Spring time in a fandom

I've been so uninspired to write about anything, but now there are some things I'd like to discuss. It's going to be a random entry, so bear with me!

First of all, there were the news of now ex-H!P Egg Erina Mano graduating from Ongaku Gatas and finishing her training in H!P Eggs, to pursue a solo career. I was naturally thrilled by this piece of news, not really as a Manoeri fan but as an Egg fan (since Manoeri wasn't one of my favourite Eggs personally, but I can see the potential in her). Well, it's way too early in my opinion to guess what her future career will be like, since we don't even know for sure if she's going to be a singing idol or perhaps go for acting instead. It would be a first, eh? A bit farfetched perhaps, but we really don't know, do we. Every time I see her do the opening for Berikyuu I can't help but think how much she looks like an actress from some drama series, which is why I brought up the idea of her going for acting, but looks aren't - - well, actually looks ARE everything in this business. But nevermind.

Manoerithennow

Out of curiousity, I dug up the first comment of mine on Manoeri that I could find. And it said "I think she's really cute..." I think that must have been most fans' initial reaction, since she seemed to become so popular (relatively, we are talking about Eggs you know) in such a short span of time. The picture above on the left has the first picture of Manoeri that was ever available to us (and also what I commented on as being 'really cute'), and on the right Manoeri now. But let's move on to our next topic.

So, our next topic is Sayaka Kitahara as Noeru on Kirarin Revolution - well, mainly in the live action clips on Oha Star, since I don't watch the anime. Her character is a tomboy sporty girl, which I had no idea about before I started watching, so I was very pleasantly surprised. The role seems to fit her perfectly and makes her seem very cool. I'm surprised I haven't seen that many screencaps of her around (I took these ones myself), and it makes me fear that fanboys (who usually take the caps) aren't that excited about her tomboyish role. But I think girls are very open and even inclined to like this kind of image (just look at Yossi's success... and hell, I'm buying it) so maybe Sayaka has a chance to gain more female fans. Or maybe I'm reading too much into it. Either way I think everyone who's curious should head towards Hello! Online and grab at least one of these clips to hear Sayaka's tomboy voice and see her tough girl attitude!

Pictures from top to bottom:
1. Simply Sayaka as Noeru
2. Noeru is too cool to shake hands with random dudes. (Who knows where that hand has been)
3. Noeru meets tambourine

Her character's story seems to be that Kirari is determined to have Noeru join her as an idol, but Noeru isn't as excited about the idea. But in the end she gives in to it, after noticing that being an idol is also hard work (like sports).

I guess that's enough about Sayaka...

Ymsky2003

Then, a little bit about Yuuka Maeda. She's going to be in a special unit for the Cinderella musical that Morning Musume is working on. What I would like to briefly praise her for are her singing and looks. I listened to the recording of the latest Shinjin Kouen where Yuuka performed an Ayaya song solo. I was surprised to hear that she actually did a decent job! I knew she had potential in singing from earlier performances, but she was still better than I had expected. I've been underestimating her a little, I think. Ah, and as for her looks... She's been cute all the time, but now it feels like she's reached a whole new level of cuteness. What on earth happened?! Maybe she just grew out of her 'awkward phase' (you know, the one that all teens go through). But her most recent official pics are just mind-numbingly adorable. Can't wait to see her in the special unit!

Then for something a little different. About a month ago, at JPH!P (the forum I go to and moderate) we started a "girl of the week" feature in the H!P Girls Threads section. Now it's not a huge feature thing, just that a certain member's thread gets stickified for a week and people are encouraged to post special comments and such in her thread. And especially visit threads they usually don't. So anyway, I actually noticed that this little feature has helped me to start paying special attention to certain members, even after their week is over. I'm mainly talking about Reina Tanaka and Risa Niigaki here.

8958

I've been over-looking Reina for ages now for no particular reason. But when it was her week (she was the first one up), I was thinking about all the things I liked about her and decided that she deserved more of my attention. And shortly after that Resonant Blue, the PV where she's pretty much the main featured girl (she opens and closes the 'another version'), came out and I was able to think "oh yeah, this girl definitely knows what she's doing". So I was able to pay more attention to all her good sides and start liking and respecting her more. It was rewarding!

To a smaller extent the same thing happened with Risa; during her week there was a conversation in her thread about her difficult early days in Morning Musume and current leader potential, which me notice her a bit more than usual, too. (There wasn't much new information for me in the conversation, but sometimes a mere reminder works wonders.)

I really haven't been paying attention individually to several H!P members, so I'm really looking forward to more "girls of the week" who I might end up appreciating in a whole new way. I realize that fans who are only interested in supporting a few particular members aren't going to benefit from something like this, but to anyone who wants to be a fan of the whole Hello!Project, it is beneficial to sometimes take the time to pay attention to each and every girl separately.

I'm going to end this post with one random wish: I want H!P Sports Festival back!!