I still have so many questions.

As I said before, Leo is a self-proclaimed fudanshi, and is definitely not shy about it. He's p much written MeseMoa fanfic before (see MeseMoa-translations tumblr). It's hard to tell how much he's joking? But the others/his subjects always seem to laugh, so I guess it's fine?

Some other trivia:
- he really loves wolves? I'm 98% joking when I call him a furry, but also...
- he speaks pretty much no English whatsoever (he did a line live recently and we all talked about it a lot)
- he's working SO HARD to be on the same level as the other members,

especially considering that they've had years more practice singing and dancing, on their own and together, than he has. He's doing such a good job of it! And he's a really genuinely kind and funny person, despite his fudanshi tendencies. Please cheer him on!!!

Next up is Takkun!!
- really into fashion! His outfits are really cool, and he's got a very strong personal style - he actually got featured on the TokyoFashion twitter a few months back

https://twitter.com/TokyoFashion/status/939213936997548032

- the others sometimes call him their ace, and he's often the centre

- ridiculously photogenic, even dressed as a minion, which I'm pretty sure is illegal
- he's REALLY popular among the Japanese fandom
- likes spongebob and garfield a lot
- he has a really subtle lisp? And it's the most endearing thing ever
- please love the ace!!

Last up is Yujimaru! I used to be super intimidated but how Pretty he is, but he's really sweet and talented and wonderful, so I warmed up to him really fast.
- much more active on Instagram than on here; his username is the same on there (yujimaru0131)
- he's SO PRETTY

- his first ever solo odottemita video was as his Onna? Ikki version, Maruko. She's also incredibly beautiful!!
- he wasn't kidding about his makeup skills, he's really good at it, and also seems to buy new cosmetics every week or so. How even.

- afaik he's the youngest in the group - he turns 24 at the end of the month
- he's got a really distinctive, unique singing voice, I love it a lot
- loves Snoopy
- special shoutout for his friendship with Tomitake from MeseMoa, they call themselves the Lovely Pink Twins

A couple of pieces of general trivia too:
- they all live together in a shared house. Each member has their own room, and they play rock paper scissors to see who gets the first bath at night.
- idk accurate numbers for heights, but Panmen is the tallest and when they borrow

costumes from MeseMoa he usually wears Nokkuso's, so it's safe to assume he's around 178cm too. Konu wears Shirofuku's, and Leo and Yuji have both worn Forgeru's, ie. they're all Short. I think Takkun is somewhere in between!!
- I didn't say before, but Takkun is also 24 now

They post a 'private video' on their YouTube every Wednesday, a bit like a weekly version of the MeseMoa. Life vids. It's usually them messing around, or outtakes from a dance shoot or something. They're usually really cute and funny!

I'm going to leave this here for tonight (it's almost 2am and I'm very tired, haha) but tomorrow I'll add a bunch of links and resources of other good places to see their stuff (NND pages, Odorite wiki, stuff I missed, maybe some of my fave odottemita/weekly videos of theirs?)

Thank you so much to anyone who read this messy thread! Hopefully it can be some help to someone who wants to get into ChocoBomb, and can help to get the word out about them too. And I'm always happy to talk to people about them, too!!
Please love & support *ChocoLate Bomb!! 🍫💣

Some updates to add onto here!! Chocolate Bomb are now working with two new trainees, called Choco Baby! Their names are Sasser and Nagisa Kouta, and they're helping Chocobo both as staff and as performers sometimes too. They're on twitter as @/Sasser_825 and @/koutann2525 🍫👶

Also, if you're interested in following Chocobo but don't know Japanese, my friend and I now run a blog where we translate some of their tweets etc! Updates are a little irregular right now bc we're both pretty busy, but we do our best 💪 chocobo-translations.tumblr.com

@threadreaderapp unroll please!