Sunday, October 30, 2022

Yui Kobayashi: Who better to end a month off with!

 


 This will probably be the only post of the day but it'll be an outstanding one, perhaps her top post of the year and as the title say who better to end a month off with! October is the high month of the year for posts with 71 and don't think that'll be topped. What makes that doubly impressive is that this month may have had the fewest posts for digital photobooks as I'm all caught up with them save for one and I much prefer doing posts like these for my massive faves. This is Yui's 13th solo post of the year which is a record for by far as her previous high was ten. As I've said many times having a lot of posts in a year definitely helps your position on the yearly fave's list. There's one month to go in the 'Nao Year' and my current top ten have 148 posts or an average of 13.4 posts per person. Would think that 148 will become close to 160 and the countdown for this year's faves list will begin in less than a month.



 As of now Yui would be my #1 fave of the year and she's been in the top spot for well over a month. It's not a guaranteed though she will finish number one as an ex-Nogi gal is making a final push but don't think she'll be topped. As mentioned this is Yui's 13th post of the year and she had only one by the end of March. She had recently come back from her three month hiatus and really didn't do all that much upon her return. But since June she's been like a ball of fire and really hope this can continue into 2023 which I'm praying isn't a graduation year!



 Don't know how many photos will be in this post but think this will be a huge one and there's a lot of variety for today. Some brand new pics, few encore ones and some older ones that had never been in a post. Halloween isn't much of a holiday for the Keya members so don't have any of those pics for this post. But am already working on Christmas(!) and these are ones you've never seen here before. It's been a while since I've had any kind of 'theme' posts such as for pairs or holidays so let me work on some for the final two months.






 Yui's previous post was done last Sunday which was October 23rd and her 23rd birthday. On that day she opened her own IG page so no more posting pics at the Keya 'Diary' blog. So this batch here are the pics she's posted in the last week and hope she keeps having many of them. The bottom one is from five days ago after a Keya concert, they're currently on their Autumn tour which ends in ten days. She should be easy to pick out in that bottom pic as she's the only one not looking at the camera!












 In that last post for the first time had some promo cards for the "Otome Kagura: Requiem for a Zombie" game which came out in the Spring of 2019. The game featured the voices of members from all of the three '46' groups and Nogi even had a drama based on the game which was their best series. Here's even more cards and as you can see Yui's characters name was Ayana, really wishing Keya would do more things such as dramas, events, special shows or whatever to get more exposure.









 On October 19th Keya released a double DVD of their first anniversary concerts that took place last December 9th and 10th. The anniversary was for their name change to Sakura but as you've noticed the last two years I'm stubborn and will always refer to them as Keya! Did watch the first DVD that was from the December 9th concert and they do put on such an energetic show. What made that concert so special is that it was when Yui returned from her three month hiatus. Yui only appeared on stage for three songs but did she ever look so sweltering in that outfit! So have some screenshots from that show and the top pics are for the first song she did upon her return which was "Jamaica Beer". That was off their "Nagaredema" single and it was the first time she had done the song live as she had been on hiatus. It's a really fun song and I've always preferred the B-Sides to Keya's singles over the 'hit song'. Don't know if it'll remain on YT for too long as it was just uploaded yesterday but after the screenshots is the song from the concert.





















 

 As mentioned Keya is currently n their Autumn tour and it'll be wrapping up on November 8th which is when I think The Captain will be graduating, some new group cards for the tour.









 Not sure when Yui's next post will be, could be right after November 19th as on that date she and two other Keya members will be appearing at a 'Tokyo Girls Collection' show. In that last post did go on a minor rant about how photobook sales are undercounted, to date Oricon has sales at 33,000 copies sold after that three weeks. But they don't count sales at concerts so I'm thinking sales must be at least 10,000 higher, even then it still deserves more sales. Have posted many outtake pics or ones from the book, have more new ones for today which are mixed in with some already posted which definitely deserve an encore viewing! That bottom pic had never been posted before and.... WOW!!!!














 Back in the years of 2018 and 2019 Yui must have appeared in more magazines than any other Keya member and was often the cover girl. But the spreads really slowed down starting in 2020 and think the major reason was because Keya went almost 22 months between singles. So will be ending off with Yui being the cover girl for the first time since June 2021 and this set is from the November 9th issue of Weekly Shonen. It's a regular spread as it doesn't feature any pics from the photobook. No 'Uni's on Air' promo cards today for their web game but they do have a series coming out in November called 'Precious Pair', that was also a series in August. After the pics is a short promo video for the game with her partner on the cards.