Nagahama Neru (Neru) / Keyakizaka46 1st Generation

Neru is so cute.....
She's a natural beauty.....

 

Neru alone on the bus (reference to the words of Nori Okureta Basu):



I think a part of Neru's appeal is summarized by this comment someone made on the picture: "I want a girlfriend like this."

 

She's adorable and looks so delicate. Uniform suits her very well.

 

There's an interview on Hustle Press with Neru, Berika, and Ozeki. Published last December. At the end of it, they tag on an individual interview with Neru that is so wonderful. I read it, then I found it translated by jujuchuu.

If you haven't read it, you absolutely must. She was smart and alone and spent her time watching AKB48 and Nogizaka46 videos and thinking about the universe and how small she was -- and wanting to be president. How can an otaku (or near-otaku, whatever) not love her? She's so smart, so vulnerable, so self-aware. (And, of course, so cute.)

note: There's one small place where I disagree with the excellent translation. Asked why a person so solitary would want to join an idol group, she said that she wanted to go to a world where no-one knew her (this is very familiar from when I myself was 17). She had thought about studying overseas, but when the chance to join a sister group to her favorite, Nogizaka46, came up, she applied. Ironically, now hundreds of thousands of people will know her. But at least she has a clean slate and a fresh start. And there will be many thousands of people who like her a lot.

 

Jeez, I just discovered her. Judged most fashionable and won the quiz challenge? Is she perfect??

The media really should have saved that scandal photo of hers, because it would have been worth A LOT when she inevitably makes it big!
She's lucky the photo got released early so it's pretty much going to have no effect.

 

I suspect Aki-P thinks she is. I note she says in the interview that what drew her to Nogizaka46 was their lyrics, which of course were all (?) written by Aki-P. And he seems to have written the words to Nori Okureta Basu to suit her situation.

Another reason she was perfect was that they had just lost two members, one to quitting and one to scandal, and they wanted to get the numbers back up a bit, just in case more left. Letting her skip the audition means that they had pretty much decided to accept her before that stage, anyway. The brief clips they showed on Keyakitte (15.11.29) of the previous judging sessions she attended were irresistible, as long as she could sing and dance, which it appears she can. All I hope is that she is able to overcome her late entry and not have other members hate her for her success.

As for that "most fashionable," I saw that episode of Keyakitte (16.03.13) and didn't quite get why the experts chose her over all the others. As she said at the time, with that look of pleased incomprehension she can have: "Even though I'm a country girl? (Inakamono na no ni?)"

 

lol omg sometimes I do these translations late at night and I guess I do dumb editing mistakes that create nonsensical sentences. thanks for pointing it out, I fixed it! I agree I really liked the article. I wish I could find more of her interviews to translate, but she's not doing as many as the other girls it seems.

 

@jujuchuu -- You, too? I recently posted something about Neru in the wrong thread....late at night.

There was a comment I found interesting in the comments on that pic of Neru in the bus seat, above. Like me, most commenters just loved the picture. However, one person said she had the "tanuki face that is popular these days." A "tanuki face" is apparently an expression of feigned ignorance, related to the tanuki "raccoon dog" that is supposed to be sly and tricky.

 

I found Lin JiaPei, GNZ48 member, looks like Neru, at least in the official photo. Drooping eyes, elongated lips and innocent smile...
Okay, they're features of tanuki face.

http://www.gnz48.com/member/member_detail.php?sid=7

 

They could be cousins, lol. But "PeiPei" looks just a bit less gentle, in that still picture. I note that one of her interests is martial arts.

I just heard a bit of Akimoto Manatsu of N46 saying that of the Keyakizaka46 members, she was closest to Neru, and they communicated with each other. I don't understand everything from radio shows, but I understood at least that much. In fact, they are similar, since they both were like generation 1.5: there was a delay before they really entered their group. Manatan agreed that N46 were like elder sisters of the new group.

