Nao's 'Top Twenty of All Time Faves' list #2.... Position #6, the delightful and captivating Yui Kobayashi!!!!

 

Links to the previous positions

#20, Nashiko .... #19, Kazusa .... #18, Kii(e) .... #17, Nene

#16, Nanase .... #15, Yuika .... #14, Kyoko .... #13, Miona

#12, Mai .... #11, Maimi .... #10, Minami .... #9, Saki

#8, Rika .... #7, Akari

 Only post for today as this may take a while to write up but it's the size of two posts! This should be the largest of any of the fave's list posts and these days there's no one I enjoy doing posts for. than Yui. So if you're a fan this is one you'll enjoy, bet there will be 125 or so pics and think eighty will be brand new for here! For a while was thinking about putting Yui in the second post as I would consider her to be my second biggest fave over the last three years. But when I looked at the entire picture going back to 2017 or so the others above were more deserving to finish higher. Nothing wrong with sixth though as it means there's just five women in Japan who I've liked better over the past seven+ years. That first pic above is my #1 of all time, can't think of a word to do it justice!!!!

 If Yui were to stay with Keya for another 2-3 years she'd be the front runner to be number one if a third all time list is done. There's been no rumors of her graduating, there will be one at the end of November and after that wouldn't think there would be any until the Spring. Would hate to see any of the remaining first generation members depart but of course it'll eventually happen, her graduation will hit me the hardest of any over the last five years. The last two yeas Yui has just finished tenth and eleventh on the yearly faves list but she has been my #2 woman since the beginning of 2020, odd how that happened. Only one post this year when June rolled around but now this makes six in the last three months and though it's hard to believe this is her 32nd solo post since January 2020! So Yui will finish in the top ten this year and has a good chance to make that a top five spot. So she's my current fave Idol and when I did that list for my all time top photobooks the one she had from 2019 was ranked 14th, not bad when you consider there's been over 300 regular photobooks posted.

 That top pic is another huge favorite of mine, that's a blog one from March of this year and to date it'd be one of my top ten pics of the year! There's some good variety to this post, some new items, many from years past which had never been posted before and just a little bit of many things. First off we have something a bit different which is the first ever Similar Picture Quiz! The good thing about this quiz is you can't get the answer wrong. So the question is which similar pic is better(?), the first is a new outtake pic from Yui's second photobook or is it #2 which is from Hinako's first PB that came out in December 2018, bit difficult to choose between the pair(s)....

 Well. maybe they're not 100% alike but looked similar to me, hard for me to decide on the better one too. So this makes eight posts for Yui this year, would like to have another around October 4th when her second book comes out. Then another on October 23rd for her 23rd birthday, she's the youngest of the twenty on the list and will give the edge to older women when its close between positions. No new Keya cards and surprised there were none for their second album and first with the Sakura name. So haves some oldie cards that had never been posted, first are from early 2019 and the others 2018.

 Yui is one talented young woman, there were two recent episodes of Keya's 'Soko' variety show where they picked who the best member was at certain activities. She finished number one as the group's best dancer, #2 as far as being their best singer and also #2 for being the most fashionable member! Speaking of the show had to play detective for a while and it worked out well for a change. There was an older show where Yui was the 'honoree' and all I could remember was that she had sat in a Queen's throne.

 Had no clue about the date but just knew it was after March 2020, could have aired a year later. So did some investigating and finally found what the episode was. It was #227 of their old 'Keyakitte' show that changed it's name in October of that year to 'Soko'. So what I'm planning on doing is having a full recap of the show on her 23rd birthday, should be two posts that day then. There was a title to this episode which was 'Gomen, our fault.... let's learn more about Yui!'. What happened was there was an incident on the Valentine's Day episode where her segment somehow got all messed up and this was an apology episode to make up for it. We did learn much about Yui as she had taken a 100 question survey before the show began and it was quite interesting to me. Did take a few screenshots but there will be four times as many for the full recap.

 While no new Keya cards there are some for the 'Uni's on Air' web game, there were no solo ones for August but these four here are hard to top!

 Yui's already been doing some promoting for the new photobook, too early perhaps as it doesn't come out until October 4th. For the second time in two weeks she hosted 'Showroom', have the video for it here and I really hope there's an event when the book comes out. These shows are okay but nothing beats a live event.

 

 She also made a visit on August 19th to promote the book and Keya's new album on the Lawson/Audee radio show which as you can see is hosted by Yuka from Hina. Here's the link to the show's  site which has a transcript of the interview: Audee site

 Yui's two mates also made the list in the 13th and 14 positions, of course her close pal from Keya will be five spots above this one!

 From mid 2018 until April 2020 don't think any Keya member had as many mag spreads as Yui did. Then they started to dry up, not just for her but many other members though you may recall that's when Keya went twenty months without any new music. Hope there's some spreads coming up to promote the new book, it's been over a year since her last solo spread. So let's go back in time to November 2019 when she was the cover girl for EX-Taishu, it's my fave mag spread of her.

 Yui has been a model with the With magazine since July 2018 but there's been no new pics at their site for three weeks. In May they stopped having print editions and that's a shame as she had some solid spreads with them. Have some terrific older modeling pics from their site, what makes this set also very good is that about ten had never been posted before.

 Here's some more super duper pics which are from the March 2020 'Tokyo Girl Collection' show, bring that up for....

 .... Yui and six other Keya members were at the TGC Winter show held on September 3rd at the Saitama Super Arena. Saitama is where she hails from and will have to admit the above pics were much better than this first set. With it being a Winter show most models were dressed as if it was snowing heavily, she looked cute but older show pics were much better, she took her stroll on the Moment+ stage. But she made a second stroll along with a few Keya members to promote their AEON credit card, that's the second set of pics below and those deserve a grade of A++++!!!!

 In Yui's last post done three weeks ago had these advance pics for her second photobook, top four are the covers.

 More have come out since which is this batch and you did see the first one near the beginning. I've always had a problem with how too many advance pics come out for books, so many bet it may lower sales as often the best pics have come out. Not so yet as the top pic is the only gravure one to date but I prefer the bottom two.

 Whew, we've finally hit the end for this ultra large post but I enjoy doing these kinds for my huger faves. Will have the fifth position on Friday, number four on Sunday. Will end off with some of my top Yui pics from over the years and of course my faves are from that first photobook. That only sold about 45,000 copies and to me there wasn't all that much promoting of it which I hope isn't the case this time around. After the perfect pics have a group video from Saturday's TGC show, it's one of them promoting their new AEON Keya credit card.