453 replies to this topic

[JPope]

Yeah, the boyfriend angle is totally in play, IMO. Here's a possible scenario: UFP discovers that Rio has a boyfriend that the press does not yet know about. They ask her to stop seeing him until she graduates in two months. Rio says "I don't think so." UFP terminates her contract.

[Yaminata]

You'd be surprised.  It really wouldn't surprise me it was because she has a boyfriend.  Miyabi had a boyfriend at some point and was given a second chance.

 

Do you really think that between that one episode and Berryz hiatus* Miyabi didn't date anyone ? I guess we'd be surprised , like when Aibon said that before her scandal she had dated people lol.

Also, let's not forget Ayaya who never stopped dating her boyfriend (now husband) and that Ai Takahashi pretty much started dating Abe-san before her graduation.

 

Honestly, IMO the "boyfriend" case seems unlikely. We all know that it's not like the girls were really forbidden to date...

I'd go on the "other job"/"other agency" boat. Though, we may never know what happened unless Rio herself explains things ...

Edited by Yaminata, 06 July 2017 - 10:18 PM.

[thegabriel]

It could be just normal stuff that would get anyone fired from a job.

Showing up late, not showing up at all, lack of enthusiasm, butting heads with management.

 

Or... the Maimi-loss was just too much for her.

[JennyInTokyo]

It must have been a pretty serious thing for UFP to just give up on her and let her go! She was due to graduate anyway so that reason I can't imagine it being because she's slacked off :/  I feel like it could be something serious like a boyfriend.

[Akpopguy]

I remember in a Shalala performance a little bit ago, she just seemed out of it. As in she just didn't care.

I feel like she was slacking, they reminded her she only had 2 months left, and she just kept slacking. She's only 18, and sometimes you just don't care. I'm sure she didn't want this to happen, not realizing she was gonna get terminated, but what's happened has happened.


Though I'm EXTREMELY sad we won't have a Kobushi Graduation ceremony. I feel like it would be special. :/

[minaeshi]

Well she kinda ruined the cool streak Kobushi had going for them until now welp.. 

If you're on your way out anyway, you should try to make it so that when you do leave, you're on good terms with the company you worked with. Leaving like this will make it harder for her future now. It's a shame, and it doesn't paint Rio in a good light if i'm being honest.. Anyone that doesn't know her well will hear of this and think she's lazy/rebellious/unreliable etc. Whatever it is, be it a boyfriend, drugs/alcohol, bad attitude and work ethic, whatever, she could have waited until she left the company. 

[SZA]

If she did have a boyfriend, she probably starting being reckless with hiding that secret since she’s graduating soon and got caught. 

[Monae]

I think she was smoking and/or drinking - why else would they get her parents involved in talks when she's an adult now? 

and why else would they be in such a rush to get her out the door when she was already on her way out?  

[RenaiDestiny。]

None of the Kobushi Factory members are legal to drink or smoke in Japan, even in a closed area. So if that really was the case, then her parents 100% should have gotten involved. The Berryz/C-ute members who were legal adults mentioned drinking whilst still in their groups so I doubt if that was the case, UFP wouldn't care much as long as it wasn't all over the media.

[Kinjiru]

Get the feeling it was a lack of motivation and her getting consistency late or something. She might have been scolded harshly at the hello con rehearsals and been like screw it, I am graduating soon anyway. If it is a termination of contract I expect the company had strong grounds to stand on or otherwise the move would not have been made. It's not because she had a BF since she could easily talk her way of that one and spin it in any way possible. Been a while since I saw her but she looked completely disinterested at the Tokyo Dome release event too so I wouldn't put slacking off past her.

[RenaiDestiny。]

If NMB could keep a member with a fiancée (I believe she is graduating at this point, but NMB staff were made well aware of the situation way before she announced it), I don't see any reason why H!P would kick out an already graduating member for dating. That's why not much was done for C-ute's recent scandals beyond an apology, because they were already disbanding.

