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The story
A thread titled ‘Which retired idols do you wish would come back into the spotlight?’ popped up on 5ch’s Hello! Project board, and names came pouring in — Momoe Yamaguchi, Junko Sakurada, Candies, Akina Nakamori, Agnes Lum, and other idols who were active from the Showa through Heisei eras. One comment noted that the idol who sang the theme song for ‘Tadaima Houkago’ has actually already passed away. Meanwhile, Momoe Yamaguchi drew some pushback too, with one poster writing ‘I don’t want to see her,’ leaving opinions split over who fans actually want back.
What people said
Background and Talking Points
Momoe Yamaguchi is famous for having barely appeared in public since her sudden retirement in 1980, and she’s often cited as one of the rare examples in the entertainment industry of someone who stuck to a truly ‘complete retirement.’ Candies is remembered in a similar way — after disbanding, the members never reunited for a comeback on the public stage. That said, commenters in the thread pointed out things like ‘Akina’s still around, isn’t she’ and ‘Vivian was on the 24-hour TV thing recently too,’ and it’s easy to overlook that some of the names being raised actually still appear on TV regularly. In other words, ‘retired’ is often being used based on the last impression each poster has of someone rather than their actual current activity — and that gap is part of what makes the thread’s discussion so entertaining.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread ‘Which retired idols do you wish would come back into the spotlight?‘
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