Kakizaki Memi (Memitan) / 1st Generation

Good reply. I agree about the effortlessness of Nao's apparently long-practiced wink. She deserves credit for the skill and the long attachment to it. Although she hasn't done it in Hinata much until recently, as far as I recall. This may just be giving her the chance to reclaim a gesture that does belong to her. And I did think about the usefulness of pushing the face of the group. I even think it would probably be best to keep Nao at centre for the next single, to cement the image.

I hope Memi is large-spirited enough to think of the group as a whole and be pleased to have contributed. I do actually think Memi herself is of two minds about the burikko character, and not that attached to it, really. To me, Memi's main skill is that eye-to-eye connection, which began with her setup for Showroom during the auditions. That somehow allowed her to see the comments at the same time as she was looking into the camera. I see the wink as just a way to get people who hadn't noticed to be able to see the eye-to-eye connection, which I see as pretty well unique to Memi: others look into the camera, but Memi looks as if she can see right thought it, somehow. Nao is getting closer, as she seems to me to be improving in all aspects of the job as time goes on (like Memi).

You doubtless have a lot more experience of idols than I do, but I see Memi's burikko stuff as not her natural self at all, just an act she puts on...very successfully. To me, she is not creating a character, just doing tricks. I think of it as little performances surrounded by a real person. But even when she is doing them, you can see the real person in behind, it seems to me. And I like that. From the start, I have found Memi more natural than a normal idol. For a long time, that was because she didn't know how to do anything else but be herself (in the auditions, especially). It took a couple of years before she learned how to smile when required. I'm sorry, I come at this from a non-idol-fan background. I could never appreciate the programmed smiles...until Hinata/Hiragana, whom I already supported, started doing them. Lol.

Manamo is now one of my favorite members, but in the auditions I disliked her for so consciously acting the idol...also very successfully, since she was, at least at one point, the fans' favorite candidate of all. I also find it pleasantly ironic that Manamo is now a sexy character, when she was shown in a TV street interview before her selection saying that she was 19 and had never had a boyfriend. I think the decision to get her to do the burikko thing was a good contribution to her idol career. I mean, is she not basically a somewhat geeky student of Japanese classical literature?

 

Memi's burikko is a good boke. And I want to tsukkomi her (no pun intended and this is not dirty joke). She is just like fooling around with her burikko. As for me, it's like when a little sister or daughter teasing me or asking me something. Sometimes my heart melt, but mostly I just want to smack (gently) her head and tell her to stop, but in the end, I do what she was asking.
Therefore, I like how members react to her burikko. Showing sour or even disgust reaction that make Memi angry, is much better than telling Memi is cute. It show how close those members are. And, I believe even though Kumi like Nao's wink more than Memi's wink, the captain love Memi like her lil' sister. And this is what Hinatazaka should be, a group where members can be serious and playing around. Moreover, we will see the new side of Memi this week on Nogibingo.

 

More good points. That's how I saw Kumi's show of disgust until recently: warm sisterly joshing. Now I'm not so sure, but I definitely hope you're right. The subtext for me is that Memi has really annoyed some of her elder sisters with her aggressive physical affection, and also that Memi is apparently apt to say exactly what she thinks, regardless of whether it might hurt someone. I think she may be (fortunately or unfortunately) growing out of that, but I believe she may have offended, say, Katoshi at some point, turning her from a close friend to someone more distant.

As Kyouko said on their Showroom, Memi has been "cute lately," not doing things like invading Kyouko's Showroom against her express wishes, as she did a year or so ago. Memi and Kyouko now seem to get on quite well, both as a singing team (Mimi ni Ochiru Namida) and on Showroom.

Especially after Memi being missing on HinaAi, like you I'm eager to see this "new" Memi on Hinabingo in 12 hours.

 

I noticed it on yesterday's Bingo, seems she took off the retainers?

 

Here's Memi's comedy performance from last weekend's Hinabingo, an impression of comic Nishimura Hirocho 西村ヒロチョ:


if the video does not show watch the video here

And here's the original, from his YouTube channel:


if the video does not show watch the video here

Nishimura-san tweeted today that it made him happy that "Kakizaki Memi of Hinatazaka46" had done an impression of him (but it sounded as if he hadn't seen it). I think Memi didn't really reproduce some of his moves and energy, but she added her own energy. Good performance.

