Ishimura Maiha? Who Is That Again?

Oh, God. I knew there was a reason why I had been trying to stay away from La Blogosphere, and this is it. In a Berryz Koubou ranking post, long-ignored former member Ishimura Maiha gets this lovely little bit of acknowledgment: Uh…….who?

When the blogger moves on to ℃-ute and whines about Murakami Megumi like they all do, they receive this input from Intl. Wota: It breaks my heart reading about yet another dismayed Megumi fan. The post is stamped with another casually tossed out “recommended reading” tag and everyone moves on, but I’m still left here, thinking, “Why?”

Why is the girl who had everything somehow more tragic than the one who never had anything at all? Why do fans of this girl continue to cry useless tears over someone who will never come back when they have ten times as much material to remember her by than fans of another former idol will ever have? Why is it so acceptable to treat Maiha as if she never had any fans, as if she never meant anything to the group, that no one even bats an eye at these kinds of remarks? Why do you love Megumi? Why is she more important than Maiha? Let me guess: Because she sang well and danced well and had a cute face?

Yeah, I thought so. And I know there are people out there who adored Megumi for that same awesome personality I loved her for, but honestly, some fans’ reasonings are just plain bullshit. When did we, as a fandom, start settling for the most accessible girl in any given group, and when did we start ostracizing everyone who doesn’t measure up? Because no, it wasn’t just Maiha getting the shit taken out of her in that post. Let’s see, dear blogger, what are your thoughts on Arihara Kanna?

She’s an egg! AHAHAHA! That will always be all over her, like the stench of dead babies. [...] There were a lot of extremely talented, undebuted eggs at the time she was added (-cough-MaedaIroriOgawaSakiFukudaKanonKitaharaSayaka-cough-) and yet she was the one who was plucked from relative obscurity to become C-ute member number eight, the only person to be added to the original H!P kids line up. Why? What is so special about the gremlin faced one?

… Wow, that’s nice. How about the emotion she puts in the words she sings? Her beautifully expressive face? Her entertainingly “dead serious” and dramatic kind of personality? Okay, then — Umeda Erika.

Had you asked me a few months ago, which H!P Kid would you push off a cliff, I would have found it really, extremely easy to answer. Erika has always pretty much been the one that I hate, with a passion. She’s kind of ugly. Not unique looking, like Momoko or Maasa. Ugly. Like interbred with a camel ugly. Her singing wasn’t that special to me, she never danced particularly well to my eyes. She was lacking sparkle, I guess. Then “Do Don Ga Don Ondou” happened, and I saw the light.

Is that so? It took a solo song to make you like her. … Okay. I mean, I need to ask all of you, and I’d be really happy if you responded to this in the comments. What do you look for in an idol? It’s so hard to pinpoint what a person is interested in, and when they go on like one girl in particular has absolutely zero to offer, I just want to be like, “Look! You missed all these amazing things!” This is such a weird, subjective area, but I can’t help getting upset over it. And it’s hard for me.

Love the lead singer. Love the girl in the background. Hate some girls, love others — it doesn’t matter. Just treat them all with respect. And, as a Maiha fan, I have to say: You can replace a good singer. You can replace a good dancer. You can’t replace a girl whose smile lit up her whole face, dimples, messed-up teeth and all, who danced her heart out even though she was bad at it, who graduated with such stunning grace for a girl of her age while all of her friends sobbed around her. You see an idol for simple talent; I see an idol for who she is, and there will never be another girl like Ishimura Maiha. So why don’t you think about that for awhile?

One last question.

How can you not adore this?

(Hell, I would start up a Maiha “worship blog” if anybody fucking cared, but that’s life. It’s your lucky day, Umeda! You get all the lines from a single that Megumi essentially dominated — couldn’t tell you which, because that’s all of them, but you have fun out there!)