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Hajimemashite minna san....welcome to my site on my fave Japanese Pop Culture likes such as dramas, movies, magazine scans, promo events etc. Mainly concentrate on my faves...Risa Watanabe... Kyoko Saito... Yui Kobayashi....Miyuki Watanabe.... Nene Shida.... if you're a fan at all of any of them then you've come to the right place(!) but many others are featured here besides them. Do mainly quick reviews on things I've watched, try to make the reviews brief, quick to read through with not too many spoilers, just whether they're good or bad and why I thought so plus whether you may find them enjoyable. Many, many screenshots are included from everything I've watched plus any video trailers if they're available. Hope you find something that interests you, don't hesitate to comment, arigato gozaimasu!

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Wednesday, December 4, 2024

Nao's top ten Faves for 2024: Position #7, the demurely enticing Konoka Matsuda!!!!

 



Previous Positions


 On the past yearly lists the breakdown for twenty faves went something like this.... eight posts for current J-Pop Idols, two for graduates, four for gravure models and six for actresses/models/announcers.... that group of six tended to do many activities. This year just one woman who is multi talented made the top ten, after that only two current Idols made the cut along with two gravure models and five graduates. So times have definitely changed and that makes perfect sense, I'm thirteen years older than I was when this blog began so of course these days much prefer posting about woman who are thirty and older versus those in their young twenties. But two younger than 25 made the list but to me they've always acted a bit older and actually seem more mature than others five years older than they are.



 There was a common trend that affected my faves who finished in the fourth to tenth positions, all had semi good years however there's a huge BUT in that!!!! Which is that after June the seven were rarely heard from and what happened?! Bet the seven had 80% of their posts by the end of June and since then virtually nothing though the #5 fave did have a pair of somewhat recent posts. So that's the biggest reason for the seven not being higher on the list and also the women who didn't make the cut were so much less busy as the year went on. Can understand that happening to a few but to so many at once is something I've never seen before and can't say that their inactivity was at all connected. 



 You have seen a few gravure photos and more will be on the way in the post though in all honesty do prefer her more conservative style and always have. Hate saying this but will anyway which is that.... I TOLD YOU SO!!!! Which is of the posts drying up for Konoka after her first photobook was released at the end of May. I really hate how when a member of the three '46' groups has a book a few weeks after it's release they have to step back and let others get the attention. That's never made sense to me and it's members such as Konoka who made Hina what they are today, even without a photobook she was very popular here. So this is her first regular post in over five months but guess I could have done one a month or so back. But since the book came out Konoka hasn't appeared at one event nor had any magazine spreads and for some odd reason still hasn't been signed by site or clothing line to be a model. 



 I've always thought Konoka was so ultra hot 😍 and never needed any gravure pics to prove that. But will admit I was wondering how she would look dressed a bit skimpy in her photobook and she looked much better than I could have imagined! Sure others thought that way too, above are two pics from the book and will end off the post with a link to the book. Up until the end of June Konoka was in the running to be my #1 woman of the year but deep down I knew the posts would be stopping and sadly was correct but there's still zero wrong with being my seventh favorite woman of the year! On a more important note have talked a few times about which of the women who I post often about would make for the best girlfriends, I would place Konoka 😍 in the third spot and that is very impressive. She was just beaten out by the woman who will be in the third position and an ex-Nogi member who had a post last week.



 Every Idol book has to have at least one photo of the brushing their teeth! While some positions won't have all that many new photos can't say that for Konoka as she has seventy newish pics from the past few months in this post plus a few others that have been seen so the total may be close to a hundred! Could have made this post even larger as there won't be anything for Christmas and New Years plus don't have any blog pics from the past ten days. Though I'm not that big of a J-Pop fan these days I really enjoy doing posts for Konoka so would like to have a post for her some time next month so holding back a few things.



 No birthday celebration for today though Konoka will be hitting the age of 26 at the end of April. She's the oldest of the second generation members so of course you have to wonder how much longer she will remain with Hina who will be seeing four graduations this month(!) and that must be a record. The first grad concert took place a few days ago and the bottom two pics below are from it, am torn whether or not I want to do posts for her and one other member who is leaving. Unsure for now but bet in the end run will do something for two of the four. The below photos are from Konoka's IG page and she also posts them at the Hina group blog, she has so many could have had twice as many. These are from the past two months and many are from "The Time" variety show and she has a weekly segment, she also hosts an 'All Night Nippon' radio show.


























 Did notice Konoka posts a lot of IG pics with her close mate and in a bit of a spoiler you will be seeing a post for her within the week.








 On the first day of each month the members from Hina and Keya post a monthly message along with a new photo, these are Konoka's which stretch back from December to June.








 So though there are seventy new pics of Konoka for today which is a lot in a way it isn't as it took five months for these to accumulate or really just about sixteen a month. Most of the pics are ones like Konoka's IG batch above but also have many group and game cards that have come out over that time, this set are Hina cards that have been released since June.




















 It's photos like those above and below which is how I picture Konoka when I think of her, of course her photobook had so many sizzling pics but I kind of prefer her conservative style. More new cards here which are for Hina's "Mysterious Library" game, all have come out in the last two months.











 One more set of Konoka game pics which are for 'Uni's on Air', below are four each for October and September. The bottom ones are for the game's fourth anniversary and I don't know what happened as no promo pics came out from May to August.









 You will notice in the brand new photos how Konoka has gone back to her shorter hair length which she had for so long. In all honesty I could care less about a few inches as she looks so terrific either way, maybe shorter hair suits her better as you notice her magnetic smile even more! There hasn't been a Konoka magazine spread since the first week of June, that's odd for she would often appear in mags and think only one 2G member had more spreads than she did. Will have an encore viewing of an older spread from earlier this year that was promoting her first and hopefully not last photobook, she was the cover girl for the May 2nd issue of Weekly Shonen Champion. Will save her last spread to date for that possible January post.














 This was a huge post but did work on it before writing this up so I zoomed right through and it ended up taking less time to do than much smaller posts. Will end off with some ultra stupendous pics from Konoka's first ever photobook which will end up being my #1 of the year! Also have the link to the post, did that in September and by that time the book had sold 63,000 copies but sure the total must be a few thousand higher by now. The photo shoot took place in Vancouver and you can read about why and also many more tidbits about the book in the post. After the pics is a video but of course there never are any gravure ones for '46' members. Hina does have their own YT channel for members to upload personal videos, Konoka's last one came out on November 2nd and in it she shows the daily stretching exercises she goes through which of course must be very important for an Idol.

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