(EDIT: Actually, the more I watch Memi's version, the more impressed I am. She didn't reproduce his routine, she rewrote bits of it (maybe using other stock things of his, but I couldn't find them). She gave us her feminine version of Hirocho. I've often thought Memi seemed to have a good sense of rhythm, and Hirocho's act depends a lot on its rhythms. The final "You're number one!" must come from Wakabayashi's line in GanaOshi. And overall, the performance was a beautiful overdose of Happy Aura.)

A piece from the Entame website says that the group all seem highly motivated and work surprisingly well with the acid-tongued Koyabu-san. The piece picked out Memi's performance as the most striking so far.

@Lalo Martins -- Good observation. I think the top retainer has been off for a while, at least for performances. Here's a photo from 27 January (left). I think I can still see a lower retainer on last weekend's Bingo, though (right): (click to enlarge)



I must admit that I sometimes wish she had her original vampire teeth, which I didn't think were so awful. Even now the large expanse of gum that shows when she laughs broadly is commented on, so she often covers her mouth when she laughs, anyway. But many people did think they looked bad, so she probably did have to get them fixed. Here are a couple of pics from 2016:

 

Promo picture for Monday's HINABINGO ep. Members will act out scenes where they scold someone in their ad-libbed words. Miku, Memi, Hinano.... Actress Memi:



For Tuesday's pairs handshake event at Makuhari Messe near Tokyo, Memi will be paired with Miku! That should draw a crowd. Full list in the Kyun thread. Hope it gives them a chance to get a bit closer to each other socially. A poster has already given them the combi name "Memiku."

The "Kakizaki Memi Birthday Festival Executive Committee 18/19" has announced that her 17th birthday celebration (her birthday was 2 December) will finally be held on May 6th, after the second handshake session, just before Kumi's 23rd (her birthday was 22 January). Miho's 19th (24 February) will be held after session three. Here's the Memi committee's announcement video on Twitter.

In honour of their birthdays, here's a brief Instagram video of Kumi playing with cat-Memi last summer.

 

She made the cutest 'nya' I saw from her. And that 'woo' was really fun.

I love the expressions she did.

 

Memi will not participate in the Kuroi Hitsuji individual handshake event Monday, because of physical condition. Putting this together with her missing MStation and the last HinaAi ep, this means she has been poorly in some way for around two weeks. I had been hoping those absences were for some outside project. No such luck. It's an understatement to say I wonder what's wrong and hope she's getting better. Particularly disappointing considering how well she has been performing over the past couple of months.

Hiyo-tan will also miss the event. They will probably also miss the Tuesday Kyun pairs event. This helps explain why they put two such popular members in one lane for Tuesday as Memi and Miku. A single lane for Miku works.

As far as I recall, Memi has never missed anything, except for her broken wrist. She even came back the next day after the flare incident, when they guy came to attack Techi, with whom Memi was paired. Techi didn't return, and neither did Shida, who was in the next lane. Memi has quite a bit of fortitude.

EDIT: Memi's father, artist Kakizaki Junichi, announced Thursday his first big exhibition in a while, at Azumino in Nagano Prefecture:



There are several tweets about it in Japanese in his timeline.

 

Well I'm sorry to hear that's happened to her. I hope she gets better as soon as possible.

 

From the preview, she's participate in next week HinaAi episode

 

The timing of everything is quite confusing. Memi-chan will be on HinaAi next week, but who knows when that was recorded. She's not up to participating right now, and probably hasn't been for around two weeks. The members have produced greeting cards...for April. Here's Memi's. It was probably written well before her illness/injury (whatever it is), but it's some kind of contact:



"Hello everyone!
It's Kakizaki Memi of Hinatazaka46.
I haven't done a greeting card in a long time.
I don't know what to write,
So I'm nervous. Lol.

April is the time of year when many things begin.
I'm really feeling happy and positive.
This month, the Heisei era will end.
May we pass it enjoyably,
With no regrets."

I always love her penmanship. She has an artistic sense, and the writing seems flowing and balanced to me.

As for what's going on, I have no idea -- except that I'm quite depressed. I'm especially depressed seeing the vultures diving down into her 5ch "support" thread to criticize her and find reasons she will or should graduate or join Keyaki. I do think they're right that she's different from everyone else. But I love the differences. I think the chances of her leaving are somewhere between tiny and none, but I really don't know what's going on here, if anything.

