Country Girls become a half-time group; 3 members transfer to other groups

[Solarblade]

Not sure if it needed its own thread or not, but there's some news concerning Country Girls post-Momoko
 
-Morito, Yanagawa, and Funaki will join another group simultaneously
-Yamaki & Ozeki will focus on studies, but will remain CG members, but only be available during long breaks/holidays
-Any CG songs that release will more than likely be digital only
 
https://www.facebook.com/notes/up-front-link/en-concerning-the-future-activities-of-country-girls/1429506350441611/
 
http://www.helloproject.com/news/7195/

[Elpis]

It just seems really weird and I'm annoyed. CG was a solid group. But studies are also important. But I don't get why they wouldn't let Yamaki and Ozeki balance the activities full time since other members have shown it's possible.


Or perhaps they were both looking to graduate and this was the only way to keep them in.


I'm also wondering if they're going to be forming a new group with the 3 KSS who we still don't know where are debuting.

[Madara]

That announcement has gotten everyone baffled and alarmed on FB.
 
My questions are:
 
Will they still do Country Girls concerts?
 
Will the act still appear in H!P concerts?
 
Will their songs still be on Petit Best?

[MejraThea]

I don't like it. 1) CG was doing ok, the whole point of "playing manager" was to teach them and then she leaves and they become their own group. And now they're just letting it fall apart? 2) The only "group" they could join simultaneously would be the group they're making for the debuting KSS. Which I think is a horrible idea, because we were going to get a nice, fresh new group.
 
I don't like it.

[DonJuan]

Dude. What the hell.

I mean members being part of several groups is nothing new but eh, especially since the three girls that will transfer are still so young I feel that we will get like one concert and/or single by CG every year.


And I totally do not get the Risa/Ozeko part. Ok, they want to focus on studies. So they're... part-time idols? I didn't expect H!P being ok with this.


And honestly, now we have 6 girls floating around with no permanent group. They simply can't add all of them to the existing groups. But making a new group would probably lead to less budget for all groups.


Honestly, what the hell, Up-Front.

[TicTacAnyone]

I do think this should have it's own thread!!!



Country Musume always had the image of a temporary/rotating group... so this isn't *completely* out of left field. But it is a shock.


My best guess was doing this creates a new space for a new group to be made with all or some of the KSS to debut. I really hope not, but I am wondering if they'd dare to add a girl to Kobushi. That seems like a really bad idea but we'll see what they do.


They'll probably make it a C-ute successor group. I'd keep my eye out for more info this coming week after their disbandment

[DonJuan]

Since it is a rather big thing it should get its own thread after all.
 
After Momoko's graduation Country Girls will only perform during holidays and other breaks. Future releases will probably be in digital form only.
 
Morito, Yanagawa and Funaki will join other groups. Yamaki and Ozeki will basically go on hiatus, but participating in CG events during said holidays/breaks. 
 
UP-FRONT LINK, Hello! Project
 
Now we've got 6 girls without permanent groups (with the 3 Kenshuusei) 

[DonJuan]

Here ya go, own thread.

[Anderei]

So stupid. This group was great and absolutely could stand on their own without Momoko. If Yamaki and Ozeki wanted to do other things they could have thrown Ichioka, Danbara and Kawamura in the group.

[TicTacAnyone]

I almost wonder if the instability of the group worried H!P producers and the business side? Imo they should have taken it in stride and almost made it a feature of the group. It feels like their group is CONSTANTLY shuffling.... should have made it into a permanent shuffle group w/ the original CG members and a random hp girl thrown in every 6 months.... or just made it their image that the group is constantly changing in its own respect

[Mukuro]

Oh my god this is actually so exciting. I love those 3 but I could never get into CG as much as I tried.


I have a feeling it's going to be a new group though, because I don't really know where all these girls are going to be added without overflowing the current groups.

[Meikochi]

I'd also say they will create a sort of a new group with the 3 KSS and the 3 younger CG. But it does sound really weird to have a part time CG sharing members with a new group when CG used to be a main group. Also, Momoko taught them a lot, it seemed they were more or less ready to stand on their own...

[Noa]

I give up trying to have a favorite H!P member. Country Girls was my favorite group and Ozeki was my favorite member.

[Madara]

I feel your pain, Molly. I lost three favorites in two different groups in the space of six months in 2015-2016. No one in H!P since then has quite moved up to their position in my pantheon, although Lady Kaga has promise.

[showraniy]

What in the world, I have no idea what's going on here.


In the end, I hope this shake up makes for a more interesting result. I'm hoping the C-ute successor group at least comes out of this and is awesome.

[momoirosaya]

I hate this.

[Purin-chama]

The first post is still in the spam thread.

[TheParuProject]

I am WRECKED. CG made me get into idols in the first place. Uta was bae then she vanished. Risa is my now favorite idol in H!P and she's gone now too!


I just don't get it. If Risa and Mai want to graduate, let them do it. But what's the point of a part time idol group?


No one will care if they're active only 4 months a year. Who is this for? I expect the 3 to get grouped with the 3 KSS but why not just add the KSS to CG? Ugh. I'm distraught.

[yuzuriha]

So while I feel like this is a kind of shitty thing to do it doesn't bother me that much because I am like 100% apathetic to CG as a group.  But I like some of the girls individually so at this point I'm just going to wait and see what happens because maybe it will give me a chance to see girls I like in a group I like.  It seems odd to me that Mai would wait until AFTER entrance exams to want to focus on studies....

