This article is also available in Japanese: Read the Japanese version
Open the YouTube channel of Avantgardey, the dance team that moves in perfect unison in bobbed hair and school uniforms, sort the videos by view count, and something curious happens. The video at the top isn't the bob-haired group at all. It's the “Bubbly Dance,” a 2017 video of a high-school dance club. The two actually came from the same pair of hands: those of choreographer akane.
This article takes it all in order: the current number of members, the history of the channel, where the bobbed hair and uniforms came from, the American stage, and Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, through to the group's activities in 2026. The channel numbers were measured by this site on November 1, 2026. English-language sources are quoted in the original; words from Japanese-language sources are this site's translations.
How many members does Avantgardey have?
As of November 1, 2026, Avantgardey has 16 members. These 16 names appeared in the member list on the official site (in Japanese):
nona, pani, moca, fuka, seira, nagano, ayane, sono, harune, miyuu, macchan, aimu, kotone, kohana, chacha, ui
The number has changed over time. There were 20 members in 2022, when the group was formed to enter a competition, and as of April 2024, Toyo Keizai Online (in Japanese) put the number at 17. The most recent drop came in March 2026. An official notice (in Japanese) announced oya's graduation from the group and retirement from show business, effective March 21, and oya's name is not in the current member list.
The group is based in Osaka. In an interview for the City of Osaka (in Japanese), sono said, “We're all from Kansai [the region around Osaka], so we're loud (laughs).”
What are the members' real names and ages?
The member list on the official site gives only stage names and links to social media accounts. It has no real names or dates of birth. In a City of Osaka press release (in Japanese), too, the group is listed as “age not disclosed.”
Because the group officially goes by stage names, this site does not pursue individuals' real names or ages either.
That said, they don't seem to be dancing in exactly the same way. According to sono, even when everyone appears straight-faced, “each person adjusts how far their eyes are open and how the corners of their mouth rise and fall.”
Whose channel was this to begin with?
The channel's name is “akanekikaku / avantgardey.” As of November 1, 2026, it had 1.12 million subscribers, about 805.7 million total views, and 414 videos.
The first half, “akanekikaku,” refers to Akanekikaku, the dance company akane founded in 2015. The official site names New Mode Co., Ltd. as its operating company (in Japanese), and the channel's contact information lists the same company.
Since her college days, akane had been coaching the dance club at Tomioka High School in Osaka Prefecture. The oldest video still on the channel is the “Obachan Dance” (“Auntie Dance”) from May 2015. Then, on September 16, 2017, came the video below: the “Bubbly Dance.”
As of November 1, 2026, it had about 124.31 million views, so this one video accounts for roughly 15% of all the views on the channel. The description shows it was also shot and edited by akane herself.
In other words, this isn't a case of a different group moving into a high-school club's channel. It's the place where akane has been posting her own work all along.
2022: the year the video count changed
Count the videos by year, and at a certain point it starts to look like a different channel. (The 2026 figure runs through November 1.)
| Year | Videos |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 1 |
| 2016 | 1 |
| 2017 | 2 |
| 2018 | 2 |
| 2019 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2 |
| 2021 | 1 |
| 2022 | 33 |
| 2023 | 71 |
| 2024 | 42 |
| 2025 | 165 |
| 2026 | 92 |
That's 11 videos in the seven years through 2021, and 403 from 2022 through November 1, 2026. Of those, 324 were short videos of 60 seconds or less.
Still, it's not as if nothing came before the turning point. The dancers listed in the description of a January 2022 dance-cover video include nona, pani, KOTONE, Moca, Seira, sono, and Nagano, the same stage names the current members use.
In an interview with Real Sound (in Japanese), akane explained that Akanekikaku had about 50 people on its roster and that she chose 20 of them. That selection was prompted by THE DANCE DAY, a dance competition broadcast on Nippon TV, a Japanese network, and held in May 2022. Work on the piece reportedly began around February, and the City of Osaka's introduction of the group also gives February 2022 as the date it was formed.
