Chiba handshake event: "packed in like sushi"

Some people on their way to this weekend's handshake event at Makihara Messe in Chiba, near Tokyo, are dreading the "vision of hell" at hall seven , where lines of people get "packed in like sushi."

It's  nice-looking facility, but things were bad enough last time, and this time Keyakizaka46's popularity has taken off, and there will certainly be even more people there:

Who is Kakizaki Memi?

Kakizaki Memi was a big hit with the public in her Showroom auditions for Hiragana Keyaki. A cute 14-year-old with loli appeal.

Later sessions have shown her to be a more solid character than that. In her most recent Showroom session she seemed relaxed and opinionated.

Now it turns out that she is the secretary of her school's student council, and head of the school's art club. As well as a fast runner who is drafted onto the relay team every year.

Here is a web interview that accompanies her tame but slightly unsettling photo spread in Japanese Weekly Playboy. 

Keyakizaka46 attends Nogizaka46 anniversary concert

In the course of its summer tour, Nogizaka46 is holding fourth anniversary concerts at the Meiji Jingu baseball stadium in Tokyo.

On Tuesday night, almost all members of both Kanji Keyaki and Hiragana Keyaki came to watch and learn and honour their elder sisters.

The photos are unclear, but people have identified Sugai, Nanako, Ozeki, Katou Shiho and Kageyama Yuuka.

Fans filled the stadium with light in a worshipful tribute during Harujion no Naku Koro. The stadium holds 37,000 people for baseball....

Katou Shiho: well-dressed and forgetful

I can't help it. Katou Shiho is a bit weird and may be an acquired taste, but if so I've acquired it. She's so real and so human. And she can be so pretty. She's going to have to learn how to be less nervous and to smile, but that will come.

She had a little breakdown on Showroom, then came back and talked directly about it in her blog. She says her room is all neat, now. Lol. 

And she obviously likes clothes and talks easily about what she wears. I checked the websites of the brands she mentioned (links in text) and, yes, there are things there that look like what I've seen on her.

Anyway, here's her blog post for Tuesday night, after the weekend handshake event.
__________________________________

2016.08.30

Handshake Event (｡･υ･)ﾉ♪︎

Hello.
It's Katou Shiho of Hiragana Keyaki (｡･ω･)ﾉ♪︎

I'm still feeling the afterglow of the handshake event, so I think I'll talk about that!

Possible front lines for 3rd single?

I know it's a bit early, but a thread on 2channel asked who might realistically be in the front line for the third single. I thought the answers were interesting. Here are some of them:

Berika - Neru - Techi - Zuumin - Risa

Risa - Suzumon - Techi - Zuumin - KobaYui

Suzumon - Zuumin - Techi - Neru (2nd line: Risa - Mona - Sugai - Berika - Akanen; "Shida stands out in second line, Neru is hidden there; current position is poor balance for Zuumin")

Berika - Neru - Techi - Zuumin - KobaYui (the 1st front w/Neru for Suzumon)

Sugai - Neru - Techi - Zuumin - Berika

Koike - Sugai - Techi - Akanen - Nanako

Mona - Risa - Techi - Sugai - Berika (2nd line: Nanako - KobaYui - Zuumin - Neru - Suzumon - Moriya - Koike)

Would you recognize this Neru on the street?

If you saw this woman on the street in Tokyo, would you recognize her as Nagahama Neru or just think it was another random denizen of Shibuya?

The only reason I know it is Neru is that Saitou Fuyuka says so in her blog, where she posts the picture.

This is how she and Neru went to Tokyo Disneyland together. So many people at handshake sessions had told them how great it was, and they finally got the chance to go...in half-disguise:

Neru and the master painters of Keyakizaka

In episode five of Tokuyama Daigoro wo Dare ga Koroshita ka? there is a sequence in which most of the class is sitting in a circle around Neru pretending to draw her for art class. It turns out that many of them did in fact draw her. This is from Neru's blog post called "Drawing Paper":

_______________________________________


...

In episode 5
There's a place where everyone is seated around me, drawing me,
And in everyone's drawings I'm amazing.

Yui-chan

What is this?
This is the only one I couldn't stop laughing at.
(Of course it was done with tremendous effort. Thank you, eh.)