In their blogs after Music Station, Uemura Rina and Kobayashi Yui both said they wanted Neru to be in the main Kanji Keyakizaka group. Yui-pon called her "modest and nice."

 

Don't worry about neru. Probably in the second single she'd likely to still being put in unders, but on the third while the concept is already cleared then she would be featured in the senbatsu. But if until the third she's still an under, maybe we should send Sony an email or two lol

 

Just saw Neru's blog, posted seven hours ago. She says she watched the Music Station performance from the dressing room there, with the "great angel" Saitou Asuka ("dai tenshi Asuka-san"), feeling deeply grateful [for the privilege]. Neru is 17, like Ashu. She was born only a month later.

"Keyakizaka team staff" were there, too, and they watched the performance nervously, like she did, but also gasped at it like she did.

"The way they looked just...made me love them. They were so cool.

"Watching all those eminent artists made me feel the amazing power of music. The word 'amazing' isn't enough, it doesn't convey it all. Who would have thought how the melody would sell the words. There's always been singing. Even in primitive times, it seems to me. It's a miraculous thing.

"So the excellence of Silent Majority has been confirmed again. I want it to reach more and more people. I'll work hard from now on, too."

 

Oh, my! Neru knows how to further increase her popularity. Check out her blog post today, which says she loves to go places in Tokyo with Hirate (whom she's three years older than). They especially like to go out for sushi. Then she posts this series of photos. Too many to post full-size, so I'll post thumbnails.

After the first, she writes "Uh, whaaat? ( ・_ゝ・)" After the second: "Um, do you mean you love Neru?" After the third: "Yes, yes. Never mind.(｡-_-｡)" (what you'd say to calm a baby.) And: "This has been Techiko-Neruneru Theatre." Before the fourth: "Thank you very much for reading the blog."



In last weekend's Keyakitte show, Techi said she loved how Neru talked. She said Neru uses some masculine expressions. Then Neru gave an example: "Saikou ka yo!" (Maybe: "That's great, eh!") The contrast between Neru's cute near-lisp and the forceful expostulation was definitely something to like.

If they don't make Neru part of the main Kanji Keyakizaka, I think many of the members may really start a revolution. She admits she tries hard to be liked. Everyone knows that. But they still seem to like her a lot.

 

Yet another nice blog post from Neru (yet again) today. She and Techi seem to spend a lot of time together. She thanks everyone deeply for coming from all over the country (Okinawa to Hokkaido, with lots of people from Kyushu) to meet her at the Kyoto handshake events. She says that in their free time, she and Techi just spent the time gabbing:

 

ah!! Kawaii overload!!! I almost die!! too much kawaii!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Neruchan is so adorable!

 

Neru's favorite fashion brand: Merry Jenny (cute, much?).

Other brands she likes: Mikio Sakabe (the applied strips of fabric make me think of her dress that the "fashion check" episode of the TV show liked so much), l'atelier du savon (um, weird?).

"Just looking at them is fun," she says. She says she is attracted to things that are "simple but different." Sounds like her.

 

l'atelier du savon is one of my favorite stores (it's not a brand, but a store that sells english, french, and japanese brands)!!! it's not as strange as it might look... they have a lot of ~i want to leave this world and live in the forest~ artsy style clothes, but they also sell quite classic stuff like 10860584B_16_D_500.jpg. merry jenny is great too!
wow I feel so close to Neru right now lol.

 

When Neru "won" the fashion check, she said something like: "Even though I'm just a country girl." I thought at the time there might be more to it than "country girl." She was a country girl who was in touch with the greater world. Thanks for the pic of that lovely, simple, classic, comfortable-looking dress from l'atelier du savon. Good balance to the stuff in the new collection.

 

IMO, the "city girls" of any country always look down on "country girls", regardless of the country. Good sense and tastes are not limited to a region.
Says the guy who lives in a city who is considered countryside for the main cities, and is considered a big city by the countryside.

 

Pencil drawing of Neru. Because I'm bored.