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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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Monday, July 20, 2020

Nogizaka46: The slightly belated.... Happy 24th birthday to Hinako Kitano....


 July 17, 2021.... Sadly couldn't do a 2021 birthday post for one of my all time woman as there's so few new things so will have an encore of last year's, this was one of the top posts if not best for 2020!

Think I'll be doing my usual 'taking Tuesday off' this week but the last seven days have seen the most posts since probably April. At one time used to have quite a few birthday posts for my bigger faves but have really slowed down on them. One reason could be that I keep on top of things better and there's never enough new pics to warrant a post. In the first week of the year did two b-day posts but I think only two since then but that's not a label I could check that on.

 Though Hinako is such a massive fave of mine came close to skipping this post, her 24th birthday took place last Friday. She too has had a shortage of new pics so thought it wouldn't be the end of the world if there wasn't a post for the occasion. But then again I do enjoy posting about Hinako so said why not have this post for today seeing as how there may not be any others. This will be her fourth solo post of the year, her last one was for the 'Nogizaka 46 Hour TV' special and really enjoyed her 'horror game' segment though wish it was longer. As most fans know Hinako has been my #1 Nogi member for a while and in all honesty she just may be my current overall number one. However because there hasn't been all that many activities for 2020 doubt if she'll be number one for the year though she should have a somewhat high ranking.


 Gulp, it's not like a had a choice on whether to have this post or not....



 Do have many pics for today, many are older ones that have been in previous posts but then again quite a few are new for here. No order to the things for today so let's begin off with some things that were seen in other Nogi 2020 posts such as these promo 'NogoKoi' game cards.


























 But do have many Nogi cards which had never been posted before. I've probably posted thousands of their cards, personally do like them and bet a few others may be collecting the ones I've posted.

















 Sigh, don't think that bottom card was intended for me but I can always dream....

 For such a long time Hinako was Nogi's second best blogger but the past two years her posts have dwindled to almost nothing. She did make an entry last week for her birthday saying she'd be doing more posts, at one time their blog site was decent as so many other members used to do many posts but these days it's mainly just one. No new pics of her 24th b-day so some older ones from her blog.




 But there were to new blog pics last month and how tight can a shirt get.....



 It's been a while since the last Nogi group event and I kind of miss them. After a long stretch of not being at many of them seems Hinako was one of the members to be make an appearance at the majority of events. So guess I'm trying to say there are no new pics in that vein so as has been the case for most of these posts the last few months lat's go back in time for event pics. These two sets of seven pics each are from a pair of 2017 'Girls Award' shows, the first set was for their Spring/Summer show held in May while the others are from their Autumn show held in September.














 At both of those shows Hinako represented the Zipper magazine, she used to be an exclusive model for them. But after that second show is when bad times hit her for close to a year as the magazine folded, she went on a four month health hiatus, her photobook was postponed and for the most part 2018 wasn't the best of years for Hinako. There still is a Zipper site but they no longer publish mags, shame as I thought the pics for them fit her personality so well.









 In many recent Nogi group posts have talked about doing some recaps for Hinako's mini vacation to New Caledonia with her best mate. It was part of a special 'Nogizaka World Travel' series and will get to it eventually, it was about a three hour show so will just be having my highlights.















 What's been lacking this year have been Hinako mag spreads, bet she had eight or so solo ones last year. But so far for 2020 there's been only one but will have to say the amount of Nogi mag spreads this year seem to be much lower than previous years save for one or two members. Think I missed posting her only solo set of the year which was from the February issue of Entame, least I don't recall these pics before and wish it was a bit larger.




 Whew, it's been a long post so think some may need to take a deep breath....


 Her only biggish set this year was with Nogi's captain in the January edition of Bomb.











 Last Monday she was the host of 'Showroom', the video is still on YT so you can view that appearance at the bottom of the post. EDIT: Grrrr, once again a YT video has been deleted!





 Hinako has had one photobook that was released on December 27, 2018. It sold fairly well with the total being close to 60,000 copies sold and don't know if that figure is high enough to get her a second book but I'm really hoping so. Of all places Sweden was the destination for the photo shoot, have posted many behind the scenes pics from it but not these ones. There was a Twitter page for the PB which is still up which must have a few hundred pics from the photo shoot.














 Have finally hit the end, of course it was a terrific post though wish there were more current pics but bet many fans hadn't seen many of those older ones. Will end off with some dazzling Hinako pics as she'll show why she's my #1 Nogi gal, first seven and the bottom one are from the photobook while the others are just some personal faves.