Oshi48: Preparing for April

Okay, first of all, I never use the term "oshi," I prefer favorite. Therefore, I will use the word favorite from now on. I just wanted a nifty title.

So, I haven't used this blog in like forever, mostly because I forgot about it, ohoho. Either way, I felt like ranting some at the moment because I'm bored, and the topic I chose for this particular rant is the upcoming disbandment / mass graduation or whatever you will call it - of SDN48. Or actually, the aftermath of this event that will take place March 31 later this year.

Those who know me know that my favorite member in the 48 family is Serina of SDN48 - the beautiful and slightly awkward lady with short hair that speaks like a duck. Either way, she'll be a victim of the mass graduation, and while I've been secretly praying that perhaps management will save her for other work, considering she's more or less the center, as well as constantly active in both variety TV and gravure work. Sadly, this is seemingly not the case, as she has already declared her intentions to try and go for an acting career once she finishes her work with SDN. I'll of course cheer her on during her other adventures in show biz, but that gives me the trouble of having to pick a new favorite within the 48... but there are so many, including loads of girls that I really love for various reasons specific to particular individuals and I simply can't decide! Sure, there's no rushing it, but I really feel like having a decision ready as soon as SDN is no longer part of the game - some might say I'm rushing it, but I need one girl to focus on or else I'll toss around between multiple, and both my morals (joke, I don't have any) and my wallet (true fact) disagree with that lifestyle.

So here I am, and I'm going to list a few candidates and hopefully I've decided by the time I've finished writing this. Or not. If not, feel free to try to bend my mind in whichever direction you wish (except for the Yasusu direction, I like Tsunku's body more, and I'm superficial).

Candidate 1:



Airi Furukawa (古川愛李) (If you think this photo doesn't capture her beauty, try This or This or even This)

So, I've loved this girl for a long time. Say... Since somewhere around 2005-2006... But she joined SKE like 2009, so how does that make sense?
Thing is, I've been a MM fan since 2005, and once I became a fan I decided to check through most stuff in retrospective, because one shouldn't miss out on the past and all, especially not H!P wise with great artists such as Rinne Toda and the entire T&C.
--- Anyway, Airin, or "*True*Airi" as I call her when I speak with Airi Suzuki fan Machi-chan, auditioned for Morning Musume year 2005 - this was the same audition that Koharu Kusumi passed to the delight of many future fans, and to the displeasure of many ears once Kirarin started running. Despite knowing the result, I watched the audition and my favorite was this "healthy-looking" (When I say this, I mean that she was chubbier than the rest of the finalists) girl who was extremely cute, had an interesting voice, and who'd defintiely marry me in the future.

She lost and I knew she would. She disappeared from my world... Until SKE48 picked her up!
To be quite fair, I didn't notice until quite some time after that she had joined them, as I did not pay any attention to SKE, nor AKB for that matter - the only release I had bought from AKB by that time was "Boku no Taiyou", and one doesn't need to be a fan to know that Boku no Taiyou is a lovely song, with its retroness. Regardless, I came to notice her and this little group called SKE when they released Gomen ne, Summer in mid-2010. Not because I liked the song, in fact, I liked a B-side - "Shoujo wa Manatsu ni Nani wo Suru?" A b-side that Airin isn't in. However, it opened the door for me to at least check out their members, and I recognized one particularly beautiful face. Connecting the dots, I realized that it was Airi from the MM auditions. Instant favorite right there!

So, cool. I like this B-side, I don't like most of SKE's other releases though. Fun fun fun. I had yet to get into SKE stages either as I couldn't get a grip on the rest of the members, so that became a no-no as well. In the end, I had to settle with following -only- her in SKE. And since Airin hasn't exactly been front-line... Yeah. However, thanks to Google+, blogging and me watching / listening to stages I've come to grow even closer with her. (It's a gap where only I advance, considering she doesn't know of me unless she recieved my *unreadable letters.) She's also getting closer to the front - a close relationship with the most popular girl in the group has probably helped her. She's fun as heck, nerdy, strange, has a cute hairstyle that goes along with my tastes, and she's kind of the only idol of this type of persona that has gotten to me this much, and heck - just last year she landed in a stage song which has become my absolute favorite song written by Aki P, ever. Love her.

* With unreadable, I mean my handwriting is so piss poor that not even I can read it. Not that my language is bad, even though it is.

Candidate 2:



Sae Miyazawa (宮澤佐江)

Regular senbatsu member in AKB and one of the faces of the -amazing- Team K. Sae first caught my eye... In 2010, woop woop. It was with the Beginner release, a song that I, to be quite honest: dislike. What I don't dislike are all the B-sides of the single - excellent release in terms of the non A-side material... But Sae is featured in the A-side I didn't like, so how the hell did she catch my eye?! Well, her hairstyle for the single was extremely cool, and she's kinda cute, so I asked H!O member Tyzer who she was. And here we are!

