Tashima Meru (Meru) / 2nd Generation

Meru had an hour long stream on her Showroom today.
She planned to only do one for half an hour, but it went on because..

She had an hour long phonecall with Ume!


I hope it get uploaded because it was really fun to hear.
Seems like she meets Hazuki quite frequently too still, but doesn't follow 48G news at all lol.

They talked about a lot of random stuff. Meru tried to trick her into thinking she cut her hair, Ume talked about dying hers pink/purple.

One comment went: "This really sounds like a couple." -> Meru: "Yatta" lol

 

Meru ranked 20th place in Thailand's general elections!
https://senkyo.48.in.th/2016/international.html

 

https://www.facebook.com/TashimaMeruTW/videos/579787785525933/

Showroom rip. Not the whole thing, only 47 minutes and quality is kind of meh, but I'm grateful that we got something at all.

 

https://www.showroom-live.com/48_MERU_TASHIMA (Japan Time 21:00)

 

https://mega.nz/#!qs4CgLpY!yGCdW9UPlUetSPeoilUPNs2kGJNlHn2tcV5rwmCUPLc

Last 24 minutes of Meru's stream. Hopefully someone uploads the full thing later on, that was all I could get.

 

Uuuuwaaaah she looks so adorable here.

Weird.... I had a dream last night that she ranked 20th in the Japan elections. Wrong country but at least it wasn't completely wishful dreaming on my part.

 

On Air

https://www.showroom-live.com/48_MERU_TASHIMA

 

11 votes for Meru! GO GO MERU!!!

It's my first time participating in the Sousenkyo, and it made me glad to be able to vote for Meru, I honestly hope she gets a good rank, higher than last year! I'm getting 10 more codes to vote, all for Meru!

 

Small part of her showroom clip. Enjoy!

edit:Another one for yesterday. Both credit goes to uploader.
http://www.bilibili.com/video/av4900270/

 

She ranked down!It was heartbreaking to see her speech!

 

Meru's voice breaking down, trying to control the crying... So so so sad, she seemed really devastated

 

I freaking hate management. Why!?

 

Well this was bullshit. She lost like 1k votes. I hate every single person who stopped voting for her.

 

Let's see what this result will do now in regards to her exposure and management dedication... I just hope she won't be pushed to the shadows even more... :/

 

Can't say this is not expected. But on the bigger picture, she is not the biggest falls in team H. Rikopi does.
And with Mikurin, Nako, Yuriya, Piichan, and Akiyoshi got their first rank ever, that's a good trade, I dare say.

But regarding her future position in HKT, well, that will be a topic for another time.

 

Well, if this election showed me one thing it's that I can most definitely say now that I'm a lot more of a Meru fan than a 48G one these days. Was following the twitter feed and closed it out after Meru came up. I can't bring myself to even fake care much about the more positive results because I feel so empty.

As a fan, of course I'm frustrated and angry with myself because I couldn't even soften the blow of lost votes just by a little with my own contribution this year. But the main feelings are just concern and sadness because I can't even imagine Meru's own mental state right now. She'll pull on an about face like usual I suppose but she's already let it slip how much the feeling of failure and stagnation has impacted her and now she's declining.

 

With Nako's high rank i think Meru still must be HKT's next center. she ranked 3 years already while Its Nako's 1st time.

 

Meru's Sousenkyo Preliminary & final results history:
(1st Day) Final Result
2013: (#42 | 3,077) #55 13,246
2014: (#46 | 4,021) #38 18,875
2015: (#27 | 7,698) #32 22,191
2016: (#49 | 5,930) #43 21,864

Meru had 327 drop in votes, and a drop in rank by 11. But perhaps it is due to a lack of Hako Oshi votes compared to last year? I think the New Stage contest might have to do with it. We now have 7 new HKT members ranked in for the first time. For Hako Oshis, Meru is a sure rank-in, so maybe they voted less for her for that reason?

