SixTONES has announced its 2025 leader during their live New Year's Eve broadcast, “SixTONES New Year's Eve Live Stream 2024→2025,” streamed on their YouTube channel from Tokyo Skytree. The group continued their tradition of selecting the leader through a "rock-paper-scissors" game, a quirky ritual introduced by Tanaka Juri in 2022. Tanaka had explained that the winner would bring good fortune, and this year, the match-up came down to Tanaka and Shintaro Morimoto. Morimoto triumphed, making him the leader for 2025.

During the broadcast, SixTONES performed "Neiro" and shared a New Year's tradition by enjoying soba together. 

Morimoto humorously commented, “Since I’m the leader now, we’re going to introduce new rules, starting with an 8 a.m. online meeting,” promising a more exciting year for SixTONES. He added, “Let’s shine even brighter and have a great year. I’m ready to give it my all, including doing some promotional work!”

The leader selection is a well-known tradition for SixTONES, which began with Arashi’s Satoshi Ohno choosing Yugo Kochi in 2020. Since then, the leadership has been decided by "rock-paper-scissors," with past leaders including:

• 2020: Yugo Kochi (appointed by Satoshi Ohno of Arashi)
• 2021: Hokuto Matsumura
• 2022: Yugo Kochi (2nd term)
• 2023: Shintaro Morimoto
• 2024: Jesse
• 2025: Shintaro Morimoto (2nd term)