[WorldGN18]

I was really shocked by this, specially because she was so close to graduating it must have been something really serious, for the other hand if it's because of a boyfriend maybe that's the real reason why she decided to graduate in the first place plus she didn't care about being an idol anymore, in which case she started to lack at her job while being too open about her relationship so management talk to her like "please change this behavior you only have 2 months left " but she didn't care anymore so they terminated her contract. I think this is the less serious possibility, but it still makes her look bad and reckless, we all know how much Japanese value reputation, Aibon's situation show it, if that happened here (or at least in my country) people would be making jokes about her (which I don't find good either) rather than  turning her into a taboo topic, so I think she screwed up badly

 

Or... the Maimi-loss was just too much for her.

Is it bad that I laugh?

 

[chisafan]

I don't know KF that well but it is a shame to lose the girl. If she was planning from the start not to take things too seriously she should have gone AKB, amirite?

[Aeria]

^

What does AKB have to do with any of this? You don't need to insult another idol group.

 

___

 

I've had some time to think about what happened. It's a shame it happened, but it is what it is. Being terminated from a major agency isn't going to look good on her record, but I wish her the best of luck.

[zam（仮）]

I don't know KF that well but it is a shame to lose the girl. If she was planning from the start not to take things too seriously she should have gone AKB, amirite?

LOL you obviously have no idea about her history or where she came from

I just read the termination letter and it clearly states that Rio didn't improve on something that was agree upon with the management. But I say that just a bloody excuse. She is quiting in 2 months why would the company demand she improve on anything, when she isn't going to be around in 2 months time.

This is stupid, I think someone is out to drag her down. Even Ayaka's blog post hinted on something shadowy.

I made a post with a quick translation to the newsfeed...

What I gathered from it is that it was behavioral and - despite sitting down to talk with her - she continued with whatever she was doing and management had enough. There was another sit-down with her and her parents which led to the termination.

Honestly, I think she was just done and flaked off. Having no future aspirations for the entertainment industry, this is one bridge she figured she could burn. Unfortunately for her, when she eventually tries to get a job as a teacher or nurse or whatever it is she ends up going to school for, this will come up and it will reflect poorly on her work ethic and dedication to her tasks.

I was inclined to this view but after reading Ayaka's blog I am not so sure about this line of thought.

[CrypticShadow8]

Truthfully I doubt it's any shady dealings on UFs part. I love Rio I really do but when UF wants to quietly get rid of people they just do it. How many times has a girl gotten sick and just never come back? They don't usually go to the extreme of straight up firing someone and terminating their contract. Also I'm sure it wasn't them telling her to improve right now with 2 months to go. It was something that came up awhile ago but never got fixed. 

 

Now what that was, be it slacking off or a boyfriend or whatever yes they could have let it go till graduation but I think firing her is to prove a point and punish her. I'm sure she'll still get a job in the future but every application you fill out asks if you've ever been fired from a job previously. So every job she tries to get she will has to explain what happened even if that job is fine with it. So whatever she did I think UF just didn't want her to have the satisfaction of being able to say she quit the job and wanted her to have the stigma of being fired.

 

I'm definitely sad for Kobushi. They now have to do the whole thing where they talk around their original members. UF already gets pissy about people who quit with no graduation (for example you almost never hear about Shimamura Uta from Country Girls or Murakami Megumi from C-ute) but they are ruthless with people they fire. Like everyone said they went years without mentioning Aibon by name and while a couple people slipped it in on blogs I don't think they really relaxed about it until after her depression and suicide attempt. So now Kobushi will have to do that awkwardness where it's like "we had 8 members but one mysteriously disappeared into the sunset.... and we seemed to all have had brain injuries and can't remember her name...." I hope they don't take it as extreme as they did Aibon though because I feel that influenced a lot of her later issues.

