Maria Makino: Her very belated.... 'Happy 23rd Birthday' post....

 

 Twelve days to be exact, knew February 2nd was the date of her birthday but had waited to see if anything new came out which didn't happen. Have mentioned before how the first two months of a year tend to be slower for J-Pop groups, Keya and SKE both have singles coming out soon so hopefully that's a premonition of things to come. Sure some have noticed the lack of posts for Idols but have been doing quite a few for graduates.

 Maria was semi-busy last year but not at the level she was from 2020 until mid 2022. She did appear in a fair amount of magazines but seems most of those spreads were with other Morning Musume members and there were way too few solo ones. She is getting to be one of the older gals in the group so perhaps that's why many of the younger members are getting more attention. Hadn't thought about it before but Maria was born in Aichi and so wasn't the woman in the next post. That's the home area of SKE and maybe if things worked out differently she would have been a member of that group but think being in a smaller one such as MM has worked out much better. There hasn't been a lot of current activities but do have around sixty pics that had never been posted here before, some new but mainly older ones.

 Whew, there are truly no more than 2-3 women who I post about who top her sultriness, whew again! The Baseball season beings in about seven weeks and Maria is a huge fan, she did have a weekly segment on a Baseball show last year and why wouldn't she for this upcoming season? Morning Musume has a Ameba blog where the members post their photos and have messages, this has been it for solo pics the past month.

 As you can see some of the above were from a photo shoot for an upcoming spread, now Maria is trying her hand at golf! Do have two more blog pics which are below and from her February 2nd birthday, also a few cards for the occasion.

 Have even more Maria birthday cards and pics, all are older as the amount of MM cards has really slowed down the last two years.

 There was a new Hello Project photobook that was released at the end of January. It's volume 26 in the long running series 'Best Shot' which features pics from all of their groups. Maria is the cover girl for this edition, the second and third are promo pics which leave us(me) gasping for air....

 Ooooh, almost forgot it was Valentine's Day and Maria does have some sharp looking MM cards. The bottom one is from a Bis magazine photo shoot, she started modeling for them three years ago but haven't seen any new pics since last Summer.

 No new mag spreads and I really hope they pick up again for her as to me there may only be one hotter current Idol though then again hard to put Maria in second place! So let's have an encore viewing of an older set and she was the cover girl for the March 17, 2022 issue of Weekly Shonen Champion.

 Will end off with this batch of sweltering screenshots from her "Hatcahi" DVD, it was from the photo shoot of her 2021 photobook of the same name. From 2018 until 2022 Maria released a photobook on her birthday but that streak was broken last year as she had a book come out in June. So this was the second year in a row with no birthday book so let's hope June is when we see yet another one, she already has ten to date!!!! The "Hatachi" DVD was forty minutes long, in her last post had some screenshots up until the seven minute mark. These continue on from that point and go to the fifteen minute mark so you will be seeing more of these in future posts. The photo shoots took place on the islands of Okinawa and right at the fifteen minute mark went to the northern section of Japan and Hokkaido. No new gravure videos and that's because there's been no recent mag spreads. But had said Maria is a huge Baseball fan and has thrown the first pitch at three games. None last year so after the pics is a video from June 1, 2021 throwing put the first pitch at Jingu stadium, unlike most Idols she easily threw it over the plate though a tad high....