Keyakizaka46: Their eleventh non-nightmarish post for 2023....

 

 First regular group post in a month but did have a special one for the remaining five first generation members. Won't let a gap such as that happen again and there will be another group post next week. Of course above is Rei and there is a good reason for starting off with her. The most popular group posts this year have featured her photos at the top so thought let's see if she's some sort of lucky charm! These above are from her first and only photobook which I will get to soon enough, that came out at the end of April and is the only Keya book since last October. So that brings up an interesting pair of questions, who is the most deserving member that should have the next PB or more importantly who do you viewers want to see have a book? Not really sure if any of the older members who haven't had a book is deserving so why not a group book? As far as members go can't say I have a strong candidate but perhaps Keya's captain Rina would be a good choice. She never appears at those large fashion shows nor is she a model for any magazine or site. I think she looks terrific and will admit to being a bit curious how she would look in a swimsuit or lingerie pics.

 Sales for the group's sixth single since the name change to Sakura have of course dipped after it's first two weeks out. But at almost 470,000 copies sold "Start Over" has been their second best selling single and only "Nobody's Fault" at about 510,000 sold has topped it so there is a chance for the new single to become their #1 best seller. All of the first and second generation members were Senbatsus on the single and bet the new 3G gals will be on the next single, perhaps one will even be the center.

 As most know three weeks the first two generation members performed at this year's Japan Expo in Paris. Still can't believe they went all that way for just a thirty minute show and didn't bring any merchandise to sell(!) but covered all of that in two previous posts. Do have some blog pics from their trip and after them check out a longish but very entertaining video the group added to their new YT channel, that video is right after the pics.

 

 Now that their Spring tour is over along with the promoting of the single hope the members begin to add more solo videos to that new channel. Not doing a group post for over a month means there are some things from July to post such as their monthly messages that get added to the Keya site on the first of every month.

 Hikari wasn't in the above batch as she came back from hiatus about ten days before the Paris trip. No August promo cards yet for the 'Uni's on Air' web game but do have some from July that hadn't been posted, will have two batches of three members. First set leads off with Rina and I still would like to have a solo post for her, she's followed by Rei and Hikari so the pics had to be taken months before.

 Second set of game pics leads off with Karin who is the center for the current single. Following her is Ten and the other Yui in the group who really has been looking fairly decent lately.

 Two weeks ago a second group game began which is a simulated dating one called 'Saku Koi'. In that next group post will have more info such as links to the main site and a video or two, these are some promo pics for it. 

 There are some brand new promo pics for the 'Saku Koi' game and if you ask me they look mighty darn sharp! Will have two member's game pics for today and first off is Hikaru who just had a solo post less than a month ago. Rina is the other gal and she's Keya's oldest member who will be turning 27 in January but hope she does stay a while as she's grown to be such a huge fave of mine.

 Lack of group posts means I've also fallen behind with these mini recaps for Keya's 'Soko' variety show. For today have episode #137 that aired on June 18th, will skip the next ones and pick up with #141 which is the start of a two part academic challenge and then won't be so far behind. The theme to this show was to see how well the members were at acting and good thing for most that they have a day job! The 'mini' part is me describing what took place as the screenshots below go in order of the action. Did skip over one scene that featured Yui and will have that in her next solo post, did give a minor recap of it before but without subs and she should have another post this month.

 There were a couple of different scenarios for the girls, in the first ten minutes of the show a member had five seconds to ad-lib a scene. Such as eating a very hot Takoyaki in one bite and to me Fuyuka took the prize for that challenge though no awards were handed out. Second scenario was for a member to have a five second laughing fit which was okay but would have been nice to see the skits a bit longer. Because that would have worked out much better for the third improv which was of a member obtaining a huge amount of cash and they needed to give a sneering laugh. To me the best scene was one featuring Yuzuki who played a junior detective that was gunned down in the line of duty, that and the pair of segments that ended this show lasted for over two minutes which made them better.