Love takes them all – the curious case of Takagi Sayuki

To be fair, this scandal happened quite some time ago: Bunshun published the article about upcoming singer Yuuri being in a relationship with Juice=Juice's Takagi Sayuki on February 11. Long story short: Takagi left Juice=Juice the next day, the group postponed their upcoming single for a month (now to be released on April 28), her …

(Hello!) Dream Big: Is it time for a new Hello! Project unit?

While most of us are still trying to digest the news of the upcoming joint Juice=Juice/Tsubaki Factory audition, there's also another thing to look forward to: The Hello Pro Kenshuusei. Currently consisting of 18 young girls with big dreams to debut in the idol world, the Kenshuusei (shortened to KSS) are the trainees of Hello! …

Two for the price of one: Juice=Juice and Tsubaki Factory hold an audition – together

Many people were surprised, shocked even, when the HaroSute of January 20 announced the news: A joint audition for Juice=Juice and Tsubaki Factory is coming. https://www.youtube.com/embed/xT1DKs1sWOs?start=4 Yamagishi Riko of Tsubaki Factory (left) and Kanazawa Tomoko of Juice=Juice (right) break the news. There have been Hello! Project auditions for potential future projects, announcing that the winners …

Happy New Year 2021!

What a year! I hope all of you are well and healthy and if not that the situation will change quickly. While being a horrible year in general, 2020 turned out to be a good one for this blog. To be fair, Hello! Project gave me a bunch of things to write about, so thanks …

Good old Hello! Online hickup

A lot of people talked about being locked out of H!O because the "sign in via twitter" feature has been bugged. Now I managed to lock myself out - by changing my password and mail adress. When you change these things the forum blocks your account until you enter a validation code, sent to you …

Modern idol scandals: Social Media, forever a problem.

Back when I started following idols in the 2000s, the main source for spicy scandals were newspapers and magazines, with Bunshun and Friday being the most popular outlets. This was such a common thing that the term "getting Friday'd" became somewhat of a meme among English speaking fan groups. Friday, for example, was responsible for …

Corona and its impact on idol life – and graduations

The Corona virus has the whole world in a tight grip, Japan included. Mass events are not allowed at the moment, which is why most idol activities - concerts and handshake events - have come to a halt. However, the job of a (modern) idol is to be in reach for your fans. In contrast …

Hello! Project and love – are H!P members forbidden to date?

The announcement of the upcoming disbandment of Kobushi Factory was a shock to a lot of us - even more to those who saw a certain instagram post making the rounds just a day earlier: In this, unfortunately public, post a person celebrated the one year anniversary with his girlfriend. That's very cute. However, users …

Happy New Year 2020

I don't really want to start a new blog post with an apology about not blogging for a year, but I think I have to. Once again I can explain it with my general lack of interest in anything H!P, but also with circumstances in my personal life. 2020 was a difficult year for me. …

Happy New Year 2019

Happy New Year everybody. I want to apologize for the lack of content. It's hard for me to follow H!P at the moment, with the graduation of Haruna and the upcoming graduation of Yuka, my third favourite in H!P (let's hope that Kanatomo stays for a few more years). I still follow the groups, and …