Nagahama Neru news: Quiz queen, reselling Neru magazines, Neru had top grade in 2015 Keyaki auditions

Neru is on the cover of Nagasaki's monthly official info/tourist magazine. It's given away free at city offices, libraries, etc. This issue includes pictures, story and interview with Neru. It has been available since the beginning of April.

But it turns out that copies of the magazine have been turning up on auction sites. The city says that resale of the magazine is forbidden. But the mags keep being put up for auction. They apparently go for a few hundred yen (i.e., a few dollars).

A city representative says this is particularly odd since you can download a pdf of the magazine on the city's official site. Here.

More tanuki magic.


And the magic showed itself on the Miracle 9 quiz show this week, too. Neru was on fire, mowing down opponents. People on the show were saying that the youngest contestant was doing all the work. Here is a video of some of the Neru scenes.

Here's the first guy she beat: 33-year-old actor Enari Kazuki. Before they began, the host said he was supporting Neru...and that the entire staff was, too.

Cheers all round for Neru

Neru's team ended up losing, but she further established herself as a star on the show, whose regulars include top comedians and entertainers.

Here's a collection of Neru clips from the show.

But wait, there's more! In the first installment of the recently begun Hiragana history series in Weekly Playboy, it is revealed that after the second stage of the original Keyakizaka auditions (actually "Toriizaka") Neru was the only candidate with an "S" rank, showing that the judges considered her as a likely sure-fire idol, a "special" candidate. After the original written submission, this audition was held locally in various places around the country, in this case in Fukuoka.

Neru during her audition in 2015

I have always disagreed with the talk about Neru not having gone through every stage of the selection process and therefore being somehow illegitimate. I thought they already must have thought her a sure thing, before her mother came to Tokyo after the third audition there, and took her home before the final audition/selection the next day.

So when the group lost two members within a couple of months of the selection, I thought it was natural for management to go and get the best candidate who had not been accepted, to bring numbers back up. And it turns out that Neru might have had the top grade of all. Although they probably decided Techi was "special," too.