Maria Makino: Her better late than never.... 'Happy 22nd Birthday' post!!!!

 

 It's been exactly one year since her first intro post and in that period it's her sixteenth overall. However this is just Maria's second post since October 6th and though she's remained busy it hasn't been at the same level as she was in 2020/21. It's kind of a mystery why we haven't been seeing more of Maria as she could be Morning Musume's most popular member, starting last May is when the posts began to dwindle. February 2nd was the date for her 22nd birthday, for the first time since 2017 there wasn't a photobook released on that day.

 Know so many of viewers can't get enough of Maria and I'm with you on that! Last year she was the eighth most popular woman here as far as how many views her posts received so know you could be a bit bummed out too how few posts there's been over the last few months but there hasn't been a thing I could do about it. Was just noticing that while Maria is still young in September 2024 she'll be celebrating her tenth anniversary as a MM member, that still is a long time from now and hope she doesn't have any plans to leave the group for at least another 3-4 years.

 This will be a decent sized post as there's close to sixty pics that have never been posted before. Only a few new gravure pics though in a magazine spread that will end the post. Know all can never get tired of gaping at her older photos and we need to see a slew of new mag spreads for her, when you look at these don't you think that the Japanese word for Perfection could also mean Maria?!?!

 Let's get to the meat of the post and first off are these birthday pics which are mainly older ones though the bottom three are from last week. Top ones are group cards and they haven't released nearly as many the last year as they once did.

 Also have some older Maria cards for Valentine's Day though the bottom two are from the Bis magazine site, she's a model for them but no recent pics.

 Bit of a slowdown too with Maria posting pics on the group's Ameba blog but least they all rate an A++++! The first four are from the magazine photo shoot that ends this post. The next four are from a UTB magazine photo shoot and that issue will be coming out in two weeks.

 Maria is also a model for the Sweet magazine, this set is from their January issue. Know we all prefer seeing gravure pics but these are all superb to me and wouldn't mind seeing her do more regular modeling work this year.

 We've hit the end and while it may not have seemed to be a large post there were over seventy pics. Final thing is this fabulous new spread from the February issue of Gekkan Young Champion, it's Maria's first solo magazine cover since last May. She has been on three other covers since then but they were with other members of Morning Musume. No video for this spread but after the pics have an oldie which is from July 2020 where she covers one of my all time fave J-Pop tunes "Romantic Ukare Mode". It was first done by an ex-MM member, Maria has never been known as one of the group's better singers but I really enjoyed the performance.