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Well they stayed very good friends after all that anyway, I still feel like Hamachan was hung out to dry a bit she obviously didn't have the vocals of an utahime and she knew that too. That would've been very frustrating. I still wonder why she and not any other vocally strong Kenshuusei made that particular final.

From my wage memory, there weren't any super strong kenshuusei, and they were saving Karun and Sayuki for Juice=Juice. Kurumi was there but Sakura is arguably a better singer and dancer with a better look. The current strong kenshuusei join at about or after 11ki audition.

wow, i didn't come online for a month and i missed so much !! i'm ridiculously excited for this unit, everyone looks really talented so far.
Rio reminds me a little of Ogawa Makoto, with her (from what I can see) goofy personality and her face/hair is similar too. Hamachan is adorable and Rei is really cute too ♥
i can't wait to find out their name and first single !

aerosuffly wrote:From my wage memory, there weren't any super strong kenshuusei, and they were saving Karun and Sayuki for Juice=Juice. Kurumi was there but Sakura is arguably a better singer and dancer with a better look. The current strong kenshuusei join at about or after 11ki audition.

Tanabe, Murota, Ogawa, Nomura were also there who I'd consider noticeably better... I actually think Taguchi was even probably better vocally, she's a bit more stable anyway. It just seemed odd to me considering all the other KSS they had at the time.

They might just not've been what Tsunku was looking for.

^^ and ^

ngl, its just reasons why Im not too invested in this group. lack of Tsunku involvement, and the odd pick of girls.
Tanabe and Kurumi, and other eggs too, had so much more to offer than some of these girls imo.

^Yeah, but they left. It sucks that they didn't get a chance to debut, but they're not the first popular/talented KSS to leave, and they won't be the last.

As for them being an odd pick, I'm sure they'll start looking more cohesive once they have original material to work with. Juice=Juice was the same, and they overcame that easily.

I'm not saying Hamachan is an odd pick for this group though, or even wrong for H!P I think she'll be excellent. Just that it seemed strange she progress so far in that particular audition, which I suppose mean I've moved a little off the topic.

I think this group will be interesting, there's members I know a lot about and have a lot of history already behind them (If you can really say that for 14 year olds ) But there's also people who are pretty much blank pages to me. They also are a bit of mixture so that way I can compare them to Berryz... not that I'd want the pressure of comparing them too directly, but that's bound to happen with the timing.

Obsidian wrote:I'm not saying Hamachan is an odd pick for this group though, or even wrong for H!P I think she'll be excellent. Just that it seemed strange she progress so far in that particular audition, which I suppose mean I've moved a little off the topic.

I don't think they were seriously considering her. They probably already knew that they wanted Sakura. So I think they were just using it as an opportunity to promote her.

^I think that that's what Hamachan might have been hinting at in the interview as well. Sort of like oh... this was just all for Sakura, I never really had a chance did I? Which must have felt like a kind of blow. Whether or not it's true, considering many fans went there, it wouldn't surprise me if Hamachan went there as well. I wouldn't have wanted to go congratualate Sakura right then and there either.

If I was a young girl living in Japan who wanted to be an idol, I don't know if I'd join a program like Kenshuusei. Obviously there are clear debuts happening from it, but it's a lot of rejection to deal with and with H!P often causing question marks at first when they debut girls (though it almost always becomes clear) you're probably constantly wondering why they got picked over you. I have a lot of respect for the girls who stick with it for years and years.