Yui Kobayashi: Just because who deserves a post more on August 21st?!?!.... or any other day!!

 

 Whew for about the trillionth time, I can never get tired of looking at that second photo which is my #1 of all time! Perhaps one of these days I should get it blown up to cover a long wall but then I'd never leave that room.... hmmmm, need to decide if that's a bad thing or not! I'm not going insane as I reached that level eons ago but Yui 😍 does make my imagination go into overdrive and she's right back in the hunt for being my number one woman of all time! She briefly had that honor for about half a year but then took that long hiatus which made her tumble down a spot or two. However this makes it eight posts for the year and five consecutive months with one, this is her second for August and as I've said numerous times there is no woman I enjoy doing posts for more than Yui! Which means this has been an enjoyable stretch for me and have noticed my attitude seems to be much more positive when I know a post will be done for her or when I'm writing it up.... or viewing her previous posts.... or gaping at her beyond perfect photos.... sigh....

 Hard to top the pics from her two photobooks though in a way ones like those above are almost as fabulous. What a shame it is we'll probably never see any more gravure photos from Yui but she did leave us with some truly alluring pics, whew!!!! This is one of my patented 'Spur of the moment' posts as I did want to do a post for Yui but also needed to day a day off to work on other posts, will postpone that day off.... until tomorrow? Didn't think there would be enough for a post as I just did one for her twenty days ago but when I want to do a post for Yui nothing can or will stop me as I'll work harder to have a post for her than any other woman here! Six posts are needed to qualify for the yearly faves list which she reached with her July post, this makes six consecutive years being eligible which is the second current longest streak. While others may have had busier years than Yui she'll probably finish ahead of most of them as there's sometimes more than just the amount of posts which figures into a woman's ranking, kind of hard to put that scenario into words.

 In June Yui hit the rare milestone of a hundred posts, she was the first woman to do so in at least three years. What makes her feat impressive is that it's often easier for a (ex)J-Pop Idol to reach a hundred due to being in so many group posts, for a good example on that check out how many Nogi gals have over a hundred posts. But in the case of Yui this now makes it 103 posts and about 75 are solo ones in the vein of this post so that 73% may be the highest of percent of solo posts for any Idol....., er, make that second as one SKE graduate is and it's her bitter rival in their never ending battle on who my number one woman is of all time! I'm sure Yui has many fans here and her posts draw a consistent amount of views though did notice those views aren't as high as I thought. Her last post to reach a thousand views was in April 2023 and that was for her amazing second photobook. It's very common for a post to be just so-so popular and say get about 500 views in it's first few months. But when I check that post out two years later it's very common for that post to reach 1,700 views or higher. But that hasn't been the case for Yui, this post may receive 500 views by the end of October, when I check a year later it may have only grown to 650 views and wonder why her fan base has been dwindling the past few years?

 Let's get to the meat of this post but could stop here for those above eight photos of perfection could be enough! Let's begin off with some recent pics from her IG page and there are more than usual. You will notice her with an ex-Keya mate in the bottom pic, it's from a radio show when the two were celebrating the fact Keya was formed ten years ago! Wow, time does fly and not one original member is still with the group. There's also a poster in that batch for Yui's appearance at the September 6th 'Tokyo Girls Collection' show, nice to see her attending those again. Will do a post a few days after that which is why I was a bit leery on about doing this post for today and perhaps not having enough things for that next post. But as mentioned that's okay as I love trying to create a post for Yui out of virtually nothing, there's also many photos of her promoting her first ever mini album which comes out in six days.

 Yousti is the stage name she'll be using as a singer and I'm so glad to see her continue doing music. Yui is so talented as she can play three instruments, is one of the best if not top dancing J-Pop Idols of all time and did write many of the lyrics for her mini album. That stage name is a combination of Yui and Ostrich, I have no idea whether that could her favorite animal! So she's been doing some stops at cities around Japan to promote the album, two of the photos above were from record stores in Fukuoka. On August 8th Yui appeared in the 'Uta no Sunset' show to sing the song "Day Dreamer" from the album, I have the video but it's not on YT. Below are some screenshots from that performance and have the link here for the actual PV which was the first video from the album. The version done on the TV show seemed better and Yui did look so terrific but has there ever been a time when she hasn't! While this is a good song think "Fake-Perfect" is much better, haven't heard any of the other tunes yet.

"Day Dreamer" PV

 Yui is now a model for the andGirl fashion site and magazine but since her last post only three new pics have been added at their site so for now will hold on to those. Think for the first time she'll be the cover girl for their next magazine, she's only had a few regular spreads for them. For almost five years Yui was a regular model for With magazine, her gig for them ended on July 2, 2023 and that was also the case for a Nogi member. So below are semi-historical pics as they're her final modeling ones for With, least she went out with a BANG as these last photos for them get a grade of 100/10 from me!

 Speaking of being a cover girl Yui has had that honor many times but her last cover to date was this one from the November 9, 2022 issue of Weekly Shonen. Her second photobook was released three weeks before but this spread didn't have any pics to promote it.

 In most posts for ex-Idols will have some old group cards, usually for the month or season we're in. However have used up all of Yui's for the Summer or at least the regular Keya cards. Which is okay as to me this collection is much better and they're promo cards for the 'Keya Kise' web game which was in operation for almost three years but ceased in 2020 when the group had that way too long hiatus. The first nine cards are for Summer, the rest are from other times of the year but also look so tremendous and cards for all groups have really dwindled these last few years.

 We've hit the end of this post which turned out to be decent considering it was kind of a 'Spur of the moment' post. But my photo folder for Yui 😍 is just so massive which means it's not difficult to whip up an ultra terrific post and will end off with some pics of pure perfection, you've seen these before but it's impossible to ever get tired of gaping at these, know I never can!!!! After the pics is another encore which is of a 'Uni's on Air' promo video, that's a web game featuring members of Keya and Hina. Did say how fantastic of a dancer Yui is and she has some moves in that video, I've seen her do some solo dancing at Keya concerts and they truly do suck the breath out of you....