I'm not sure how long the greeting cards have been up. I haven't noticed them before, or seen them mentioned, but I don't often look at the individual member pages, where they are posted.

 

Maybe she just got what Hiyotan has/had.

It is weird though. Like why didn't they say anything when she was out for Music Station? I assumed it was something personal, like a death in the family. Like at work when someone is out sick, they just say "I have the flu" or something and its not a big deal. But I guess its different for an entertainer. Like at a normal job after a few days you can say "I still have a runny nose and bit of a cough but otherwise I feel OK and I can go back to work because I'm not contagious anymore". But an entertainer can't be sneezing and coughing on stage. And Im sure the choreography exacerbates an otherwise normal sickness. Its one thing to work at a boring office job when you're not 100% but its different when you're performing on stage. Not to mention the risk of germ transferal at something like a handshake event. I would probably go through an entire bottle of hand sanitizer if I were them.

I've always wondered about these "poor physical conditions" that idols seem to come down with that keeps them out for weeks at a time. Seems unnecessarily mysterious. Honestly, when an idol goes on hiatus for vague "health reasons" I usually assume its mental health rather than physical health. Stress related neuroses are actually pretty common in the entertainer industry due to the pressure, regardless of country, but Japan seems to really stigmatize mental health. But Memi doesn't really seem like the neurotic type.

It could be that Memi is more fragile than when we thought, and the increased workload and stress of being in a "true" group like Hinata is hard on her compared to a "side" group like Hiragana. That could have been why she was so apprehensive about the single and name change, because she knew it would be a work load that she didn't want. Then again, she is fairly athletic so that's probably not it.

Anyways, Im rambling and Im sure she just needs a few weeks of rest.

 

This can probably be a bit silly. Although I do not believe in fortune tellers, the predictions now scare a little.


"Her luck will be good until May".


"She need to do the advices".

Ok, to me this is just a coincidence... but is scary. If she needs to rest a bit, that always help. She can have weakness but she is a strong girl with strong will and have members and Ohisama support.

(Thanks to my girlfriend who notice this).

 

@Xiphyas -- Some people believe that the "fortune-teller" was told what to say by management, to some extent. That probably includes me. I dislike the fact that most people seem to post (I'm talking about Japanese posts I've seen) as if they believe the predictions implicitly. Actually, what I most dislike is my sense that members may believe the predictions and therefore somewhat fall into them. People who believe in divination are victimized by it far more often than they are helped, it seems to me. I don't totally reject the possibility of fortune-telling, but I do believe that the vast majority of it is fake. The scariest thing to me is how suggestible we humans are. And I include myself. I can say to myself I don't believe, but somewhere beneath the surface, it's hard to avoid a certain amount of belief.

@gish0046 -- Like I say, I really don't know what's going on. But you're right that it's normal for members to be out for vague "physical condition" reasons that are never actually explained, maybe because they're emotional rather than fully physical. I can believe that Hiyo-tan is emotionally overwhelmed from time to time, but I had never thought Memi would be. She has often shown her strength -- but she has also shown her self-doubt. She certainly could be feeling greater pressure because of the new, more intense situation with a more successful group. And because of the darn fortune-teller. And the fact that she is not that social, doesn't seem that close even to most members of 1gen (apart from Manafi), may make things more difficult for her. On the other hand, it seems to me that she has been doing amazingly well over the past year and a half, and particularly this year: her dancing, her singing, and especially her variety work have all reached a much higher level. I hope she realizes this.

 

I'm just going to point out that it's peak pollen season in Tokyo.

 

...and I have seen various people complaining that it is a bad year. I don't know if hay fever could be bad enough to be part of the problem, but it's a thought.


Here's photo from BOMB magazine that just turned up on a Chinese site, with a Chinese translation of a brief interview. The photo and the print are quite fuzzy, but I have translated the interview into English (with some guesses due to the fuzziness) and made a blog post of it, adding more photos from the feature (Mirei, Kyouko, Nao-chan, Toshi-chan, Memi), most of which have been posted on Stage48 previously.



Memi says she would have been happy to continue as Hiragana Keyaki, but realizes that you have to keep moving forward, and that the name-change became necessary. She says she liked Kyun as soon as she heard it and enjoyed doing the MV in her home prefecture of Nagano, and having a chance to eat dinner with her mother and father there. She says she like acting and would like to do more, but that what she most enjoys is performing in lives. She talks about her relationship with Neru and says she would have liked to have one last live with all twelve of the original members of Hiragana, including Kage-chan and Neru. And she says she has become interested in the world outside Japan and would like to study the history of the world's artistic heritage.

