Minami Umezawa: An encore version of her..... '𝙃𝙖𝙨 𝙨𝙝𝙚 𝙗𝙚𝙚𝙣 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙣 𝙖𝙗𝙤𝙪𝙩?' series....

 

 Was going to open this post musing about why some Nogi member's posts have been very popular over the years while for a scant few the opposite has happened. As far as gravure pics go we rarely see a Nogi member have any besides what's in their dazzling photobooks so in a way all posts have the same type of pictures. My musing was going to be about why Minami's posts have been so unpopular compared to other Nogi gals but perhaps that's no longer the case as sometimes patience is a virtue. To me it seemed so many of her posts from the last few years were getting about 400-450 views and most members would get double that though of course a photobook may get ten times that amount of views. But before I began this post looked at the stats for Minami's older posts and to my shock most of those posts from 2021-24 now have over 800 views and many well over a thousand. That's common around here so guess her posts do have legs which is nice to see and speaking of legs....

 I would say nine of my top ten Nogi members are from the first two generations and guess that does make sense as I started doing posts for them over a decade ago. The one gal after those generations that would sneak in is Minami but probably not higher than the ninth position which is still impressive to me. Had she been a bit busier than I could have seen her crack the top five(!), have said for so many years that to me she's Nogi's most sexiest member and perhaps for all three '46' groups'. But Nogi grew too quickly and so many members were shoved aside to give the newbies a lot of attention, to me that hasn't worked out so well as there were way too many members who joined the group in a short amount of time. Maybe not being as busy doesn't bother Minami all that much as she's been modeling for about seven years, appears at most of those huge fashion shows, is the cover girl 3-4 times a year for a magazine plus in three months will be celebrating her third anniversary as Nogi's captain.

 For the yearly faves lists Minami made the top ten twice but the second was three years ago, since then she hasn't had the six posts in a year to qualify. This is just her third post for 2025 but that's better than last year when she had zero after May and this will be her final post for this year. But right after we change the calendar page to 2026 will have Minami's next post as on January 6th she'll hit the age of 27, she's Nogi's second oldest member. There's a graduation coming up at the end of the month which will mean only four third generation members are left, how long will Minami remain? My prediction will be one more year and that she'll depart in February 2027 which will be a month after her 28th birthday. At the end of February Nogi celebrates their 'birthday' with 2-3 concerts, most times there's at least one graduation during them so often they're not the happiest of shows.

 Keep forgetting to work on a 'Pairs Post' for the above duo, though there's a seven year age difference both were good friends while with Nogi. Will vow to make an attempt at a post which could be difficult but then again I enjoy doing those kinds of posts which and haven't done any in about three years. Lot of photos for today, some brand new ones plus have some golden oldies which may have been forgotten about or perhaps never seen by many of you viewers. Let's begin off with some Halloween cards, didn't do a post for Minami at this time last year so these haven't been seen here for at least two years.

 More Minami cards which are new ones from this year with the bottom ones being for Nog's latest single "Same Numbers". The sales for their singles these days are so consistent, usually around 600,000 copies are sold which tops most groups but from 2016-21 almost all of their singles sold over a million. It's not that the songs are bad but not as good as their first dozen singles, at time a bit bland to my ears and also it does hurt losing so many of the more popular members.

 Above did talk about a potential 'Pairs Post' and promise to work hard on that panning out but in all honesty this is the gal I wanted to pair up with Minami in a post which wasn't successful....

 Back in 2020 with two other now departed Nogi mates Minami was in the group drama "Keep Your Hands off Eizouken!" and I really enjoyed that mini series which was a lead in to a movie. Since then Minami has appeared in two other dramas with large roles but that's not too many for a five year stretch, I think she's a decent actress and was in a stage play that ran over the Summer. Did say above that Minami still appears at most of those large fashion shows, this batch below is from the Autumn 'Girls Award' show that was held on October 18th at the Makuhari Messe Hall in Chiba. Minami took her stroll on the Rienda stage and most models at these shows are only on stage for about forty seconds though Nogi did perform their new single.

 Am going to hold back two minor things just in case I have trouble creating a post for Minami's 27th birthday. In her last post had this spread from the May 29th issue of Weekly Shonen and am having it again as she hasn't had a spread since then! It's not just her magazine appearances that have dwindled over the last 2-3 years but it's been the case for most J-Pop Idols, especially for members from Nogi, Hina and Keya as they rarely do gravure photo shoots except for books. But to me sets like these are terrific and bet I post more in this vein than ones containing gravure pics.

 Let's go back exactly two years for another Weekly Shonen spread that's dated for October 25, 2023 and I bet Minami has been their cover girl at least a dozen times. 

 I keep forgetting things as I did say I would be working on having a list of my favorite Nogi photobooks, think I have a little over sixty of them. But haven't worked hard enough on that yet as it's tougher than you would think to figure out what your top ten or dozen would be. For the longest time Minami's book that came out in September 2020 was my #1 photobook of all time but it may have been eclipsed by a March 2022 Nogi book. Let me work on that a bit and there's a lot of books I hadn't thought about in years which are so darn terrific and where's Minami's second book?

 Will end off another of her posts with some ultra stupendous recent photos from the Classy site and that's an apt description for her! She's been a model with them since April 2024, not enough mag spreads but the pics at their site are some of the best I've ever seen such as the first one below. For five years Minami had been a model for the With magazine but that gig ended in June 2023. Minami's photos for them were also fabulous and after the pics have a video from the magazine which has been posted before but deserves many encore viewings as it's close to being my number one of all time!!!!