Questions about the Elder Club “Graduation”

[Madara]

Okay, I received the Winter 2009 Elder Club concert DVD yesterday and watched it today. It’s a good one and I did a writeup on my blog about it, but I had some questions. For one thing, I still don’t understand what they’re graduating from or what they’re graduating to. I’m assuming this concert is the last time this particular group of performers will appear together. I don’t know why that should be the case if they’re all still signed up by the same corporate entity. So here are my questions:



1) Is there any reason management can’t simply call all these girls in again next winter and have them do a concert together? They can call it the Elder Club Reunion Tour or call it something else. Just put them on a stage together. And if there is no reason, what is there to stop them from doing it?



2) Who will be seen in next year’s winter concert? Will it just be the Wonderful Hearts crew—MM, Berryz, C-ute, and whatever high-sugar-content anime units will still be operating then? Is there a chance that Elder Club performers--e.g. Mako-chan, Nono, Rika, Miki, Yossi…--will be recruited to drop in to do a number or two?



3) Exactly what agency or organization is now officially in charge of the individual Elder Club members' careers?



Thanks.

[Prinny Squad]

The first one I can't really answer, since I'm not Tsunku♂, but I'll try the other two!



2) Hello! Project is now officially made up of Morning Musume, ℃-ute, Berryz Koubou, Icecream Musume, Frances and Aiko, SI*NA, and Mano Erina as the sole soloist, as well as the graduating eggs who will be forming the new group this Autumn and the other Eggs. With this in mind, we can assume this is who will be performing at the Winter concerts featuring everybody.



3) All graduating Elder Club members are no longer part of the H!P umbrella, instead being contracted directly to UFA. The only exceptions to this are Ogawa Makoto and Fujimoto Miki, who left UFA to sign to Tsunku♂'s other label, j.p. room. However, Ogawa Makoto and Fujimoto Miki are also part of M-Line, which appears to be an umbrella group similar to H!P which features all graduated members of Morning Musume who departed in March, as well as Satoda Mai and Miki Korenaga from Ongaku Gatas. Melon Kinenbi and Ayaya have their own umbrellas (Mega Melon's Club and Ayaway), too. As for Miyoshi Erika, Okada Yui, Yuki Maeda, and Inaba Atsuko, they are still employed by UFA (as shown by Okada Yui recently being named leader of Up-Front Kansai, the sub-division of UFA which also has SI*NA) but are just kinda... floating around, for lack of more accurate terms.



Hope this helps!

[tsukinobyouin]

To semi-answer the questions Prinny didn't:

For one thing, I still don’t understand what they’re graduating from or what they’re graduating to.

They are graduating from the entity "Hello! Project." In theory, this should mean that they basically no longer do joint activities with the remaining members of H!P. The graduation came with a huge reorganization of the fanclubs (Prinny mentions M-line, Mega Melons, and Ayaway - those are all new fanclubs). Which leads me to....

1) Is there any reason management can’t simply call all these girls in again next winter and have them do a concert together? They can call it the Elder Club Reunion Tour or call it something else. Just put them on a stage together. And if there is no reason, what is there to stop them from doing it?

Technically, there is no reason this group of girls can't get together and do a big concert, since they are all related through groupings or labels. But since they've gone through the trouble of making all these separate fanclubs, I wouldn't be surprised if they did more separate concerts to get the most money out of the new fanclub situation as possible. Also, these people are no longer under a big family grouping like Hello! Project, so if there were to be some sort of joint concert, there's no real name/purpose to give it. They can't go by "Elder Club" anymore, because that's a name associated with H!P. Maybe UFA could have a big "UFA Concert" the way avex occationally does, but then it would likely include some of the other artists signed to UFA that were never connected to H!P.

[Madara]

[quote name='Prinny Squad' post='64061' date='Apr 26 2009, 05:44 AM']2) Hello! Project is now officially made up of Morning Musume, ℃-ute, Berryz Koubou, Icecream Musume, Frances and Aiko, SI*NA, and Mano Erina as the sole soloist, as well as the graduating eggs who will be forming the new group this Autumn and the other Eggs. With this in mind, we can assume this is who will be performing at the Winter concerts featuring everybody.[/quote]





Wow, I've never even heard of Frances and Aiko or SI*NA. They're not in the Wonderful Hearts 2009 concert (which I watched last night and will report on for my blog). They must be brand-new. What are they like? Have they performed at any concerts yet?

[zlilzlilzlil]

SINA is kind of fashion gruop (?) and Frances and Aiko are the youngest children to audition in the chinese auditions where they selected Icecream musume, they are two very young girls, you can see a video in you tube where they sing chance (koharu kusumi song) they never preformed at an H!P concert...

[Prinny Squad]

[quote name='Madara' post='64075' date='Apr 26 2009, 08:23 AM'][quote name='Prinny Squad' post='64061' date='Apr 26 2009, 05:44 AM']2) Hello! Project is now officially made up of Morning Musume, ℃-ute, Berryz Koubou, Icecream Musume, Frances and Aiko, SI*NA, and Mano Erina as the sole soloist, as well as the graduating eggs who will be forming the new group this Autumn and the other Eggs. With this in mind, we can assume this is who will be performing at the Winter concerts featuring everybody.[/quote]





Wow, I've never even heard of Frances and Aiko or SI*NA. They're not in the Wonderful Hearts 2009 concert (which I watched last night and will report on for my blog). They must be brand-new. What are they like? Have they performed at any concerts yet?

[/quote]

SI*NA have been around for ages, but they're not in the spotlight in the same way that other H!P groups are. They operate in Kansai mostly, and were formed from the Hello! Project Kansai 2005 auditions. I think they advertise it a few times on Haromoni, but that's about it? They perform concerts and stuff of old H!P stuff and anime themes, and host a bunch of radio shows. They don't have much of a musical presence in H!P, they're more like talent. France and Aiko were at the 2009 Wonderful Hearts concert I thought? They were somebody's back-up dancer, I want to say either Icecream Musume or a Kirari group's back-up. Like SI*NA, they haven't really made a major debut, since they're only eight years old and six years old. Tsunku is in the process of training them, from what random blurbs I've heard are saying.

[Hana]

Frances & Aiko did backup dancing for Koharu during Hapi Hapi Sunday (in the big concert, not the Wonderful Hearts one).