Rika Watanabe: Her resplendent 'Happy 26th Birthday' post....

 

 Slightly early for this but it is the sixteenth over in Japan when #26 officially takes place. What an overdue post this is and didn't realize she had gone so long without a solo post. Last November was when that took place but there was a 'pairs post' on March 1st. Overall this is Rika's 16th solo post and she was my number one member when I first started following Keya. No longer has that position which isn't of her falling but of others passing her as she still is a fave of mine. And you viewers too as her solo posts have all been quite popular and when you view today's pics it's easy to see why.

 Was on a nice roll with my predictions as most had been surprisingly correct, did flub up on one and glad I was wrong. That's of Rika graduating by her 26th birthday, not that she's too old but seems the new members have become a bit more popular than her and it also appeared as she had lost some of her enthusiasm. Actually many Keya members did too when that 22 month gap between singles took place, hopefully now that things seem to be a bit more stable the graduations will taper off to zero for the first generation members. Think the main reason for no solo posts since November is that Rika wasn't all that busy, that March post did have the pics from the previous three months. But this should be a decent post as there's fifty new pics but how I wish there were more.

 "Ban" is the title of Keya's second single under their new group name Sakurazaka. It came out on April 14th and has sold close to 425,000 copies to date, that's about half of what their old singles would sell. But the group did lose so many members, went 22 months without a single and then the health crisis hit. So perhaps that figure isn't too bad as all J-Pop groups have had a decrease in sales but not as much as Keya has. Still think they need more exposure such as having their own drama or appearing at events. To promote the single she did an interview with the Nikkan Sports site.

 Few recent promo pics for the group's 'Uni's on Air' game to coincide with the Sakura season.

 Am a bit early so there were no Rika pics at the group's Diary blog so have some older ones. No regular blog pics either as the members rarely post that many solo pics.

 Of course have some birthday cards for the 'KeyaKise' mobile game. Bottom five are newer ones and though not officially birthday cards they should be labelled that way.

 Have watched a few recent episodes of their variety show and can't believe how much more quiet Rika has become these days which is mainly how low her voice has become. Not sure if she's trying to fit into some sort of image but wish she would be a bit more assertive. Then again her quiet yet oddball ways on the shows are somewhat endearing. Rika is a model for two sites/magazines and not many Keya members can say that. One is the Larme magazine but no new pics from the today. The other is Ray and this mini spread is from their May issue.

 But Rika usually has some terrific pics at their site, these are all recent ones.

 Here's a spread that hadn't been posted yet, probably because there's been no group posts for a while. Will try to have one soon and this set is from the May edition of BLT.

 What we haven't seen enough of the last two years are new pics of the 'W-Watanabe' duo.

 But the pair finally had another spread together as they graced the cover of the April 29th issue of Young Jump. Pics are oki doki but wish the spread had been much larger.

 There's a couple of things I wish Keya would do. One is to start appearing at events and there hasn't been any this year outside of the TGC February show. The other is to have some photobooks as the last one came out twenty months ago, would like those books to be the second for some members. Such as Rika having another one, she was the first Keya member to have a PB but just two weeks after the next book came out. Her PB was released on December 5, 2017 and it's sold about 80,000 copies to date which is an impressive number so why not another one? Don't know why not as the group does need more exposure and these are pics from a fan greeting session for the book.

 Hopefully it won't be another large gap between posts but not holding anything back so it sadly may be a while and hope I'm wrong with that prediction too. Will end off with some sparkling pics from Rika's photobook, some are also outtake pics. Many have been posted before though some new ones are scattered in and to me Rika really looks so superb. As usual no decent new videos and that's been the case for the '46' groups as of late. So will have an entertaining one after the pics which is one her most viewed videos ever that's a segment from the group's 'Keyakitte' program from November 2018.