The two met each other at the dormitory of a
driver's ed school they attended in
Oita. At the time, they were only acquaintances and were not too familiar with each other. In 1996, the two of them met each other by chance again in
Osaka, as the same class at the
NSC audition in 1996. Believing it was fate that brought them together, they formed the unit in May of that same year. The unit moved to
Tokyo soon after graduating NSC as they found little success in Osaka. They rose in popularity and were more active in Tokyo around 2008, but broke out in 2012. Viking was represented by
Watanabe Entertainment in 1999 and changed to
Yoshimoto in 2004, but were released after just one year, becoming free agents. Currently, they are represented by
Sony Music Artists. When the unit first formed, they wrote their unit name "Viking" in
katakana (バイキング). However, this resulted in confusion by the public when they rose to popularity as バイキング is the same word as
buffet. To avoid being mistaken for the all you can eat restaurants on search engines, the unit changed their name to write in both
katakana and
hiragana (バイきんぐ). ==Career==