[Anderei]

<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="yuzu" data-cid="208113" data-time="1497036840">So while I feel like this is a kind of shitty thing to do it doesn't bother me that much because I am like 100% apathetic to CG as a group.  But I like some of the girls individually so at this point I'm just going to wait and see what happens because maybe it will give me a chance to see girls I like in a group I like.  It seems odd to me that Mai would wait until AFTER entrance exams to want to focus on studies....</blockquote>


Maybe she thought she could handle it and then found that doing both was harder than expected.

[JPope]

<p style="color:rgb(40,40,40);font-family:arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif;font-size:12px;background-color:rgb(250,252,255);">About the only thing that bugs me about this is the idea that they're gonna form a new group with the remaining CG girls and the soon-to-debut KSS girls. I was really hoping one or two useless Musumes would be cut loose, to be replaced by Ruru and another KSS. CG had a couple songs I liked, but wasn't really my thing for the most part.

[Mosumu4Ever]

I don't post here often, but may I add my thoughts to the conversation?
 
Think about it, they just lost Momoko, which was expected, but losing Risa and Mai would probably kill the group off completely. The whole situation seems to be a solution to keep them somewhat active with the five member line-up, but won't let Chisaki, Musubu, or Nanami just sit there idle. 
 
I'm not a fan of it (but I think that's the more popular opinion), but it's not the worse that could happen to Country Girls.

[Elpis]

My Initial reaction to this was what the hell, but now that I've thought more about it I'm okay with it. It's something different but I want to see how it plays out. It sucks rhat 2 out of the 3 girls I like in CG are becoming less active, but I'll deal with it.

[momoirosaya]

I feel like Musubu might go to Kobushi in Rio's spot. They're both yellow with short hair. I could see Yamamin in Tsubaki and Morito....probably MM since she wouldn't fit Anju. They're probably going to announce a 14th gen of MM with a CG member and one or two Kenshuusei from the three that were selected to debut.

[DonJuan]

That would be pretty horrible to be honest. Let's say goodbye to open auditions.

[JPope]

[quote="DonJuan"]
That would be pretty horrible to be honest. Let's say goodbye to open auditions.
[/quote]
 
They'd still hold auditions -- even if they had no intentions of choosing any of them for a group -- for no other reason than to stock the KSS.

[TicTacAnyone]

[quote="JPope"]
 
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="DonJuan" data-cid="208121" data-time="1497058745">
<div>
That would be pretty horrible to be honest. Let's say goodbye to open auditions.
[/quote]
 
They'd still hold auditions -- even if they had no intentions of choosing any of them for a group -- for no other reason than to stock the KSS.
 
</div>
</blockquote>
 
It's still crazy to me to think girls like Uta didn't pass MM's auditions.... I can only imagine all the stars they pass up, honestly. The KSS is an awesome program but sometimes you need fresh blood to really get a good dynamic in MM. Imagine no Riho, Ayumi, Masaki, and Nonaka. 
 
But my point is they really need to limit the # of KSS they're putting in MM. Personally, I think they should be limiting the number of girls they add to the KSS in general. 
 
 
Over saturation is a problem HP is going to really feel (if they haven't already [Tsubaki]) very soon if they keep this sort of thing up. Over saturation in all areas+no freshness with amateurs added in.

[JPope]

[quote="TicTacAnyone"]
<blockquote class="ipsBlockquote" data-author="JPope" data-cid="208122" data-time="1497060707"></blockquote>
 
But my point is they really need to limit the # of KSS they're putting in MM. Personally, I think they should be limiting the number of girls they add to the KSS in general. 
 
 
Over saturation is a problem HP is going to really feel (if they haven't already [Tsubaki]) very soon if they keep this sort of thing up. Over saturation in all areas+no freshness with amateurs added in.
 
[/quote]
 
With regards to over-saturation, it wouldn't be a problem if each group had a unique identity/sound. Back in the day, H!P could roll with MM, MKB, Tanpopo, Mini Moni, Pucchi Moni, CM and a slew of shuffle units (and later with BK, C-ute, GAM, W, v-u-den, H&A) because all of those groups sounded distinctly different (despite sharing members). It wasn't over-saturation because each group had their own look, their own sound and their own personality. Is there really that much difference between MM, ANGERME, KF and TF? Is J=J all that different from any of those groups? There might be differences on the margins, but they're pretty minor compared to the 2000s H!P lineups.
 
H!P can sustain more groups, but only if they do more to differentiate between them. I don't think they have that in them, though, as they seem to have become quite risk-averse wrt their girl-group formula.

[Derby]

So basically Yamaki and Ozeki are graduating , living their lives and then promoting with Country Girls once a year, while the other 3 are moved into a new main group?
I'm just kind of surprised cause I've never seen this but it just feels a little pointless. I know they can still milk those 2 girls' wota but well...
 
And btw who are those Kenshuusei you're talking about? the ones that were announced to be debuting soon or whatever? I missed all of that

[DonJuan]

Nah, there's not much difference. People complained that ANGERME got the "cool MM songs" last year - y'know, EDM. Tsubaki got a bit of everything in their major debut. Etc.


But to be honest I'm a bit tired of seeing KSS everywhere. I know that sounds rude but eh. They just debut the girls to keep them from leaving. 4 out of 6 of Tsubaki's original members were not ready to debut. In fact I still think nothing would be lost if Tsubaki was only made up of Kiki, Yumeno and the 3 new members. I mean Ruru is ready, Ayano has experience as a local idol, but I'm still not sold on Ichioka.


It's not as exciting to have only KSS debut, especially if some KSS aren't that good. With open auditions you can still find raw talent like half of CG and Moe.


^Danbara Ruru, Ichioka Reina and Kawamura (?) Ayano (the Karin clone).