As a Hello! Project fan, keeping up with the members, remembering their names, talents, and other miscellaneous information tends to be quite a task, and more than on occasion do I forget them entirely or think “oh she’s pretty” about ten times a month because I keep forgetting them and then seeing them in a later picture. I do this so a couple of them, so this is dedicated to all those I keep forgetting.
Starting with Yurina Kumai, a singer for BerryZ Koubou and one of the tallest H!P members being 5′10″ (that’s 9 inches taller than me!) She was in Koinu dan no Monogatari and Hotaru no Hoshi, she was part of Little Hospital and Musume Dokyu! According to wiki she’s a lead singer in BerryZ, but I associate Risako and Miyabi to being the main leads. Of course wiki tends to be outdated, especially when it comes to fast paced groups like BerryZ who tend to be changing the leads and types of songs all the time. I don’t blame wiki, since they rely on others to update the info. I feel bad for forgetting her, actually, the only reason why I even remembered her was because someone recently uploaded a ton of Kumai pictures on Hell!Project and they show the most recently uploaded pictures.
Next is Shimizu Saki, the current Captain of BerryZ Koubou, and for those wondering, no I don’t really pay attention to a lot of the BerryZ Members, I know Miyabi, Risako, and Momoko, actually I can’t even keep the BerryZ and C-ute members straight-ouch. She was part of the two-shot group ZYX with Mari Yaguchi, they did Shiroi Tokyo and Iku ZYX! Fly High as the two singles doing a rendition of the Coconuts Musume song “Tokonatsu Musume” She also became part of the High-King group with Tanaka Reina and Takahashi Ai (I don’t mention the others since Tanaka and Takahashi are the big names of the group). The group was used to promote the Hello! Project musical Cinderella the musical. They were known for dancing, I think Shimizu is actually known for her dancing personally.
Ishimura Maiha!!! I miss her, she’s no longer in BerryZ, she left in 2005, but isn’t she adorable! She was in the movie Koinu dan no Monogatari, that’s really cute movie, I liked it. Supposedly she left to finish her schooling, but anyone and everyone who knows the rules of H!P knows that leaving due to school means there are other reasons. From what I’ve heard some people thought she just couldn’t deal with all of the idol rules and requirements, others think that she simply wasn’t happy with the idol life, they said she looked unhappy like she didn’t belong. There are some rumors that she still keeps in contact with Risako. It’s really a sad thing that she left, I mean, some people really complain when a person leaves, and I mean really complain, like when Murakami Megumi left. I didn’t even know who she was, and yet I knew all this information about her, why she left, rumors, how “amazing” she was, and it was like…. I wonder who she is. I never saw her or anything, but everyone had made such a fuss over her leaving. Though there’s anything on Maiha, and it’s really disappointing. Even if we go on looks alone, I’d say Maiha deserves the attention. Now, don’t get me wrong, Murakami was a decent person and singer, etc. but she just gets so much attention while Maiha is left to sit in the dust with Michiyo Heike, Maeda Yuki, and Coconuts Musume, and by the dust I mean people who really had potential but just weren’t given their chance. Esepcially with Heike, I mean, she was the winner of the contest and the losers are still here, what happened to her? Fell off the face of the planet is my best guess.
