Risa Watanabe: Her magnificent yet sadly not too joyous.... '𝑯𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒚 27𝒕𝒉 𝑩𝒊𝒓𝒕𝒉𝒅𝒂𝒚!' post....

 

 Hate to say it but that heading is correct and will have to admit I've never been as baffled about any of the women I post about more than her. When you have a blog such as this one for fourteen years of course so many gals come and go, when they leave it's usually for a good reason. The most common reason is a woman got married and often have children, I rarely have posts for them after that happens. There's other reasons why some of my favorite women cease having posts, a few may change careers such as stopping as a gravure model and I know of a few who have moved on to office jobs. There's also other reasons but won't get into all of them for this post but you get the idea of what I'm talking about, most who leave/retire/whatever tell their fans of that news and why they made that decision. Then we come to Risa 😍 and without a doubt has become the biggest enigma of any woman I have done posts for. **** Regardless of what I may say the bottom line is that I could never, ever be mad at Risa nor say anything negative about her, the only times I do say these opinions are if I truly adore that woman to no end. As many know for a long time Risa 😍 was my all time number one woman(!) and in all honesty wish she still was but what has happened or actually not happened has really bummed me out and her situation is kind of like sailing in uncharted waters.

 Risa's posts over the last three years have seen such a dip in the amount of views they get but back in 2019 she was the most popular woman here and that's determined by how many views their posts get. In 2020 she tumbled down to seventeenth place but rebounded the next year to fifth. But since 2021 she's never ranked in the top dozen as far as popularity goes and like many women here lack of gravure photos are probably a major reason. So odds are high if you do read most of this post it must mean you're a Risa fan and if so drop a comment, perhaps someone out there has some sort of news but think all her other fans are like me and very perplexed.

 So here's a quickie timeline of her (lack of) activities for the the past 38 months or since the end of May 2022. That's when Risa graduated from Keya(Sakura) after being with them since their inception in August 2015 and I would say she was quite liked by the group's fans, you could place me in the top spot! For the rest of 2022 Risa was only so-so busy and probably wanted a period to cool off after leaving the group. She continued on being a model for the Non-no magazine, appeared at some of those huge fashion shows, began an IG page and then on July 27th which was her 24th birthday opened her fan club. The next year was only slightly busier but did show much more promise, Risa still was busy with Non-no, did some modeling with Aoki and kept appearing at those large fashion shows. Her biggest and best news of the year was when Risa appeared in the late 2023 drama "Black Familia", she had a huge and important role in that series which I enjoyed immensely so it appeared the prospects for her future were quite bright.

 But when the calendar flipped to 2024 almost everything seemed to come to a crashing halt and I am so lost on why that happened???? For last year the only activity Risa did was to continue as a Non-no model and after May of 2024 stopped attending those massive fashion shows. She did zero modeling for any other site plus didn't appear in any magazines nor at any events. After that fine performance in the the eerie "Black Familia" drama figured Risa would do much more acting which I would have loved to see but there's been no roles since then! As bad and as inactive as 2024 was this year has been the absolute pits and I'm wondering did Risa have an unannounced retirement for she's been AWOL for five months now, I mean ZERO has been heard from her. In January Risa said she would be leaving Non-no after modeling for them close to eight years, no new photos were added to their site after January. 

 Then at the end of February she left her long time agency and also at the end of the month closed her fan club. The end of February was the last time Risa posted a photo at her IG page, on June 16th she closed her account. So that's where her life stands and to say I'm at a loss and extremely bummed out is such an understatement and sure there must be reading this who have those feelings also. Have seen some comments from other long time fans at some sites recently and no one has a clue with what's happened with Risa. Many women do disappear and gave some reasons at the top of the post why they may do so but I've never seen a woman who I've done so many posts for just go.... POOF(!) and then disappear. I won't make any wild guesses on what her situation is and who really knows what goes on in someone's mind? This retirement(?) or disappearance was nothing sudden as it seemed there was a schedule/plan for leaving her activities, can respect that for happening but can't understand why she's said nothing and disappeared so quietly.

 Risa is a very quiet and shy woman, do recall her being the focus of two older 'Keyakitte' shows were she did discuss that. But she had been 19-21 in age at the time and it seemed she had been growing much more confident about herself as the years went on, maybe not for she could have gone back to her older ways. Think she also attended college for a while when she was with Keya, Risa did have the dream to be a photographer and that was mentioned often until 2020 or up to the group changed their name to Sakura. So perhaps Risa has returned to school and others who know that are respecting her privacy and I would do the same thing which has happened with a few other women I used to post about. So that's where things stand with Risa and not going to keep my moaning going on as I would just be repeating myself. Just wish she had given some sort of farewell message to her many fans on why she's retired, maybe she hasn't but just wanted a very long break? However you'd still think a message telling her fans that would have been helpful but when you do stop and quit all of your activities such as Risa did the signs are pointing to her retiring and very quietly....