[Yaminata]

If you're on your way out anyway, you should try to make it so that when you do leave, you're on good terms with the company you worked with. Leaving like this will make it harder for her future now. It's a shame, and it doesn't paint Rio in a good light if i'm being honest.. Anyone that doesn't know her well will hear of this and think she's lazy/rebellious/unreliable etc. Whatever it is, be it a boyfriend, drugs/alcohol, bad attitude and work ethic, whatever, she could have waited until she left the company. 

I so so so agree with you !

We don't know what happened but at any rate, it's important to stay professional... She's 18, everyone in H!P said that she's super smart. How couldn't she wait until September?

 

This being said, I find this kinda funny/ironic. On the one hand we have Tsubaki Factory describing how it's like to work in a Japanese company (always being polite, devoting your all to your company regardless of your worries). On the other hand, we have Fuji, who left with a sort of "Couldn't careless about you and your company . Good bye boy" -like attitude
Still, I hope this won't affect too much her future path.

[-=o=-]

(I've been reading every post on this thread as they've been posted since the news came out... ugh...)

 

Even though Rio was my chosen KF oshi from before KF was named, I've always felt she was a bit "distant" and worried she would leave early.  (But, I always expected her to be the second to leave KF... I won't name who I thought would be first.)

So, when she announce in May, I was saddened; but, not totally surprised.

THIS surprised me, though. 

I'm hoping for the best for her... and a healing of the difficult breakup over time.

 

Using history as a guide, I'm confident we'll hear or see her again somewhere and that she will be happily doing something she loves sometime in the future.  (Maybe like Megumi of C-ute.)

 

As for the remaining KF members, I really feel sorry for them.

Though, I wouldn't expect all the KF members to totally ignore her history with them, etc. like has happened to others in the past.  (I think C-ute helped break that tradition a bit...)  Reading Ayapan's blog post, it sounds like she (or other members) are not going to scrub her name from their lips that easily.

[Fall]

As for future questions of Rio's employment history, since H!P works under an exclusivity contract with a statutory agent (her parents), to my understanding of Japanese contract law, this will neither count as being fired in her future employment records nor was the contract binding to her specifically.  Since she's still 18 (with legal adult age in Japan being 20), the contract would have still been with her parents under Rio's consent as statutory agents rather than Rio herself, absolving her and her parents of prejudice since minors are considered to lack competence and reasoning capacity in transactional and service agreements.  Given how soon after her birthday this was and the timeline for her intended graduation, it is likely that any issues that would have resulted in negotiations or the termination of her contract would have started a few months ago, which actually seems to have been hinted in the announcement.

 

There's very little in the way of actual details as to what the dispute entailed other than those vaguely given in the announcement and speculation by the fans.  When the announcement mentions "improvement" it seems to have been in context to an improvement to the circumstances of the contract violation or actions by Rio or her statutory agent rather than anything regarding improvements to her performing abilities.  When the announcement mentions her parents, it seems to refer to a person or persons acting in the capacity as her statutory agent (parental authority).  Regardless of what the rule she may have broken would have been, it seems they were in talks to try and work out a solution with negotiations breaking down after conditions were not met.  If the agency has any consistent history with anything at all, it is that they have no patience for contract negotiations of any kind.

 

With Hirose's regretful blog post and her continued love for, and comments regarding, her activities with Rio, there is very little that we could speculate about what happened with any reasonable level of certainty.   The only things we know for certain are that she was already going to graduate, but the agency found reason or cause to terminate her contract early.

[yeahman]

Actually the truth is that she decided to start stalking Maimi fulltime after C-ute disbanded. UFP told her to stop but she refused so they terminated her contract. At least now she's free to stalk whoever she wants.

No but seriously, it's a shame it should end this way. But honestly thr company has been quite willing to help the girls cover up their scandals, or let the girls "leave on their own accord". For them to fire a girl really shows how badly she was performing. I have much less sympathy for her in that case, after all they even spoke to her about it and gave her a chance.