Sae is currently my #1 if AKB, and has been since that time mentioned above. I had never really cared about picking a favorite member in AKB as I didn't actively follow them except for a few select members (and the gravure - yeah, I like my disgusting bikinis). Before Sae, I had mostly only liked Mai Oshima, Ayaka Umeda, Erena Ono, Haruka Nakagawa and Tomomi Kasai, and while I could have motivated myself to watch their TV shows... Naa! However, I did watch their stages (or rather, Team K ones) as I enjoy quite a hefty amount of non A-sides from AKB. However, with Sae, I began watching AKBingo, and learnt that it was what I should've done instead of lying on my bed crying over the death of Hello!Morning, three years prior to this enlightenment. As I'm cool and all, I watched stuff in retrospective, mainly focused on Sae, and came to like her even more. She's got this tomboy image, but to me, she comes of as extremely feminine (further empathized in her photobook Kanojo). I like the character gap, and quite honestly, I like a gap like this in girls I meet in real life as well. So, I guess one of the big charms about Sae is that she gives off this "lovely girlfriend" aura, kinda. This does of course not mean that I'm romantically interested in her, oh no. I'm already reserved for Arisa Noto.

Last year I voted for Sae 11 times in the senbatsu election, something I'm not planning on doing this year, as bad as it sounds, despite her being my #1 in AKB. This year I'm giving half of my votes to Yui Yokoyama, and the other half will go to:


Candidate 3:



Ayaka Umeda (梅田彩佳) (Better picture if you so wish: Here)

Here's another one, and by "another one," I mean another girl that I've liked for longer time than I've been a fan of the group, and by "another one," I mean another member of the elite Team K - When it comes to money spent on an individual member of the 48 family, the only one who's close to Serina is Umechan. Umechan is quite a practical nickname, you know? 'cause one of my favorite H!P members of all time is Umesan - Erika Umeda!
---Either way, just like with Airin, I discovered this girl when I was a fresh MM fan - Tsunku wanted to take her out for Yakiniku during the (un)Lucky 7 Auditions. What caught me here was once again a pretty girl, but also an incredibly soothing voice. Seriously, you don't audition with Nagori Yuki unless you're amazing - and Ayaka is. Don't know how many versions of that song I've heard, but the short clip with 15 year old Umechan singing it a cappella is forever engraved in my heart.
(Random trivia and shameful attempt to force my tastes on you who reads this, but my all-time favorite singer - Aya Matsuura have also done a cover of this song: listen to it here on youtube)

So, as of these days... Umechan is my #3 in AKB... Hm? I jumped straight past my #2 for ultimate favorite candidate, but my #3 gets a chance to aim for it? Wouldn't that mean Umechan should be #2? No, it doesn't, my #2 is Miori Ichikawa, and she's destined to be #2, even if I don't believe in destiny. If I end up picking Umechan as my number one, Sae will be number three. I honestly don't know why I'm so keen on keeping this position, but it's in the end - it all pans out to me not knowing if I like Umechan or Sae more, while Miorin is such a unique.... being that I can't compare her with normal -human- women.

Well, as mentioned earlier, she's the only one who comes close to Serina in expenses I've let out on a 48 member - especially in the photography department. An Ayaka Umeda tag in a magazine is enough for me to decide that it's an issue worthy of buying - the only other names that have this power over me are Yumi Sugimoto, Nozomi Sasaki, Yuko Ogura, Serina, Mirei Kiritani, Sayumi Michishige, Haruka Nakagawa and Erina Mano. Might sound like a lot, but there are about as many gravure idols out there as there are people in Sweden (not really), so I think my getting it down to this few names is a really commendable job.
--- The reason why Ayaka is one of these is because she's gorgeous, of course. I don't mean to be superficial, but when it comes to photography, which I classify as art even if it's just pretty ladies in disgusting bikinis. Actually, that's more art than the crap they feed me during class (I'm a cultural arts student).

Ayaka also has her way (I avoided a bad word) with my money in another way - I tend to purchase any release where she's heavily featured, because her voice and my ears were made for each other. If I believed in God, I'd say all of this has been a part of his grand scheme, putting her in the MM audition, making me discover her vocal capabilities and pretty face - eventually putting her in AKB, giving me a reason to follow only her and a select few others that I bothered learning because they were beautiful, and later creating the unit DiVA that also has Sae. Yay! I don't believe in God though, nor will I ever. Unless I would see Yasusu as a God... which I don't as I'm primarily devoted to Yasutaka Nakata (a new challenger appears), or Tsunku (Sharan Q fan waay before I even touched MM). That said, I'm incredibly satisfied with how everything turned out in the end, Ume in 48 and all. I'm not one of these bitter people who'd whine about my favorite member of another group failed to get into the group I follow the most (and if I were, I'd never get Manazashi Sayonara <- refering to Airin).


Okay, so... those were my three candidates for #1. Haru is my favorite in NMB48, and NMB48 is my favorite group in the family after SDN, but on an individual level she's not quite where these three are. Think of it as she broke her leg right before the final race in a 100m dash competition. Same goes for Harugon, Miorin and some other sweethearts I've mentioned here and there.

Hmm, reading through everything I've written... I still like Serina the best.
I still can't decide who'll get the honor, but I'll have until April 1 to decide, and there's quite some time left anyway! If I haven't decided by the end, I'll probably let chance decide and roll a D20.

It was fun to rant nonetheless!
------------------------------


So, if someone even bothered to read this until the end - thanks for reading!
Feel free to comment if you're in a situation similar to mine, or if you'd like to share your opinion on which one of these three you think I should focus on...
Or if you just feel like commenting about whatever you want, that's fine too!


//SUPER*LeMONAmoururu~!