Sigh, guess we'll never see photos like those above again and that is common for the graduates of the three '46' groups. Though there is a member from both Keya and Nogi that are now gravure models, would rather not see Yui do that kind of modeling full time but a few gravure spreads or even a digital book would be such a pleasant surprise. Will give thanks again to We Still Subbing for catching up with these older 'Soko' shows and it was perfect timing for that. Because on the 23rd Yui will be hitting the age of 25 so you could say these two posts for today are early ones to celebrate the occasion. Won't be doing a post on the 23rd as I want to work on it and think about four days after her birthday is when fans should expect it though her fan base has really dropped the last two years. However not to me for as mentioned Yui is my all time #1 woman 😍 and though I didn't want to admit it for a while she's probably been my Queen for well over a year.
Of course I was so bummed out about Yui's seven month absence and while she will never be as busy as she once was think there will be many newish things for her birthday post. Did say I would do that in a few days but perhaps November 1st would be a better date, at first was planning on doing something different to begin November off but will hold off on that until December 1st. I don't really know how close Yui and Risa were while they were in Keya, at first you didn't see them together often but seems they grew much closer the final two years Risa was with Keya. That could be because most first generation members had graduated and speaking of that word it's the post I was going to originally do on November 1st but will wait a bit on that. Haven't posted Risa's graduation book that came out in May 2022 and it's because I never had it until recently. So will have that book on December 1st and Risa has lost so many fans here, she's done so little this year and why has that been?
Yui did have a regular second photobook that came out exactly two years ago but not one for her graduation and that did disappoint me. So not much to add in about her recent activities which haven't been many but she was at Saturday's 'Girl Award' show and does have a newish interview, details will be in that upcoming post. So on to part two of her farewell 'Soko' appearances and this show did start out very slow, uninteresting may be a better word. But at about the eight minute mark things did pick up and it ended up being a decent show though wish we had seen Yui have a segment with Rina and Fuyuka as the trio had been together for over eight years.
Once again will try keeping my words to a minimum and let the screenshots explain what took place, for the most part they go in order of the action and this episode aired in January 28th. Right above are the two hosts, on the left is Tsuchida while on the right the main emcee Sawabe was telling us most of this show will be devoted to Yui doing things she had always wanted to do with her fellow members. Much of the last show had the opposite theme and in all honesty am thinking the producers thought up the first and very long segment. Earlier had said how this show started of so slowly and it was because of this first long segment which was of Yui having a short individual pow-wow with the third generation members and think all were in attendance.
Right above and below are some screenshots of this segment which did take a while. Every 3G member spent about a minute with
Yui, seeing as how there's eleven of them you can understand why it dragged a bit at first. A member would enter a room and for sixty+ seconds would chat with
Yui who gave them some sound advice and such, you could tell by the questions and answers that this segment wasn't scripted out which did make it more interesting. As these minute encounters went on they did get much better and think it was because of
Yui who tended to carry the conversation. For instance
Miu above appeared to be in a trance like state and in the studio the hosts did chuckle at that.
Nagisa was by far the most terrified/intimidated of
Yui and she could barely utter a word,
Yui did notice that and put her at ease. To me
Reina and
Yuzuki were the best two 3G members when it came to having a conversation and thinking from the top of their head.
At the bottom of the post are many more screenshots from this longish segment which as I said did get better as it went along.
Yui gave many members some sound advice and she was someone they needed to listen to as she had been there once. For instance when Keya began in 2015 she was the second youngest member,
Yui did admit in this show and previous episodes how intimidated she was at first plus it didn't help that she was and to an extent still is a quite woman. So
Yui did give some helpful advice and encouragement to some of the more quieter members so all in all while it began off slowly this ended up being the segment we saw and learned the most of
Yui.
I didn't time the action but think that segment with the 3G members began at about the five minute mark, seeing as how all had a minute or slightly more with
Yui there couldn't have been more than seven minutes to go in her final episode. This next activity was a challenge and one I think
Yui did request, it was a takeoff from the "Start Over" single's hit campaign and that was the first single after the name change to Sakura. What the group did was have an easy challenge which you can see below but they somehow did make it difficult!!!!
As you can see above
Yui wanted to go out on a winning note and from what she said when she and her mates did this challenge over three years before she really enjoyed it, think the set up was a bit different. The object of this challenge was to throw a crumpled piece of heavy paper into that small bin that is above, a member would stand a meter away which is 39 inches. But when they extend their arms the distance they have to throw the paper was no more than a foot away so how could anyone miss? No member should have but two did who were
Shizuka who had gone first and then the tenth member
Nagisa did. But seeing as how it was
Yui's final group activity the hosts gave the members a mulligan and in the end
Yui succeeded in this 'should have been easy' challenge.
Because of those flubs in the paper tossing challenge by the time
Yui sank the winning shot there was only ninety seconds to go in the show. So the two hosts could only have a very min interview with
Yui about her plans and time with Keya, as I figured she said her favorite part was performing at concerts and she is one terrific dancer!
Yui did add in she had no future plan which did surprise the hosts, she was truthful about that as she disappeared for almost seven months. So that ends this recap for episode #168 which of course was also
Yui's final one and a huge reason for wanting to do the pair of posts is that we may never see her in a setting such as this again. Sure most know where to get the raws for these shows and do recommend viewing the final two shows if you're a fan, go to the
We Still Subbing site for the subs. Think these shows and others are on YT but of course aren't subbed. Below are more screenshots from this episode,
Yui's 25th birthday is in two days but as mentioned the post for it may not be done until November 1st.
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