Kakizaki Memi turns 17. Happy Birthday, Memi-chan!

Kakizaki Memi turns 17 today, December 2 (it's already Sunday in Japan). What a year it has been for her:

• Breaks her wrist and can't perform in the final tour live last December. Faces this with fortitude and quiet tears.
• Triumphant Hiragana live performances at Budoukan. 
• Duet with Mirei, doing Sanrinsha ni Noritai on the album. Memi can sing!
• Hugely entertaining video extra with Hirate Yurina on the Ambivalent release.
• Finally able to give convincing fake smiles on Hiragana Oshi and elsewhere (as idols must).
• Complete and utter triumph as star of Magia Record stage play. What a voice!
• New prominence on Joyful Love videos and in recent ad campaigns.
• Good acting in Sakamichi stage play, Zambi.

She does her first gravure in a fashion magazine in the January bis:

An actress. As a comment on 5channel said: "Wow, wow, wow! What an expression! What a worldview!" People have used the age-estimating site How-Old.net to say she looks 6 or 13 in various photos. But that site says she looks 16-20 in the vast majority of her photos. It says she looks 20 in this image, and the next:

Kakizaki Memi notes: praise from Habu, Kubo; more prominence in new Joyful Love video

Memi continues to be slow to update her blog. Having just finished concentrating on the Zambi drama, she is now likely concentrating on preparing for the Christmas Lives.

But others keep talking about Memi. Habu-chan wrote in her blog about the Nogi and Keyaki members who worked with her in the Zambi stage play. Her praise for Memi was about the highest she gave to any Keyaki-chan: