Kakizaki Memi -- the "Young Queen" of Hiragana Keyaki?

Here we go again. For its first performance, Hiragana Keyaki was centred by its youngest member, Kakizakai Memi, 14. (She and Nagahama Neru were double centres.) Keyakizaka46 itself is centred by its youngest member, Hirate Yurina.

Here is Memi-tan with Hiragana Keyaki's second-youngest member, Kageyama Yuuka, during this weekend's handshake event in Nagoya. All the Hiragana members were crowned with flowers. She says her dress is from Ank Rouge. Memi-tan likes cute things, and French dolls in particular. A few weeks ago, she said she wanted to become "Keyakizaka's French doll":

Memi-tan did not seem very forceful during her Showroom audition. She was clearly young and hesitant. But she was perfectly ready to be present and answer fairly honestly the questions that came -- and had her own ideas of which ones to ignore.

As time has gone on and we get further glimpses of her, it is becoming clear that although her style is "cute" to the nth degree, she is a fairly solid person. For one thing, she is not little. She is listed at 156cm (5'1"), which is a normal adult height by Japanese standards. In photos now she seems at least as tall as most members of Hiragana Keyaki. And she expects to get taller.

During her Showroom online audition, where she was known as "Number 10", her youth and cuteness gained her a large and enthusiastic following. Since then, our glimpses of her have revealed someone who seems a bit more forceful. We see her dancing energetically, playing around with the other members in training sessions, and she appears to have become close with Katou Shiho, who is 18.

 That last photo, from Katou Shiho's blog, shows Katoshi sleeping on Memi-tan's lap. Katoshi's blog post today is "Kakizaka loss," a syndrome she feels when she goes home, and is away from Memi-tan. She ends up texting Memi...who replies right away.

Katoshi says that Saitou Kyouko saw that scene above and said, "Someone in first-year college on someone in third-year middle school" with an ironic smile.

But Memi-tan seems to get along with the members nearer her own age, too. She can't help being a centre of attention, it appears. Here she is with the two members nearest her own age, Sasaki Mirei (16, left) and Kageyama Yuuka (15):

 And here with Kage-chan again:

Here she is with Takase Mana, 17, who says that Memi and the others treat her like a little sister:

Now here she is in a better shot of the dress she wore Sunday:

Finally, one of the peculiarities of Memi-tan's physical appearance is her prominent canine teeth. With her position at centre, I see her as the Young Queen of Hiragana Keyaki. Perhaps she is a vampire queen, we shall see. In that case, she will be invincible: