Nao Kanzaki and a few friends: Yui Kobayashi: Her first post for 2024.... the final one as a Keya member????

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Hajimemashite minna san....welcome to my site on my fave Japanese Pop Culture likes such as dramas, movies, magazine scans, promo events etc. Mainly concentrate on my faves...Risa Watanabe... Kyoko Saito... Yui Kobayashi....Nana Owada.... Nene Shida.... if you're a fan at all of any of them then you've come to the right place(!) but many others are featured here besides them. Do mainly quick reviews on things I've watched, try to make the reviews brief, quick to read through with not too many spoilers, just whether they're good or bad and why I thought so plus whether you may find them enjoyable. Many, many screenshots are included from everything I've watched plus any video trailers if they're available. Hope you find something that interests you, don't hesitate to comment, arigato gozaimasu!

Sunday, January 7, 2024

Yui Kobayashi: Her first post for 2024.... the final one as a Keya member????

Did a Keya group post yesterday and said this one would be done within the week. Then got to thinking why wait that long as there's just 3 1/2 weeks to go until her fateful graduation so why not try to squeeze in as many posts as possible? Which sounds good in theory but we need Yui to cooperate and as far as doing solo activities these last three months has been her slowest period in close to two years. There's been three Keya graduation photobooks since May 2022 and my wish was that we would be seeing a fourth for this departure but with each passing day my wish doesn't appear as though it will come true.

EDIT: Forgot to mention this makes it 21 consecutive months with a post and that's a record that will probably never be topped!

Know I will eventually get over it but will admit Yui's graduation announcement really hit me harder than any other save for perhaps a Nogi member who left in 2017. Sure she has some plans but after posting about Idols for a decade you do notice things and one key one is to go out on a high note and be busy. But as mentioned above this has been her slowest stretch in quite a long time but Yui seems to be an intelligent woman when it comes to her career so wouldn't doubt if she has some things lined up which we'll be hearing about soon enough. But have said in her last two posts that I don't want these final posts to be depressing in the least and let's see her off on a positive note.

Wouldn't mind seeing a few more gravure pics which is one reason I wanted a photobook as it would be our last chance to ever see pics in that vein. You have to figure Yui will continue on with doing part-time modeling and also acting which most Idols say they will be doing but she does have the advantage of already appearing in five dramas and last year was in her first stage play. This won't be a large post as there hasn't been too many recent happenings though least the new pics are all superb, like I said want her to go out on a high note here. Least as a Keya(Sakura) member for as most know Yui is one of may all time favorite woman and will never stop posting about her. Have a few older things for today and it being January how about some 2017/18 Keya cards? They never had a monthly series but would have cards for the four seasons, after 2018 though they never had them for Winter.

More cards which are from the group's 'Keyaki no Kiseki' game that ended in August 2020. The bottom five aren't exactly Winter ones but they look darn good and had come out in January.

Next weekend the first 2024 'Tokyo Girls Collection' show will be held but it doesn't appear any members form Keya or Hina will be there. Bit surprised Yui won't as it would be her final show as an active member, there is another TGC show in about six weeks so perhaps that will be her first activity after graduating. Have more game pics which are from 'Saku Koi' that began in July, these have all come out in the last month and hadn't been posted before.

Do have a semi large batch of IG pics though not all that many solo ones. Yui does post some terrific pics at her page but never enough of them which I hope changes in the future. This batch here is a bit different as so many recent photos are with other Keya members, wonder if they want their picture taken with Yui for they won't be getting many more chances to do that?

The bottom pic is my fave of the bunch but check out the four above that. That was from a TV appearance and almost didn't recognize Yui as her hair style was slightly different, also doesn't Keya have some sharp looking uniforms? Oooops. almost forgot this small set of pics which are the January promo ones for the 'Uni's on Air' web game, her final set?

Will end off with ten tremendous new modeling pics from the andGirl site, would think she'll be continuing with them. Actually that first pic is older but am having it again as it's my favorite from the site though that second is terrific too, it appears she and two other '46' members are no longer models for With. After the pics check out a video from the December 28th 'Showroom' as Yui hosted it with Rei and have noticed over the last year or so how close those two are.