Is it essentially a given that Kiriyan will replace her?
You would think so. Kiriyan has been long overdue for a while now to become top.
(That being said, there are no "for sure"s in this fandom. We were all pretty sure that Tomu would become the next top of sora after Tani, although Tomu has not been waiting as long as Kiriyan).
But yeah, I'd be pretty surprised at this point if Kiriyan didn't make top. The real question for me is who will be her partner. My dream is Ai-chan, but my suspicion is that they'll go with someone else, as the company has not been favoring older musumeyaku lately. I just hope that 1) it's someone I like (or can at least tolerate), and 2) Ai-chan gets a good role to go out on, since I suspect that she'll also retire with Last Play.
no subject
You would think so. Kiriyan has been long overdue for a while now to become top.
(That being said, there are no "for sure"s in this fandom. We were all pretty sure that Tomu would become the next top of sora after Tani, although Tomu has not been waiting as long as Kiriyan).
But yeah, I'd be pretty surprised at this point if Kiriyan didn't make top. The real question for me is who will be her partner. My dream is Ai-chan, but my suspicion is that they'll go with someone else, as the company has not been favoring older musumeyaku lately. I just hope that 1) it's someone I like (or can at least tolerate), and 2) Ai-chan gets a good role to go out on, since I suspect that she'll also retire with Last Play.