Juice=Juice and Maria Makino Share the Stage — Fans Spiral Into Tenure and Follower-Count Comparisons

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The story

On the Hello! Project board, a joint appearance by Juice=Juice and former member Maria Makino became a hot topic. Rather than reacting to the collaboration itself, the thread quickly veered into rankings of Morning Musume and Juice=Juice membership tenure and comparisons of X (Twitter) follower counts, with posters expressing surprise that Makino’s numbers were “lower than expected.” The discussion also touched on the contrast between members who remain regulars on terrestrial TV and former members whose exposure has faded since graduating, splitting opinion among fans.

What people said

2AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:24
Membership days as of 2026/09/14 (per Wikipedia's counting method)

4,127 days — Akari Uemura
3,367 days — Ruru Danbara (since 2017/06/26)
3,194 days — Tomoko Kanazawa
2,909 days — Sayuki Takagi
2,845 days — Karin Miyamoto
2,649 days — Yua Kudo / Ria Matsunaga (since 2019/06/14)
2,357 days — Reon Inoue (since 2020/04/01)
2,303 days — Yuka Miyazaki
1,895 days — Ichika Arisawa / Risa Irie / Kisaki Ebata (since 2021/07/07)
1,538 days — Sakura Ishiyama / Sakari Endo (since 2022/06/29)
1,447 days — Manaka Inaba
1,210 days — Miifu Kawashima (since 2023/05/23)
*,623 days — Nanami Yanagawa
*,448 days — Nia Hayashi (since 2025/06/23)
*,130 days — Aina Otsuka
4AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:27
Re: #2
Your math is always off by one day.
Membership days should be calculated "inclusive of day one."
Elapsed days are calculated "exclusive of day one."
The membership-day figures listed on Wikipedia are calculated the "exclusive" way, so they're one day short.
You can't just copy the numbers as-is — you have to add one day to each.
5AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:27
Among those who faded from the spotlight, she's basically in the "Airi" slot, isn't she? (i.e., a rare case who thrived after leaving, like former Morning Musume member Suzuki Airi)
6AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:31
Re: #1

X (Twitter) followers

Haruka Kudo — 124,000

Yuka Nihei — 79,000

Karin Miyamoto — 73,000

Ayaka Wada — 71,000

Mei Tamura — 69,000

Haruna Iikubo — 69,000

Miyabi Natsuyaki — 59,000

Manaka Inaba — 48,000

Masaki Sato — 47,000

Harumi Ogata — 37,000

Akari Takeuchi — 35,000

Kaede Kaga — 34,000

Makoto Ogawa — 34,000

Riho Sayashi — 28,000

Risa Kogata — 26,000

Kurumi Takase — 25,000

Rikako Sasaki — 21,000

Erina Ikuta — 21,000

Rika Shimakura — 19,000

Maria Makino — 19,000 ← this one

Ayumi Ishida — 16,000
8AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:33
Re: #6
Wait, Makino's numbers are this low? I figured she'd easily be pulling 200,000.
15AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:36
Re: #6
Is that missing a zero?
7AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:33
One of Up-Front's first-string talents (Up-Front being the idols' talent agency)
10AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:34
Re: #7
Up-Front's "first string" = a C-list celebrity everywhere else
9AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:33
Juice=Juice and Maria Makino — still hanging on in the mainstream entertainment world
12AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:34
Maria Makino is just barely still above ground.

Mizuki Fukumura, Erina Ikuta, and Ayumi Ishida vanished in an instant.
13AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:36
At 25 — not exactly young in this industry — what's she going to do from here?
She's right on the edge of vanishing into the underground scene like her senpai did.
14AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:36
Morning Musume's "One-Four" crew (fan nickname for a certain older member cohort) and Juice=Juice's original lineup are basically a dark chapter now, huh.
19AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:37
Juice=Juice, who can share the stage with both Makino and Kitagawa
20AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:37
The so-called "One-Four" crew — they just cling on and on, then vanish the second they quit.
24AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:37
I wonder how Makino feels watching all this?
28AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:38
Makino barely managed to hang onto a spot on terrestrial TV.
Everyone else got wiped out.
35AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:39
She looks like she'd be super irritated.
40AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:39
If she'd quit five years earlier, there's a real chance she could've blown up.
46AnonymousSep 14, 2026 11:40
Well, at least her relationship with Juice=Juice is still good.

Background and Key Points

Within Hello! Project fandom, membership tenure and social media follower counts are frequently used as points of comparison. Wikipedia’s membership-day figures are calculated as elapsed days “not counting day one,” so simply subtracting dates produces a count that’s off by one from the actual number of days served — a common source of confusion. The “One-Four” crew mentioned in the thread is fan slang for an older generation of former Juice=Juice and Morning Musume members, and the contrast between those who’ve stayed active and those whose terrestrial TV exposure dropped off early became the thread’s main point of discussion. Some posters were surprised that Maria Makino’s follower count seemed “low,” but this is only relative to other former members, and the thread didn’t address that differences in current activity level and media opportunities could be behind the gap.

*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “[Great News] Juice=Juice and Maria Makino Appear Together Kita━━━━(°∀°)━━━━!!.”

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