Alice Project

The stage produced by Miyase Mia was held today and of course she announced her graduation in it.
She will graduate in October and after that she will continue as a staff member. (if the translation is correct)

https://ameblo.jp/miyase-mia/

Bit of unexpected new for me as she is still young and as far as I could notice pretty popular.
I just hope the borders of Japan open up in time, in the tempo members are currently graduating there will be nothing left of the group by the time I see them again.

About nothing being left:
Sena Mitsuki recently announced that she was going back to school to study. Nothing wrong with that, thinking about the future and all. However this also means that she will no longer perform on weekdays meaning that on those days Armor Girls is reduced to just 2!!! members.
With Moa-chan having lots of outside work this can easily cause that sometimes Misaki-san will perform solo

All this once again makes me think that management has to step up their game. Steam girls is going to be reduced to 5 members of which reliably only 4 can perform full shows (as I haven´t heard anything when Rena-san will join). Armor Girls I now count as 2,5 members. Alice Juban is ok-ish with 6 members. So that is now 14,5 members from which 1 announced graduation and there will be 1 added. 1 member was ment to have graduated but cancelled and a majority of the members is at an age where graduation would be nothing to be ashamed of.
I don't know how many candidates and slime girls there are but I don´t believe it´s many.
It is time for some drastic measures and I have some ideas what could be done:
- Drasticly increase training for cadets and slime girls so that they get promoted faster
- Increase recruitment of new potential members
- Recruit members of Cerisier into Kamen Joshi
- Merge Easter Girls into the Tokyo group
- The most radical: Merging of all sub groups into just Kamen Joshi.

 

My friends in Japan say tourism will not open anytime soon. And it looks like with the wait more & more foreign chika idol fans are moving on from the scene in general, as none of us have been able to get there since (mostly) 2019, & groups are disappearing without many finding a good replacement in their hearts. With us being aware of PARMS closure sometime by 2023, there is a lot to fuss about right now & not a lot of information to build confidence in the direction Kamen Joshi is going in.

The Armor Girls situation is ridiculous. They have all-star Moa-chan... Mitsuki (who still needs a ton of work, every time I watch them live on youtube she looks like a deer in headlights), & Misaki (who is also still new by most standards.)
For Moa-chan's birthday she wanted a full Armor Girls roster, & of course Kamen Joshi members stepped up to the plate for her. There will be 5 extra honorary Armor Girls for her birthday show on 4/9.
Birthday Armor Girls announced are...
Moa
Mitsuki
Yuka
Maopi
Yuuri
Saki
Mia
I like Mia a lot, & see that the path of staff was a good call by Fruitpunch way back when, but am doubtful my future cheki hopes with her will be fulfilled before she becomes staff.
It will be interesting to see if any of Oddball's suggestions come to fruition with everything that is going on!

 

Tokyo Sports digest video of the Birthday Live for Moa of Armor Girls:


if the video does not show watch the video here

 

So today Moa-chan performed solo

https://twitter.com/tsukinomoa_37/status/1517166666106703872?s=20&t=B0gQXNMpsyf_twnF65WuGg
https://twitter.com/tsukinomoa_37/status/1517172156475789312?s=20&t=B0gQXNMpsyf_twnF65WuGg

From the videos I would say she did ubelievably well.

However it looks like she won't need to stay on stage alone for much longer:
2 candidates were promoted to Armorgirls!
Sakanoue Kaede and Ouya Shizuku
I am very happy to see them moving up the ranks into Armorgirls, this means that on a good day they will be with 5 again. I don't know these new members very well but I look forward to changing that.

Also 4 slime girls moved up to candidates
https://twitter.com/AliceProject_mb/status/1517158343605100544?s=20&t=I5EwVQ0Ngb6yvwG7plO5_g

 

^That's finally some good news Oddball... thanks!

Kamen Joshi 1st Album "MASK A RAID" In-Store Live Part 1:

if the video does not show watch the video here
2022/4/17 Kamen Joshi Part 2 "MASK A RAID" Live Machida Terminal Plaza

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Tomoka was a special guest at yesterday's baseball game between Saitama Seibu Lions and Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, here's some videos shot by fans:


if the video does not show watch the video here

if the video does not show watch the video here

if the video does not show watch the video here

if the video does not show watch the video here

In the last one the camera is pointed at a big screen for Tomoka's pre-match talk along with ex-SKE48 member Souda Sarina (who appears in the video thumbnail).