EDIT: I should add that this is not a recent interview. The magazine came out a month ago or so, and the interview and pics were probably done in March.

 

Someone just posted a clip from one of Memi's early audition Showroom broadcasts, on April 30, 2016. Definitely three years younger, lol:


if the video does not show watch the video here

She was already willing to do a wink, even if it embarrassed her. I remember those broadcasts, where Memi appeared totally frank and open, no professional smiles whatever (since she was incapable of them then -- and for over a year thereafter). Quite a contrast between Memi age 14 and Memi age 17 (HINABINGO last week):


if the video does not show watch the video here

She tells her guy co-worker to smile more and be more into his work, that his attitude is just inexcusable. Then she makes him laugh and says she likes him that way. I thought Memi and Miho were great in that series of little playlets: they both created an emotional trajectory.

In a 5ch thread (post #824) claiming that Terada Ranze is going to graduate because she can't stand not being able to be around guys, a person claiming to be a Nogizaka insider known as WiMAX said that Memi and Hiyo-tan will definitely both graduate, for the sake of their futures (this usually means school). Now, this is far from being solid info: for one thing, people say this is not really WiMAX, that his writing sounds different. But this is the first time I have been able to give any tiny bit of credibility to the rumour. It still seems highly unlikely, since Memi seems to be growing so quickly as a performer. But in that little interview I posted above, Memi talks about wanting to learn the history of world art. Memi is one member I can imagine going to college overseas, since her father keeps bringing home tales of Sweden and other countries he has exhibitions in. That would require hard work to improve her English to the level required. And getting into the right Japanese university to study art history might require work, too. In her Showroom with Kyouko, Memi said that she did not have exams. This would be true if she was in a "helicopter" school from which she could automatically get into a certain college. It might also be true if she was going to go overseas, for which there would be different requirements (including money, lol). I can also imagine Memi deciding on a future in acting, and going into a troupe in Tokyo to learn and do -- especially if that work was less demanding of her time than Hinatazaka is.

But I still expect this is just a brief problem and that she will be back fairly soon, rested and ready to pick up where she left off.

 

Memi's father tweeted Friday some pics of going up into the mountains -- up to an 1800-metre ridge, steep, over loose rocks -- with his daughter to get flowers and lichen for an art piece: (click to enlarge)



He has two daughters: Memi and her beloved, artistic elder sister. If the elder sister is built like Memi, as she probably is, the girl in the first pic could be either. But it could be that Memi is resting at home -- if climbing a mountain counts as "rest." Or she could just be visiting for a day or two during Golden Week. Memi loves going off into the mountains with her father, to pick mushrooms or edible mountain plants -- as she says in the interview mentioned above and translated in my blog.

EDIT: Seems to be Memi's sister:


EDIT: The opening of Sunday night's HinaAi (Memi/Miho):



Oishikunaru moe-moe kyun! ("becoming delicious, moe-moe kyun!"). I think it's a magic spell, to make the bentos the show is about tasty. Note marvellous Manamo, perfectly placed and aware. (Members other than Memiho were miming eating.)　Miku is also aware, of course, but not so well placed.

 

A tweet reports that, in handshake Tuesday afternoon, Takase Mana said that Memi is fine, and we should just wait for her return. They ate together on Monday.

Makuhari Messe 6 May, session 2 handshake report
me: Um, I have something I would like to discuss with Manafi. For Memi's sake, is there anything you can tell us?
Fii: Just to wait. And that Memi is fine. I ate with her yesterday.
me: I see. Thank you for telling me!

のも(郵便屋さん)‏@nomo_ganaota
5/6 幕張個握 2部 高瀬 3枚 握手レポ 自:まなふぃに相談があるんだけどさー。 芽実ちゃんのために自分たちに何か出来ることはないのかなー？ ふぃ:待ってるだけでいいんだよ！ それに元気だよ！芽実！ 昨日も一緒にご飯食べたし。 自:そうなんだ！ありがとう。教えてくれて！

Another handshake guest says they asked Ushio Sarina, who said they had all eaten together on Monday, including Memi and Kage-chan. (すぎや@gigaccha)