I'll start by acknowledging former member Aibon, Ai Kago. This girl obviously has been through a lot of problems which lead to her dismissal from H!P. Only recently has she come forward and shown how has she progressed and grown as an adult now. here is what i wrote on her thread on H!P forums. but first here is her wikipedia which needs to be updated. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Kago i didn't really consider myself a fan of Aibon, but more recently i have notice her more and more on H!P and on the Japanese media. I was aware of her as a former member and what she did, and how she got dismissed. I felt bad for what she went thru in her life and what she had to endure and get thru. Seeing her now, and watching this interview has made me respect her a lot as a person and to come forward and gather strength within. I wasn't really into Momusu back the when she was very popular, but it is only now that i have become more aware of her and what she is doing to rebuild her life which i find such an inspiration. If i wasn't a fan of hers before, i think i have grown to appreciate her more as a person and i would like to think i have become a new fan of hers. I just wish i could send her a message in "kanji" on her blog, if only i knew how to write in Japanese, and tell her "thank you for everything".
Yay, an Aibon thread! She was my first favorite Hello! Project member. She still remains one of my favorites, too (she's my second favorite, actually).
if you haven't already, you should check out the Hello Online forum, and d/l the interview it is really good. this is the website. she's been on the H!O front page news a lot recently, check it out. http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?
Well how can you not feel bad for her? I mean she technically didn't do anything wrong. A relationship with an older man, is not as bad as getting pregnant and then being married due to getting pregnant like tsuji. I don't really think any of them did anything wrong, but i guess this is an indication of how rough the idol business is in japan. Good for her though growing up, I could only imagine how hard it is after young one's popularity is gone how they cope with "real life" without being pampered i guess.
I feel bad for Ai what she's been through, but it's nice to see so many people still show their support towards her and I'm very glad that Ai looks happy and healthy. I hope she completes her dream of being an actress, I really wish her the best, she deserves to have some things going her way for a change.
I'm going to go against the flow and say that I don't feel sorry for Aibon. I'm her fan, I've always been and always will be, but I think that if anything, Aibon's story is the closest we all got to a reality check when it comes to H!P idols... she's right in saying that she was very sheltered and that sort of didn't let her grow up. I never thought I'd say this, but I like this new "ai" even more than the old "Aibon". I think it's very brave of her to come out and say all those things, and somehow she strikes me as a very natural person who's trying to do her best right now, in sharp contrast to her former image or that of her ex-colleagues (I'm not bashing H!P here, BTW, I just feel like we all know already that idols put up a facade more often than not, and H!P in particular is very much a follower of this trend) This was longer than I thought it'd be u_u Anyhow, I support her, and I hope that she comes back to singing, because I'm in love with her voice
that's a good point, she has been sheltered and as she said in her interview, she moved in a reverse direction in terms of maturity at one point. She considered herself to be a weak person, and if anything this unfortunate situation she was dealt with, leading to her dismissal from H!P has actually gave her new light, as well as an inspiration for others. I never really care to notice the Aibon of old, but seeing her now, so uplifting as a new mature adult now, has gotten me to notice her a lot more. She does feel bad for which she has done, but has accepted her actions and has turned the corner and has in a way restarted her life in her 20's. She did mention from her interview that she had gone to Los Angeles for 3 months, and from that period of time, it was sort of produce some good insight and changes in her life, and she is where she is now because of it. I find that uplifting, and sort of a resurgence, rebirth so-to-speak. Now, we aren't sure where she will head now in the future, as it is unknown, but we do know that she is stronger because of what she went through in her life.
(Just noticed that this thread was created on my birthday. Lovely. ) Aibon was the main reason why I got into H!P in the first place. So you can just imagine how upset I was during the whole thing, from the smoking scandal to when she was dropped by H!P altogether. I felt the prolonged suspension was unfair to begin with. Nacchi's plagiarism thing was far worse, in my opinion & Nacchi came back from a short suspension after a public apology. Aibon was young & had to deal with all sorts of pressure from being an adolescent & an idol. She admitted she was confused. I don't see how that merits the decision H!P came up with. :/ Gah, I reek of bitterness. I still feel bad for the W releases that never happened. But either way, I'm happy she's back. Whatever she decides to do, I'll always support her!
