Had to say something

[matataku_hoshi]

I have nothing new to add.  But the shock caused me to miss a chunk of a perfectly good game of Apples to Apples going on in the living room last night.  I actually had to put Eriko's name into Google to make sure I was reading the kanji right (even though that's a name that I obviously know).

I like Eriko and Masami, but I know that there are others in this fandom who are much more enamoured.  My heart goes out to them.

I guess in every generation there are always a few who retire early for whatever reason (Sararan, Kazu, etc), but that certainly does *not* make it any easier for their very surprised fans.

I'm really grumpy about the lack of role names.

Comments

[quinquin]

There might be a few who retire early but this makes four out of the twenty two they put in the young star guide in 2008. And it has only been a few month since that was publicized. Doesn't seem entirely normal. Looking at the 2004 young star guide Shii-sama will be the second after Sararan to graduate, the others are still active (I think).

[lliri-blanc.livejournal.com]

I agree. This feels like much more than a normal changing of the guard. Naturally we all know my theory on this (anyone notice that these have all been girls at or past their juunen?), but, meh. I wonder how the next couple years will turn out.

[quinquin]

I don't think I know your theory on this. I have a hard time putting a theory together myself.
BTW Shun is barely out of the shinkos so she hasn't hit juunen.

[lliri-blanc.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting about Shun. ^_^;

Mm, if you remember one of my posts right after the Elisabeth casting, basically I think that the company is trying to force in a "new wave" of very young/pretty/popular seito (musumeyaku and otokoyaku, if you notice how damn young the musumeyaku tops have gotten), and that makes a certain generation (the 82nds and 83rds are particularly vulnerable) pretty much obsolete.
I imagine that if you don't see yourself as faring well in these new circumstances, you might be prompted to retire.

Eriko really feels out of left field, though. I would have thought that of all the 85ths, she had the best shot at executing one of the major ranking jumps like Chie did, and it seemed like they were positioning her to do so. So I don't think all of the retirements are strictly related to the fact that there are a lot of systemic changes going on.

[quinquin]

Um, yeah and then they went and promoted Yuuhi, which is hardly pushing the young ones... they are never consistent that's for sure.

The musumeyaku promotions is annoying because I had sort of gotten my hopes up with the Mon bijoux book that they would actually let the musumeyaku take up more space and be a bit more grown-up.

[lliri-blanc.livejournal.com]

Yuuhi is tremendously popular, though. I also suspect she'll be a one-show top. I don't know, we'll see how it goes, I guess.
I am rather not fond of the childlike musumeyaku. (Unless they're playing, you know, children.)

[ladybretagne.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about it that way, but you're right. Up until this season Sararan was the only one from the 2004 YSG that had retired and even with Shii retiring, that still leaves several nibante and several top stars now out of the 2004 edition. It really makes me wonder what's going on.