Nagahama Neru, Suzumoto Miyu, and Kobayashi Yui (l-r) sit neatly posed for a magazine photo feature:
But look into their eyes.What is see is a Suzumon just sitting there posing, within herself. She seems happier to me these days than she has been since joining Keyakizaka46, and I can't help seeing that here, in an expression that seems calm and unworried.
Yui-pon has the air she often does of hiding slightly, receding from view, harboring doubts and potential objections.
Neru seems to me to be communicating with the viewer directly. She seems open and ready to relate. It might be something as simple as having bigger eyes, lol, but this is what I see.
Aki-P said in the interview I translated recently that Hirate captured the viewer's imagination in the Silent Majority MV by the way she kept her eyes locked on the camera, even as she brushed the hair out of her face.
I think Neru does something similar. Her eyes are looking right through the camera into the viewer's eyes. She is entering into some relationship with the viewer. This is part of the "mysterious charm" that Aki-P said he thought she had.
Now, I also think, as I often do, that I see a bit of skittish fear in Neru's eyes. I think of her as a clever introvert who needs to see and understand and enter into a relationship with everything around her so she can control it enough to protect herself. But that's not something I can claim to believe from this photo alone.
I've come to like Neru enormously. Suzumon remains my oshimen in part because she needs the support. She's beautiful in an old-fashioned way, as well as being a great dancer and a competent singer, but the public and management don't seem to appreciate her that much. I think Pon needs support, too, since I don't see either management or fans giving her the kind of adulation I think she deserves, for her long-legged Nanase good looks and her great singing and good dancing. Neru is extremely popular, and is also getting a push from management. She doesn't need my help, lol.
The photo is cropped from a larger photo in Big One Girls magazine #35.
I have read that you often say Suzumon needs the support, but I have yet to fully understand why you say that. Care to explain a bit?
ReplyDeleteEspecially on 2channel and Japanese twitter, there have been a fair number of people putting her down. It began when there were rumours about her having had a boyfriend. Then that she was a fan of a boy group (or group of groups) called Johnnys and only joined Keyakizaka to get close to them. Then she was put back from the first to the second row. And most recently, there are posts comparing her to a pig because there was a time when she seemed to gain a bit of weight. No other member has gotten quite the amount of criticism she has. There are photos of Habu supposedly with a former boyfriend, but less (though not nothing) is made of that.
ReplyDeleteI think part of it was that some people weren't particularly attracted to her and resented her being in the front row from the start. Now, she was there because she is a great dancer in a group without much dance experience, and because she can actually sing (it has been said; I can't really tell). I think, like a number of Japanese posters, that she is the sharpest dancer in the group. Fuu-chan may get the steps right and may be able to help Takahiro, but she doesn't have the sharpness, elegance and ease that Suzumon does. So I've always felt that people weren't giving her her due and were criticizing her out of some warped kind of prejudice.
I am happy that recently there are a few more people praising her and expressing desperate longing for her, lol. And it must be said that I really like her type of traditional Japanese beauty. Others may not. Fair enough.
Thanks for asking.
gosh people can be cruel.
Delete(...continued)
ReplyDeleteI should add that for me to express "support" will hardly have much effect on her fate. It's more just a fan custom, I suppose. But I'm happy to keep bringing her to people's attention, at least to that of English-speaking fans. Foreign fans seem to me to have less appreciation for her than they might, too.
it might not have much of an effect on her fate as you put it, but I'm sure the gesture would be nonetheless appreciated by her and her other fans.
ReplyDeleteI just think she's too entertaining, both in dance and in shows, to be ignored. She is establishing herself as an important part of the group and we can only hope that the Japanese fans are able to get over their prejudices.