Aibon was a great performer in H!P. But we can't talk about Aibon without mentioning Nono (Nozomi Tsuji), right? It was Two Top, after all. All those great memories of the two of them in H!P can't be replaced. So I want to make a suggestion to you qilver, and it's only a suggestion. You don't have to take it if you don't agree. How about you make this thread a combo thread for Aibon and Nono? Double You kinda stuff? Cause it'll be great to discuss about the two of them in one thread. They were sharing so much in common, right? Their craziness, their sweet acts and many more...
Because their activities in H!P were pretty much the same, I think it's only a repetition of discussing the same matters if we make two separated threads. But hey, it's qilver's thread!!! He decides.
But if we talked about what they were doing now it wouldn't be the same. Tsuji's busy taking care of Noa while Aibon's busy doing... blogging and whatnot. Plus, Tsuji and Kago aren't one person and I don't think they should share a thread.
Ok ok, point taken. It's okay both ways with me. So how's with this thread's owner? Owner...where are you? :mrgreen:
the owner of the thread **appears** lol i do think there is nothing wrong with discussing Nono on here as well, but i do find more fitting to mainly keep it devoted to Aibon. Like mentioned above, there hasn't been too much news or info on Nono since her marriage and birth of her baby. But there has been plenty of Aibon from the H!P forum, and Aibon has been quite active in her daily blogs as translated nicely on the website(H!P). It is nice to know that Aibon has been really reaching out to her fans, and i wish i just knew how to read/write Japanese, and increase my conversational Japanese skills, so i can understand more, and be able to read and respond to her blog. She is truly an inspiration to me, and now has gained a new fan, me.
Hahaha...the owner has spoken. Ok, fine with me. I guess I wanted this thread to discuss more about their memories while in H!P, but qilver direct this thread to the"now" Aibon. Well...I kinda curious too with her activities as in now, so spill this thread with Aibon's infos, qilver!!!
Huh... sorry to go all off topic and stuff, but I watched the subbed Ohmynews interview, and I was really sad to see that Tsuji hadn't contacted Ai even once after her dismissal (or that's what she appeared to say) Ai said that she was very surprised when she heard that Tsuji was having a baby, and that she kind of knew about it from Tsuji's husband's blog. This seems kind of unfair, no? I mean, sure, I don't really believe that everything we see in idol world is true, but... It pains me to think that the whole W thing was always a gimmick and nothing else. It kind of makes me not like H!P a bit more, even if it happened so long ago XD Ok, sorry to bring the mood down a notch, but I had to vent about that somewhere! Ok, now back to our business, W was super awesome! I loved the songs they were given, and the harmonies were beautiful as well, it was a flawless group IMO. I was sad to see it go.
Is that so, really? Aww come on...I always thought that Nono and Aibon's friendship was true. But if they only do that for business' purpose...I don't know what to think about them anymore.
Maybe some of it was real friendship and some of it probably had a business purpose to it. As far as I can remember from the interview Ai also said something about that after she was suspended she realized who her "true" friends were, since those were the people who kept in contact with her and supported her. When i heard that I just wondered if Nono was one of them, for some reason I don't really believe she was. Certain situations can change friendships or just show the true faces of people I guess. Oh and I also think it's a good thing to give Ai her own thread since her and Nono are two seperate people, especially here in recent times. But that doesn't mean Nono can't be mentioned here
Milaya, congrats for your 2000+ posts!!! Yeah I do agree with you, people changes over time, and what seemed to be true friendship can be somehow just a facade. Well, only our own hearts know that. In this case, only Aibon and Nono know about their friendship.