Everyone in Coconuts Musume except for Mika & Ayaka, I like them, but everyone does. I want to look more at the more hated and forgotten of the members. Let’s start with April-who? Yeah, no one knew there was a girl named April in the group. April Barbaran, she was in the group from June 1999 to January 2000, so pretty much no one knows about her because she wasn’t in the group for even a year, she was in Halation Summer and Dance & Chance. Chelsea Ching was in for the same time, she left in order to finish school, but as well all know that’s never the real reason. She left due to difficulties adjusting, since she didn’t speak any Japanese, the same reason as April. In 2002 Chelsea appeared as a contestant on the NBC relality TV show Meet My Folks. Chelsea is a model now. Next is Danielle Delaunay, she left in 2001 due to adjustment difficulties, I’m not sure I’m quite buying this. I mean, you hear it from one member, okay, two, okaay…., but three? And she’s not the only one, it makes me wonder if there was another reason other than her not being able to speak some Japanese. You would think they’d automatically learn some even if they weren’t studying it. They say the best way to get fluent is to be completely surrounded in that environment, but I just don’t get it, there had to be more reasons that they left other than they simply couldn’t speak Japanese. I mean, it didn’t stop them from joining and they had to sing it, they must’ve picked up on some and if it was getting that frustrating they could’ve turned to Ayaka. You know, Ayaka, the one who’s IN the group and can speak Japanese AND English? I mean, after all, anyone remember Ayaka’s Surprise ENGLISH lesson? If she can teach English, she could’ve easily taught them Japanese. I’m not buying that all but two members left because they couldn’t speak Japanese, especially since Danielle has continued to pursue a music career and one of her songs is in entire Japanese. So no, I’m not buying that. but anyway, she went to pursue a theatre career in Hertfordshire, England. She formed a band called Delaunay and is performing in London, but as of 2007 (Dec. 9) The band is no more, not according to wiki, but Danielle herself. Lehua was in the group 2000-2002 and in her first year of high school was cast as the lead in her school musical. During the final audition, she was the only one to choose to sing Dance & Chance in Japanese, and she was picked the winner. Her first recording was actually with Aoiro 7 from the Hello! Project summer shuffle groups (which are no longer with us sadly) then she recorded Tokonatsu Musume with Coconuts Musume. Then Watashi mo I Love you then Danielle graduated and then after Jounetsu Yuki Miraisen, Lehua graduated as well. Within the same year of leaving she was awarded Miss Congeniality away from the Miss Hawaii USA 2003 pageant. In 2008 she was crowned Mrs. Hawaii USA. she currently has hopes of becoming a registered nurse. Looking back at Coconuts Musume, their dance for Jounetsu Yuki Miraisen was really awkward, the dance was just really weird, I don’t think it had anything to do with synchronization, it was just bizarre and didn’t seem like a dance really, I’m not talking about the music jam, I’m talking about the live version from POPJAM. I’ve never actually forgotten Lehua or Danielle, but the others, I have. Oops, I didn’t mean to forget you guys!
Chelsea Ching is currently a model
Lehua Sandbo in the 2008 Mrs. Hawaii
“Ishimura Maiha? Who Is That Again?” is a great post, check it out. It complains about the Murakami vs Maiha thing, but the author has significantly more flow and charisma when it comes to words than I do. Is that a surprise? No.
Also, Danielle has a MySpace, I friended her, she seems very friendly and nice, you can also hear her music.
http://www.myspace.com/danielledelaunay
1 comment
Comments feed for this article
July 9, 2009 at 7:20 am
willx24601
wow great insight, i’d like to say a few things:
they (coconuts musume) did rigorous dance rehearsals not to mention a lot of media exposure… Mat Swadling a.k.a. SparklingMelrosePool (from h!o) translated and subbed a lot of coconuts stuff, where the girls are “forced” to eat things that aren’t really appealing as a punishment (mind you, these probably scared the american born girls, something they aren’t too fond of), talk about learning songs and dance routines that they don’t know or sing regularly of (mm’s love machine for example, a “standard” in the earlier concerts). also language is always a problem. they probably got tired of trying to learn the language, and they probably didn’t think pure virgin idol was appealing maybe. let’s also say there was an interpreter or ayaka, but they weren’t there all the time. again, with SMP’s site, an interview explained that lehua wanted to buy shower curtains (by herself) but ended up getting lost. the big thing probably was not enough media exposure versus morning musume who was the big kitty of that time.
as for maiha, i still say she left on “good terms.” the h!p girls who leave on “good terms” always tend to have a graduation ceremony + it gets released on dvd/video.
for example:
Country Musume: Kimura Asami and Saitou Miuna
Morning Musume: Konno, Asuka Fukada (her case was different, as she was the first one, as it was probably a big deal),
People who didn’t receive graduation ceremony: goto maki (not including her tenure in morning), Ishiguro Aya (tech she had one but never filmed, although asayan filmed hers), Taiyo to Ciscomoon, Rika Ishii, Heike, miyoshi chinatsu, Sheki-dol, etc.
i still say she left on good terms, although some maybe questionable, her schooling was suppose to be one of the top best schooling– like when konno graduated to enter the university which was considered a best. maiha bites the dust because at that time most people in japan (except wotas) considered berryz koubou disgusting (kimochiwaru!)— mind you their age, comparing to momosu. Berryz was still in elementary when they started and to have wotas oogle you… ew. I had several classmates from japan in college when berryz started, and momosu popularity was fading out because of the wotas (when Iida graduated) most of them explained that they just find them (momosu and berryz) “kimochiwaru” (disgusting) who knows why? i honestly think it was the wotas, who was their main audience at that point.
–i also met lehua in person (she was watching movies) and i asked for an autograph, she still wrote in japanese– so lets just say even though they couldn’t speak or understand it, i bet they could write some of it. lol.