Maria Makino: Sigh, her final post as a Morning Musume member....

 

 Don't think this will be a large post but am hoping I'm mistaken and rarely does a minute go by without that happening! But did promise to do one final post for Maria before her June 24th graduation concert though of course that won't be her last post here. For the next few months these kinds of posts should continue on but after that is when they easily could be slowing down to a trickle. When a Hello Project leaves their group it seems they get sucked into a Black Hole and we seldom hear from them again. Maria is a bit different than most recent members who have graduated as she's done so much gravure modeling the past seven years. Plus she's been the co-host of a pair of Baseball shows and recently has been appearing on some regular variety shows so she's more known than most other H!P gals but sure her activities will be slowing down.

 This is also a semi-historical post as it's Maria's 37th and she has now set a new record for most posts by a Morning Musume member and while it may not be the final post for the group it'll probably be the last one for an active member. As mentioned above June 24th will be her departure date with an MM concert at Budokan, after that no clue on what Maria will be doing and how I hope she doesn't pull a Houdini act like most members have done. This graduation was a quickie as it was only announced two months ago and seemed like Maria wanted to leave in a hurry. Because of that she probably won't appear on the group's next single which comes out in September and Maria isn't as popular as I thought with the group's fans as many wish she had left a few years ago! Not me of course and Maria 😍 was the first woman I ever gave a rating of a 10/10 to and has any women in history topped her....

 Well, the answer to the above question is certainly a NO(!) and will I be so bummed out if she stops gravure modeling and bet many of you readers feel the same way but it's what made Maria popular so why stop now? This makes it five consecutive months with a post and that's only happened once before but it's not as if Maria has been all that busy since her graduation announcement. But she does have some upcoming activities and did work at this post a bit which wasn't work but more of a labor of love! Have about seventy photos for today that had never been posted but may not include too many oldies that have been seen before as I'll save those for future posts. Will do Maria's next post in the first week of July and hope that grad concert is streamed though then again I'm not a fan of those for so often they're such sad occasions.

 Back on February 2nd Maria released her twelfth photobook, that was also the date of her 25th birthday. In some partially terrific news on June 24th her final book as a H!P member will be released, that'll be book #13 and I have no clue what the record is but she couldn't be too far away from it. Below are the only promo pictures to date with the top two being the covers, the photo shoot took place in one day after her graduation announcement and the location was Okinawa. So perhaps Maria's final MM activity won't be the concert but an event or two for the book.

 Maria's photobooks are all so fabulous but better than those are the DVD's that accompany them and hope there is one for this final book. As I said above Maria gets a rating of a 10/10 from me and though her photobooks/magazine spreads are second to none it's her gravure videos that are her best things by far! She could easily become a mega star being a gravure model but doubt if she would go that route, below are some screenshots from volume 28 of Hello Project Best Shot. That comes out once a year and Maria has been their cover girl three times, it features members from all of the H!P groups and there's also a DVD that goes along with it, this latest edition came out three months ago. Did post some other screenshots from her segment but not these which was also promoting her previous photobook.

 Maria has been the cover girl for Young Magazine twenty times which may be a record. For their next issue she'll have her 21st cover and that could also be her final one, that's the first pic below. The rest are recent photos from  Maria's IG page and group blog, she's never posted enough solo pics.

 Of course there's always so many scantly clad photos of Maria in her posts and why not as who can top her hotness?! But she also looks so darn amazing dressed as a civilian(!) and below are some of her clad in a Kimono, she should do more modeling of those.

 Exactly six years ago, May/June 2020, Maria did some regular modeling for the Secret Honey clothing line. These photos are also superb to me so why not do a bit of regular modeling but of course throw some gravure photos in with those....

 As most know Maria is a Baseball fanatic and hope she continues to co-host a show and appear at games. For the fifth time she threw out the first pitch at a game and this latest toss took place on May31st at Escon Field which is in the city of Kitohiroshima on the isle of Hokkaido. That's the home field of the Nippon Ham Fighters who were playing the Yomiuri Giants that day who are from Tokyo. Even though Maria was born in Aichi and then went to Tokyo the Ham Fighters are her favorite team, below are some photos of her at the game. I could only find one video of her first pitch which was from a fan taping it but the quality is good and you can see the entire sequence of her toss which is after the pictures. The pitch wasn't a strike and after so much practice shouldn't she be a bit better?

 

 In all of Maria's posts have been including screenshots from the DVD of her twelfth photobook. Have even more sizzling ones for today and Maria traveled to Australia for the photo shoot, it was a 75 minute video which was her longest to date and will be able to have two more batches in the future.

 This turned out to be a decent post and when Maria is the woman the post should actually be considered to be a classic! Will end off with some ultra beyond photos of perfection and easy to see why Maria was my first ever woman to get a rating of a 10/10 from me! We never have enough MM tunes here so after the dazzling pics is of the group doing their song "One-Two-Three" from an April 11th concert and that's when she had announced the graduation.