Many in the lineup seem to have been working with akane since their teens. In a 2024 FASHIONSNAP interview (in Japanese), akane said that about half the members came from the Tomioka High School Dance Club. sono and nagano are among them. nagano reportedly decided to join the club after seeing the “Obachan Dance” in junior high school, and sono after seeing “HERO.”
Where did the bobbed hair and uniforms come from?
The answer lies in the competition's rules. THE DANCE DAY allowed only Japanese music, so akane chose a kind of music she loved: Japanese pop of the Showa era. The look she pictured to go with that music was a nostalgic school uniform, along the lines of a pinafore-style dress, and bobbed hair. The song she chose for the competition was “Kamome ga Tonda Hi” (“The Day the Seagull Flew”) by Machiko Watanabe. A video of the same song was also released in January 2026.
akane wasn't aiming for cool or cute. She wanted people to think “I've never seen anything like it,” “that's funny,” and “that's creepy.” The members felt much the same way: sono recalls with a laugh that their first impression, when they all put on the costumes together for the first time, was “Eww, creepy!”
The look was only supposed to be for the competition, but by the end it had drawn so much attention that it stayed on as their uniform. At THE DANCE DAY, they reached the final. However, this site could not confirm their final ranking.
How did Avantgardey do on AGT?
What brought them to the world's attention was season 18 of America's Got Talent (AGT) in 2023.
Judge Heidi Klum told them, “You look like 20 dolls who have come to life all of a sudden.” They were eliminated at one point, but NBC's article, which carries that remark, reports that they won the Instant Save, in which a viewer vote rescues one act, and took a place among the 11 acts in the final. The same article says the members at the time had day jobs while they danced: making noodles, working at an ice cream shop, being a barista, and serving at a restaurant, among other jobs.
According to Tokyo Weekender, they also danced to songs by YOASOBI and ABBA, but were eliminated in the finals. The winner was a man and his dog. This site could not confirm where Avantgardey placed in the final.
Even so, sono recalls thinking, on that stage where the crowd's reaction changed one second into their dance, “Our style wasn't wrong after all.” Getting laughs even without a shared language must have felt wonderful.
What did they do at the 2025 Expo?
2025 is also the year whose videos have drawn the most views. Add up the 165 videos released that year and you get about 368.8 million views as of November 1, 2026, nearly three times the views of the “Bubbly Dance.” The most-viewed of them is the 31-second “OKP Cipher with Mandy Sekiguchi,” at about 31.4 million views as of the same date.
According to the City of Osaka, the group performed at the Expo's opening ceremony and, on the closing day, danced with the Expo's official character Myaku-Myaku.
The connection to this Expo goes back further than that, to the bid to bring the Expo to Osaka. On the channel since October 2018 is the video below, the “Expo Dance.”
It was choreographed by akane, who had become a special supporter of that bid, and it features 120 people in all, including Akanekikaku dancers and former and current members of the Tomioka High School Dance Club. nagano also said, “We were involved in the bid for the Expo too, going back to our Tomioka High School days.” It's about six and a half years from this video to the opening ceremony, so it was quite a long relationship.
What has Avantgardey done in 2026?
In 2026, they have kept moving between overseas stages and Japan.
In March, the “LET'S GROOVE!!” Asia tour took them to Bangkok, Singapore, and Hong Kong. May through July brought a six-city tour of Japan (in Japanese).
akane's first book, Nazo no Okappa Shudan, Kizuitara Sekai de Odotteta (in Japanese; roughly, The Mysterious Bob-Haired Troupe That Found Itself Dancing Around the World), had a release date of August 20.
In October, kohana personally reported a first-ever role in a drama, and according to an ORICON article (in Japanese), kohana did so without the bobbed hair.
On October 23, they released the music video for “SUSHI” with Malaysia's 3P. It was shot at Ninna-ji Temple, Kyoto. As of November 1, 2026, they are scheduled to appear at an event at Hanazono Rugby Stadium (in Japanese) on November 14, among other engagements. The channel's most recent upload was on October 31.
A channel that once showed a high-school club now features 16 dancers performing around the world. It has all come from the same hands, so perhaps the humor of that “Bubbly Dance” runs through these 16 in their bobs, too.
