Keyakizaka46 have a new member, group and are recruiting!

(@kanjo It's written in hiragana, not katakana )
This announcement feels too sudden... It was like I just started to recognize everyone and see glimpses of their different characters, and they're adding new members already? Hopefully they'll manouver this well and do something surprising with this undergroup. Those of you who have followed Nogi, are there some changes you'd want to see how unders are handled in Keyakizaka?

 

"kana keyakizaka46"... that's quite the gimmick

 

No worries, happens to all of us.

According to the official site, the nickname for this group is "Hiraganakeyaki". The first phase of the auditions ends on December 31st.

 

the original keyakizaka hasn't done any performances yet but they'e already doing a sub group? What kinda crap is this?

 

I don't quite understand, will hiragana keyaki operates like "under" or "kenkyusei"? I heard that they are similar to "under"? If they are "kenkyusei", will the original keyaki be further divided to senbatsu and under? If they are "under", will some of the original "keyaki" that doesn't make into senbatsu be put to hiragana keyaki. Or are they all senbatsu already?

 

My guess they'll probably be tentative members and will officially join the group if they get promoted, sorta like tentative kenkyuusei

 

I don't understand. An Idol Group which is haven't any debut single even any song, will have new members audition? Even it's odder since the audition under new name. The official site named it 'Under Group', but, since when the Unders get a new and other name? Even KKS doesn't get new name. Maybe a new group in Keyaki family -_-

 

They should've just called it "Tentative members" or recruiting gen 1.5 or just collect finalists from the 1st gen auditions and make them tentative members. I see this as another gimmick like what NMB did with the post-Nana audition, to gain hype over basically adding 2-3 members to the group

 

Well I guess you're know that world better than me.
But that Under think begins at to me going to mess. And think about post? Oh my...

Anyway let's see what happens next.

 

From what I was able to gather from what the MCs said, the relationship between KanjiKeyaki and KanaKeyaki will be more akin to the Senbatsu/Undergirls relationship than the Full Member/Kenkyuusei relationship. Three possible implications of this are:

- That the 20 first gen members will all be in senbatsu, at least for the first single
- That unlike kenkyuusei system there will be movement up AND down between KanjiKeyaki and KanaKeyaki
- That KanaKeyaki will be more active than traditional unders, whatever that entails

My overall opinion is that I don't like this. First and foremost I don't like it because it's gimmicky. In recent years, even with the addition of a sister group, Nogizaka46 have prided themselves on being less gimmicky than their 48 group cousins and it's one of the things I like about them. I feel that this erodes that somewhat. The second reason is that it is too soon. I know AKB48 added a second generation even sooner but a big part of the reason for that was fulfilling the pre-established idea of having A, K and B teams in the group. I would have preferred if they waited until the spring and allowed Keyakizaka to release their first single beforehand. At this point if they wanted to give the audition a gimmick they could have made it a concurrent audition with Nogizaka46 3rd generation; not concurent in the sense that successful girls would join both groups, but that girls could be chosen for either group.

With regards to Nagahaba Neru, I really like her. Joining later than the rest gives her this mysterious air and her story of how she came to join is endearing. I can see her becoming quite popular. Just wish they'd chosen to add her to KanjiKeyaki rather than KanaKeyaki.

 

On the other hand, I actually think this kind of gimmick is fine. They need to do something to promote Keyaki and adding members by new auditioning is much better than stealing some Nogi members for kennin or transfer. Actually it's kinda expected since 20 members are a bit too few. Although I'm hoping they keep the senbatsu to around 16 members only. 20 members senbatsu is too crowded.

 

Maybe it's just this picture but Neru looks alike with Kojimako, she has a similar smile

I don't follow Keyakizaka (at least, not yet) but this sounds a bit complicated, I prefer if they just called them KKS and have UG senbatsu later, like Nogi. That would be much more simple. But I guess they're trying something new? Or just doing the same as Nogi but calling it with different names than UG... Anyway the fact that they introduce this member separately like this is a way to bring attention to her, maybe that's their purpose.

 

http://www.tokyohive.com/article/2015/11/keyakizaka46-welcome-a-new-member

what a nice drama.. i hope the story is not true.

 

Why you're that think?

 

I like Neru... She's soo cutee