Risa Watanabe: Her mesmerizing 54th post....

 

 Just this one post for today and it's a true 'spur of the moment post' as I wasn't planning on doing this until an hour ago. Have the makings of about ten posts but just can't quite finish them off as I'd like them to be a bit larger but that also means there should be a slew of them next week. Hopefully one will be a Keya group post and with their new single out thought there would have been more activities but that hasn't been the case. "Samidare yo" is the title of the single which is the group's fourth since their name change to Sakura. In it's first week sales were 393,000 copies sold which was an increase of 18,000 over their third single but they'll never hit the level of sales they had when they were known as Keya. Least it was an increase as most groups can't say that about their singles these days, isn't it about time for them to release their first regular album?

 So after going three months without a post this is Risa's third one in less than a month. Her departure date from Keya is in five weeks and I want to see her go off in style here so while all of the posts won't be huge want to have as many as possible. But can see having some posts the month after her graduation though after that have no clue what's going to be happening with her. In a month Risa's graduation photobook will be coming so do expect some interviews for it and hopefully then she'll let us have a clue about what her future holds. On July 27th she'll be hitting the age of 24 and right around then is when I'm planning on beginning the second 'Top Twenty Faves of All Time' list. If it wasn't for that 22 month gap between Keya's last single and Sakura's first could have seen Risa battling for the #1 spot!!!! It's not her fault for that huge gap but it meant we so much less of her and also many other members but a top four position will definitely happen.

 May 21st and 22nd are the dates for Risa's graduation concerts, there's another Keya member leaving but not sure if it'll be at the same time. The location will be the Yoyogi National Stadium which holds 13,000+ plus for concerts but would have thought it would have happened at a larger arena. The concerts will be streamed so of course will be viewing them so screenshots and info from the shows will be in her June posts. 

 Most Keya members haven't had a proper sendoff which usually has been their fault. So often they'll announce they're graduating three weeks before it happens, Risa announced her graduation at the end of January so there was time to have a photobook and special concerts. Speaking of books her second one will be coming out on May 17th, here are the covers along with eight promo pics that just came out yesterday. Hopefully there will be a few scorching pics like her first book had.

 Up until 2020 there used to be six 'Tokyo Girl Collection shows but it's now down to two. Which is better than the 'Girls Award' shows which have gone from three to zero! So that's nine shows that have decreased to two and I really miss seeing so many of my faves at those shows. Risa hasn't missed a show since 2016 and let's hope things get back to normal by next year with the amount of shows. The 'Girls Award' shows to me always had the best pics but there's been no shows since September 2019 which is what this batch of pics is from.

 This is not the largest of Risa posts as it's her third in less than a month and there really weren't all that many new things for today though do have some from the Non-no magazine site.

 On he special edition of Keya's new single there's PV's for three songs but more importantly there's a forty minute Risa documentary! There's an interview with her throughout the video along with comments from current members, how I wished this was subbed and wouldn't be surprised if it eventually happens. But could understand some of what was said, especially the parts when Risa was saying how scared she was at the beginning of Keya's formation. She is a bit too quiet at times but seemed to open up much more during her interview segments, the highlights were old footage of Keya's intro press conference, first concert and videos, these screenshots are from the first fifteen minutes.

 Have moaned often about the lack of new mag spreads which ties in with that long gap between singles. Risa hasn't had a spread save for Non-no since last June and at one time she had close to one a month. But think she'll be the cover girl for an upcoming issue of WPB to promote the new book but that won't be coming out for a few weeks. So let's go back in time for a really super duper set from the July 10, 2019 issue of Weekly Shonen. On the new single for the second time Risa is the center of a coupling song, that's "Boku no Dilemma" and the PV is after the pics.