Spoiler: All Ranks List

HKT Members Ranks & Changes: SSK 2016 (in order from highest to lowest final rank)
Sasshi (-)
Sakura (↑1)
Haruppi (↑8)
Tomonaga Mio (↓2)
Yabuki Nako (NEW)
Motomura Aoi (↑44)
Fuchigami Mai (↓9)
Tomiyoshi Asuka (NEW)
Meru (↓11)
Tanaka Miku (NEW)
Matsuoka Natsumi (↑5)
Inoue Yuriya (NEW)
Moriyasu Madoka (↓7)
Kojina Yui (↓7)
Ueki Nao (↑14)
Sakaguchi Riko (↓22)
Komada Hiroka (NEW)
Akiyoshi Yuka (NEW)
Murashige Anna (NEW)

To put it in perspective, rank seems to have gone down for a lot of HKT members:

Spoiler: Decreased Ranks

HKT Members DECREASED Ranks & Changes: SSK 2016
Tomonaga Mio (↓2)
Fuchigami Mai (↓9)
Meru (↓11)
Moriyasu Madoka (↓7)
Kojina Yui (↓7)
Sakaguchi Riko (↓22)

Only one member's rank increased who is above Meru who is not a new rank in, seen in this chart (excluding the obvious Sasshi, Sakura, and Haruppi increase in ranks.). The "NEW" members can be explained by the New Stage challenge. (It may not be the true reason, but it can at least make us feel better about Meru, right?)

Spoiler: Increased Ranks

HKT Members INCREASED/NEW Ranks & Changes: SSK 2016
Sasshi (-)
Sakura (↑1)
Haruppi (↑8)
Yabuki Nako (NEW)
Motomura Aoi (↑44) <---------
Tomiyoshi Asuka (NEW)
Tanaka Miku (NEW)
------------ Meru is here -----------
Matsuoka Natsumi (↑5)
Inoue Yuriya (NEW)
Ueki Nao (↑14)
Komada Hiroka (NEW)
Akiyoshi Yuka (NEW)
Murashige Anna (NEW)

Speaking of which, any Meru voters who are also fans of Sasshi or Haruppi would probably have voted less for Meru this year because of the increased pressure of Sasshi losing due to Mayuyu coming in 1st in prelims, and from Haruppi only barely missing Senbatsu last year.

I'm sorry SugarYumYum, don't feel bad about yourself for not voting. I decreased my vote by 1 from last year so I am partly to blame as well (please let me explain). Since I'm fresh out of college with not a lot of money & have a lot of debts to pay off, the way I vote is: I only buy one of each Type of CD and then give all votes to Meru because I have a long-term dream of collecting all AKB CDs anyways one day. Since I'm worried about Meru's rank, I spend all votes on Meru even though I also have preferences (out of the most likely candidates) on who else I want to get in Senbatsu, or who I want to get in 1st, etc.

So, since TwI only had 3 types this year, and BwT had 4 types last year, my votes decreased by 1 this year, even though my fandom didn't change. (I'm planning to buy the NGT coupling track from iTunes, because the Theater Ed was not available to buy online I think? At least not on CD japan. And the Theater Edition CD jacket is even identical to TwI Type A.) I wonder if the decrease in votes has to do with other people with that same mindset as me.

I didn't see Meru's speech because I slept through all of SSK and luckily woke up right as they were announcing 2nd place, but I hope she is ok.

 

It was my first time voting and I've been wanting to participate since last year's SSK. I couldn't get a huge amount of codes as I wished, but I managed to get 21 votes and I spent all of them on Meru even though I have other girls that I wish I could support as well. I watched her struggle since her seitansai, I noticed management trying to hide Meru in the back, but I also saw Meru growing and shining on stage, showing a very energetic and captivating performance in the theater. I wondered what factors could have led to that neglect towards Meru. I've seen great MV's with full teams and all the girls participating managed to get a good screen time, seemed pretty equal and featured everybody really well, so I was puzzled when I found myself trying to catch a glimpse of Meru in MVs, tv performances etc... I can think of many things that might be worrying her, what she could be feeling or thinking, but I don't believe we will know for sure, she will stay strong, but I could see in her eyes the disappointment this year, and her voice had pain. I just hope there is a way to turn this around.

 

she's apologizing on her G+ stating she's let everyone down. poor girl, she doesn't need to say that.

https://plus.google.com/101107068827865810697/posts/bNmmnkXrzJe