Nao's top sixteen Faves for 2023: Position #10, the unsurpassed Maria Makino

 

 Previous positions

#16, Risa Y .... #15, Rika I. .... #14, Miyu M. .... #13, Marupi

#12, Shiho .... #11, Yuzuha

 Will admit I worry too much at times how posts will turn out, almost every time(99%) it ended up being needless worrying as the posts were usually superb. That was the case for this post as though I wish there were more newer pics this will turn out to be a super duper post, that's easy to do when you have pics of her!!!! Unless you've been visiting here for a long time or have checked out the older yearly fave's lists you may not know how big of a fan I was of the Hello Project groups. I still think the groups put out music that hasn't been eclipsed by any current groups and may never will, as much as I like the '46' groups musically all of them have just put out so-so singles the last few years though there has been the occasional terrific song which is often a B-side.

 From 2016-19 six Hello Project members made the yearly fave's list eleven times, twice a member was number one! But sadly things began to change and almost all were negative ones. First C-ute disbanded and then there were so many graduations of older members. So then posts for H!P gals went way down and besides the music the members may be just better overall females plus they had so many photobooks. One thing I miss so much are the monthly H!P Digital Books and that series ceased in September 2021. So from 2011-16 in my mind C-ute put out the best singles though SKE wasn't too far behind. Shortly before they disbanded I thought Juice=Juice began to have even better tunes than them but sadly all the older members save for one have departed. My last two posts about J-Pop haven't been too positive and why would they be as 90% of my faves have graduated the last few years.

 One reason for the above musings was that enough may not know enough about H!P groups and highly recommend their music, Morning Musume still puts out A+ singles. The other reason is that Maria will probably be the final Hello Project member I post about and hope that can continue for many years! Being in the tenth position is impressive as it means only nine had a better 2023 than she did. Plus I like Maria more than just a handful of current faves, her looks could be considered PERFECT and even that isn't an apt enough description! The problem is while Maria should be battling for the #1 spot every year it'll never happen and that does make me a but sad, hope I'm wrong with that prediction. Her activities have slowed down the last sixteen months and why is a mystery to me as she is a very popular MM member. She's also extremely popular here and sure most of her fan base have noticed the decrease in magazine spreads, modeling pics and other activities.

 Gulp, glad I purchased a new 170 cm stocking for this X-Mas, it'll be a tight squeeze but think she can fit in.... hope Santa for the first time thought I was a good boy this year! Did a post for Maria on November 4th which was only her seventh of the year, the good thing about making the top ten is that your first post counts for 2024 as it was done in December. First off are these pics from her IG page, not that many in four weeks and she's also slowed down on them this year. Could be because of the decrease in mag spreads as she would often post pics from the photo shoots.

 The last three pics are with H!P's overall leader, the second and third to last are from her November 29th graduation. Of course I'm talking about Mizuki who is my all time fave Morning Musume member. Can you believe in all these years she and Maria never had a mag spread featuring just the two? It is hard to believe but that was the case, until now that is as the unbeatable pair are the cover girls for the December 11th issue of Young Magazine. Do have the spread but not going to post it today but do have a few outtake/promo pics for the spread.

 The reason I'm holding on to the spread as it will be posted in about two weeks. Plan on doing a farewell post for Mizuki and want to make it as large as possible. Have the video of her graduation concert so will have some screenshots from that along with many other things, she too has been very popular here over the years and know many have missed seeing posts for her.

 Maria has been in a good amount of magazines this year but the spreads have been somewhat deceiving. The last seven months she's only had two solo spreads, all of the others have been with other members of Morning Musume. Why that's happened is another mystery to me but least the spreads have all been decent. Do have a brand new set from the November 23rd issue of Young Jump, for the third time this year she's paired up with Rio who I wish was just a bit older.

 Maria looked so darn good in that above spread wish it had been a solo one and much larger. All of her spreads this year have been superb and just wish there were more of them especially because that monthly H!P Digital Book series ended. No new sets for today so let's have an encore viewing of this spread which was in her last post and is from the November 16th edition of Weekly Shonen Champion, the 14th time she's been their cover girl!!!!

 Here's something that has never been posted before which are these Maria Christmas pics, what would be going through your head if you saw her on X-Mas morning under your tree....

 Final part to this post which was the first time she ever made the yearly list. So while 2023 was far from being Maria's strongest year there were some huge positives to me with the biggest plus being the DVD's I have of her. Seven of them which total eleven hours and I will watch at least 3-4 a month which still isn't enough for me! Will end off with this batch of screenshots from her "Dear Maria" DVD which is from the photo shoot of her June photobook of the same name. This is the fourth set of screenshots and has the last twenty minutes of this 67 minute DVD, my only complaint is I wish Hello Project would make these photobooks and DVD's a bit more alluring as there's never any lingerie photos. Following the screenshots check out a video for Maria's Young Magazine photo shoot though her segment just goes to the 2:14 mark, the only gravure video with her now departed mate....