 

5/21/22 Riverwalk show...

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Kamenjoshi is opening a new sub-channel on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC17MYBbFU4vZy-LwUwYk07A

I don't know if the translations I got are accurate but this might be a channel that sort of replaces the channels that stopped due to one (or more) of the team members graduated.
If this is true then I think it is a good idea. I always wondered why the graduation of 1 member should prevent channels from continuing.
Only when Erina graduated the channel continued (As Milk punch), but ever since Shihori graduated the channel hasn't uploaded a thing anymore, so that is why I think collecting everything in 1 channel is good.
I wonder though if Cerisier members will also be invited? In Milk punch this worked great.

(PS: If anyone knows why Cerisier members Minami Eri and Kasumi Moka have, since a few months, vanished from the face of the earth (they are still included in promo material pictures) then please let me know)

 

It's Showtime!

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Nonoa Aoi graduated today from Easter Girls.

There is no decision yet on a date but in Tokyo she will join Armorgirls.

It is pretty weird, at the top of this page I was worried that Moa-chan had to perform alone and now they are going to be with 6 again (of which sadly 1 is still sick and the other one can't perform on weekdays, but I'll take that).

Aoi-san (I don't know her nickname) however did state when she announced her transfer that she would go to Tokyo with the goal of joining Alice-10, so I don't expect her to stay in Armorgirls for years to come.

 

Looks like 7/2 for Noa-chan + Amaga.
https://twitter.com/AliceProject_mb/status/1537371830813859841

 

Comments after the performance at GIGA - GIGA SONIC:


if the video does not show watch the video here

 

KAMEN JOSHI / ZENKAI BROTHER

if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Eri(i) has announced that she'll graduate from cerisier, couldn't find any reason from her blog post (which I tried to run through DeepL): https://ameblo.jp/minami-eri421/entry-12744133916.html

 

And Moka Kasumi has now also announced her graduation
https://twitter.com/cerisier_tokyo/status/1542509414694805505

Blog (very short)
https://ameblo.jp/kasumi-moka/entry-12751093278.html

Just my personal speculation:
Seeing that for both of them no reasons were given, no graduation ceremonies, the date of the announcement also being the graduation date and the fact that they both went off the grid at the same time is fuel for speculation.
When I count everything up my personal guess is that Eri aswell as Moka have gotten long-covid. Currently someone I know personally also has gotten this and it litterally destroys his life. Everything he does is like walking a marathon and recovery from this is projected to last years with no guarantee of succes. Needless to say that if an idol gets this with the same severity her career is over.
Seeing that the idol world only in the most extreme circumstances reports on the health issues an idol has saying nothing is pretty much the same as saying everything, especially seeing that when they fired Cerisier center Yamamoto Ako management was pretty open about their reasons for doing that, so that makes me believe that these 2 girls have not been fired.
For the group however I think it is a severe loss, from what I could tell both of them were pretty popular and belonged to the top 3 gravure girls of Cerisier (together with Azumi Uta).

 

Oldskool KJ show coming on 9/17 to celebrate ex-Alice Project's Reika's graduation from 2 years ago...
OG Kamen Joshi cast performing:

Reika
Anna
Nodoka
Kanon
Yuki
Nanaka
Risa
Erina
Mai
Mayu
Sara
Hitomi
Misa
Maki
(& possibly Mana)

If tourism was back to normal in Japan ...I would highly consider attending this.
https://twitter.com/AliceProject_mb/status/1542820117402484736

 

Fixed that for you

 

Tokyo Sports has posted a digest video of her Armor Girls joining event:


if the video does not show watch the video here

 

Moa-chan becomes legend!
Google translation plus: "Today, August 10, 2022, it's been 9 years since I joined Kamen Joshi: Armor Girls! Before you know it, I will be the longest-serving member of Kamen Joshi."
https://twitter.com/tsukinomoa_37/status/1557146551327531009

 

I've just spotted a tweet from Osuzu Harumi (Harutan) of Alice Juban announcing her graduation:
https://twitter.com/osuzu_harumi/status/1561701830627053568

More in her blog:
https://ameblo.jp/osuzu-harumi/entry-12760215449.html

She'll be leaving in a month and a half and will not continue in the performing arts.