Yui Kobayashi: Sob sob, her final Keya post but certainly not her last one ever here....

 

 Best part of this post could be the top pic which had never been posted before. It was an outtake from photobook #2 and it's so terrific makes you wonder how do they choose which photos will be in a book? Could have done this post ten days ago but held off in the hopes some news or happenings would take place though neither did. Also wanted to wait a bit to clear my head, had some negative thoughts about what's been going on and wanted to come in with a clear mind which it sort of is and have no plans on what will be written up as it'll be just from the top of my head.

 Yui's first ever solo post was in January 2020, since then have always said she's the nicest woman I post about. Hope that's true and it's why I hate having any kind of negative thoughts or opinions in her posts, she's moved into my top five for all time favorite women. As I've said before her graduation was done so quickly and was there a reason we don't know about such as she just wanted to get out of the group ASAP?! Yui announced her graduation last November 29th which was only three days after another Keya graduation concert, why wasn't there a longer wait? That was quite odd to me and two months later she was out of the group, perhaps the final two concerts were a biggish deal but it did end up being a somewhat quiet sendoff. I have zero clue what Yui will be doing, it's only been two weeks since her departure but you would think she would have had some plans in place and maybe she does but we don't know about it yet. Sure some viewers have noticed the big increase on posts for other J-Pop graduates and in a way I like them more after they left their groups so for now guess we just have to play a waiting game.

 So this will probably end up being your regular post for Yui which of course means a superb one with many new pics though all in all she hasn't been that busy. In two weeks there will be a major 'Tokyo Girls Collection' show, scheduled to appear are five members from both Hina and Nogi. But no one from Keya is on the list yet and that includes Yui, thought that would be her first post-Keya activity but it doesn't appear so. Will make this a large post but will try to hold back a few things for a March post, this one for today marks 22 consecutive months with a post and no other woman has ever come close to that record so one in March will make 23 months.

 That above pic is a semi-oldie from the With site. She had been a model for them since 2019 but no new pics since May so guess that gig ended. No new modeling pics either from the andGirl site since December, her modeling photos are so fabulous so hope she continues on with them. First off are these older pics for Valentine's day and to me it seems Yui has less of them than any other Idol.

 But do have four new ones for the semi-holiday. Which are promo pics for the 'Uni's on Air' web game and these top four pics will be her final ones for the game. The ones after are from their S.teller series and they came out at the end of January.

 The subbing for Keya's 'Soko' variety show is now over four months behind, will the team ever catch up? I really hope so and when/if they do will do a pair of posts for her final two appearances on the show, in her last post had some screenshots from the January 21st episode. Yui's last episode was show #168 that aired on January 28th, there was a Q and A session she held with the third generation members and in the studio the older members gave their final farewells and such. Both those last two shows did seem to be fun so truly hope I can recap them some day.

 Have quite a few photos from Keya's 'Dairy group blog as so many members wanted to have a final pic with her. But the first few are from Yui's own IG page, she's never posted enough pics there so hope she changes that and that is her in the first two photos as she surprised everyone wearing a Panda(?) outfit outside her second to last concert.

 Did try to feature more of her with the remaining to first generation members Rina and Fuyuka, who will be the last to depart? In the last five weeks there has been a trio of interviews with some news sites, will have the link to one of them which was with Tokyo Calendar. However it was like the other two where there was so little info about her future, none to be exact and even Yui's days with Keya seemed to be generalized but it was the best of the three: Tokyo Calendar site

 February 1st was the date of the graduation concert which took place at the Yoyogi National Stadium in Tokyo. Do have the pair of final concerts but have only skimmed through them so these pics are from the Keya site, will have some screenshots in future posts. The negative thing I will say and it's not specifically about this final show but all graduation concerts. Perhaps I've seen too many of them over the last decade but in my eyes all are the same!!!! It's just an endless array of farewell speeches and tributes from the members, what's so bad is everything said at these shows is the same at all of them! To me it seems that way and only nineteen songs were performed at the show which lasted for over 160 minutes so at least half the show was just talking. There is one advantage the '48' group have which are their theaters. I'd love to see Keya do something different and have a show at a small venue as those are so much more fun and the theater graduation shows really are so much better.

 This post is large enough so will end off here with even more graduation pics. But of a different one as this final set of pics is from a special BLT issue that came out five years ago titled 'Graduation', they have one every Spring for Idols. Yui was born in October 1999 so she would have graduated from high school in March/April 2018 and this is her spread from that special issue, think it was only posted once close to six years ago. Did say above that Yui had dressed as a Panda for her first grad show, a video of it was uploaded to Keya's YT channel and that's after the pics.