 So of course for this post won't have any new phots as there hasn't been any for over five months and even before that there were very few. But I adore Risa 😍 to no end and really do wish she had remained as my #1 woman of all time and in a way she could be though it wouldn't last forever if this inactivity is permanent. So for this 27th birthday which takes place on the 27th(!) will have a large post, naturally all of the stupendous pics will be older ones. Which isn't a bad thing as I bet many fans have forgotten all about them or if you are a newbie to the 'World of Risa' this could be a nice introduction and do recommend checking out her older posts, no woman had more posts than Risa from mid 2018 until 2022.

 There have been a few photos over the years which deserve to be put into my Hall of Fame, that is if there ever was one! I couldn't begin to count out many photos have been posted here in fourteen years, 50,000? 100,000? MORE? Who knows and it's not really important but what is are the 25 or so pics which stand heads and tails above the others, there is one special one from Risa that could be in my top ten of all time though for a gravure pic it is kind of tame. Back in April 2019 Risa's first photobook was released and that's in my top twenty of all time. Like most books many advance pics had come out to promote it and with about ten days to go until the book's release none of the photos had been gravure ones. At the time I presumed there may not be any which has happened on occasion for J-Pop Idols. But then that first gravure photo below came out nine days before the book was released and I will confess I have never been so stunned in my life.... but in a fabulous way!!!! Even if there were no gravure photos in the book Risa would be such a massive favorite of mine but this pic sent her soaring past everyone else, kind of hard to describe how I feel about this photo which is a very special one to me.... this and many other of her pics still leave me speechless....

 The photo shoot for that first book took mainly took place in Miami though some pics were taken in the Bahamas. When I wrapped up my second 'Top Twenty Faves of All Time' list back in September 2022 Risa 😍 was #1 and she really didn't have much competition. However of course things will be changing for that next list which I will begin in thirteen months but she won't be tumbling way down. If there is one positive trait about me here is that I'm not a fair weather adorer or fan, I have my core of women who are such massive faves and have been for a while, who is in that group rarely changes. So am thinking if Risa does officially retire she would drop down to either the fourth or fifth spot which isn't too far of a fall. From that last list four of the top seven would make the top five, third place would remain the same, the gal who finished seventeenth would be in a battle with Risa for being fourth or fifth. As of now there is close to being a tie for first though on a list would never allow that to happen. I would say #1A for now would be the seventh position woman on that last list who was Akari and who would be in a virtual tie with her?

 Sigh, am I going to miss those nightly scenes with them battling over me! The woman currently in the position 1B would be Yui and she too had disappeared for a while after leaving Keya in February 2024. For the next six months nothing was heard from her so back then I, along with many others, had wondered had she done an unannounced retirement? No as Yui has gradually been picking up steam as far as her activities go and have been able to do a post a month for her since April. At the end of August her first mini album will be coming out and will have her next post in the first week of August. So perhaps Risa should seek out the advice of her close Keya mate and maybe when someone has been a J-Pop Idol for so many years they want to escape for a while and lead a regular life.

 Enough blabbering about how things could be or why they ended up the way they have, let's get to some ultra terrific photos though of course most are repeats from ancient posts. Which is okay for as mentioned Risa's popularity here has been so up and down the last six years so maybe many of today's pics will be brand new for you. Will begin off with some older birthday pics and three had never been posted here before.

 Some of the above birthday pics were older Keya cards and have many more of those below, wouldn't doubt if many of these are also new for here. They're Summer cards which go from 2016-20 though the first pair say July, Keya did have cards for June and July of that year but then switched to having cards for the four seasons so there's plenty below for Summer. The ones for 2020 are the last ones for when the group changed their name to Sakura in the Autumn of 2020 there were no more seasonal cards.

 From March 2017 until the end of January or almost eight years Risa was a model for the Non-no magazine. She would have a spread in most of their magazines but to me her best photos were the ones at their site, the ones below are her final ones ever for them. One thing thing I've never done is a post just featuring her splendid Non-no pics and that's be one I would enjoy doing immensely, anyone else want to see something like that also? After this final set of modeling pics for the magazine is a video of Risa's last ever photo shoot for them.

 

 Not entirely positive but am at about 98% sure this was Risa's first ever solo mag spread though she had appeared in a few others with her Keya mates. Good timing if I am correct as this make this set exactly nine years old as it's from the July 2016 edition of Brody. To me this is such a superb set of pics and at the time of the photo shoot Risa was seventeen in age but about to turn a year older.... she looked fabulous back then but within a few years was to blossom into my top looking woman!

 If you don't count Non-no Risa's last spread to date was in the December 6, 2023 issue of Weekly Shonen and she must have been their cover girl close to ten times.

 Coming into this post didn't have any plans on what I would say or what pics to include. The latter was a bit tougher as I have so many photos of Risa, just one other woman tops that amount. So will end here with some ultra perfect pics of perfection of Risa, how many times have I said that to me she's the most attractive woman 😍 in the world? Many times though I wouldn't put her #1 in any category but when you view her from head to toe.... whew(!), know I begin to melt! After the pics is a AEON CM with her close Keya mate, there was a subbed version that was longer which I have posted before but it appears it's no longer on YT....