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The story
Manety, the manager of former Morning Musume member Sayashi Riho, posted on X about the new song “Koufuku Shikkaku” (“Happy Disqualification”), saying she’d been told by the Morning Musume director that it’s “a genuinely good song” and that Matsuoka Mayu had also offered warm words about it on the radio. Sayashi currently stars in a drama depicting a romance between two women, and 5ch saw a flurry of posts comparing the scale of the response, and her Spotify monthly listener numbers, to other Hello!Project graduates. While some worried about ticket sales for her tour, others reported a wave of new fans drawn in by the drama, leaving posters split over how much room Sayashi still has to grow.
Manety🧪🥼@manetty_re
Even the Morning Musume director told me “Koufuku Shikkaku” is a genuinely good song — Sayashi’s really been putting in the work, y’know 😭
Matsuoka Mayu also had kind words for it on the radio. I’ll keep grinding it out, inch by inch (lit. “advancing on my belly” — a phrase for slow, steady effort against the odds) 🫡
Source: youtube.com / Original post here
What people said
Riho-riho (her nickname) came to Chayu's (fellow idol's nickname) final live twice last year.
Chayu's director was basically that same guy for eight years — if he wasn't out of town, you'd usually spot him at Chayu's events.
Hello!Pro fans are suckers for that — she'd get three times the support she's getting now.
Even Sato, who never left, is struggling with falling draw.
Sayashi's draw has fallen even further than hers — she'd struggle too if she came back.
I'm recording it just in case.
I've seen a few people say this is the first time they'd even heard of Sayashi and they joined her fan club because of it — biggest response any of her acting work has gotten so far.
Her next tour should fill right up thanks to the drama buzz though.
Yeah, I think so too.
10,171 monthly listeners
Sayashi Riho
7,539 monthly listeners
Yamazaki Yuba
1,223 monthly listeners
Kishimoto Yumeno
836 monthly listeners
Kannagi Maro
621 monthly listeners
What about Sato Ma-chan and Tamura Mei-mei?
Tamura Mei
11,892 monthly listeners
She's had resources poured into her for over 15 years, from her Morning Musume days through her new agency, and you're saying she's only going to grow from here…?
Sayashi's type is Fuku-chan, so Konishi Sakurako's a bit too slim for her taste — cute, though.
The MV just dropped, they're about to ramp up the promo push for "Koufuku Shikkaku" — how long are you idiots gonna keep bringing up Morning Musume?
It's just a fact that she had an absurd amount of resources poured into her back in her Morning Musume days.
Same thing happened with the Death Note stage play, everyone was hyped early on but it fizzled in the end. Hope she pulls through this time.
The drama that actually got the biggest response for Sayashi was the one where she danced with Yamada Ryosuke and Ohashi Kazuya.
Once a new GL (Girls' Love) drama starts, they probably won't stick around.
Getting a season 2 for a GL drama takes buzz on the level of "Ayahiro" or "Chaser Game" —
the bar's nothing like it is for BL dramas.
It just means it's the biggest response of any of Sayashi's work so far.
It's yuri, so one particular corner of the internet is just loud about it.
It resonates with general audiences too.
Sounds like they added a method that counts a play after just 1 second, plus one where even the same person replaying it over and over gets counted every time.
Do it on your own strength.
Among Hello!Project OGs, the only ones who can actually pull that off are Tsuji and Fujimoto.
Even the OGs who left UP-FRONT end up relying on Hello!Pro and its fans in the end.
Background and key points of this discussion
Sayashi Riho was a member of Morning Musume。’14 from 2011 to 2015, and has focused on stage plays and dramas since leaving the group. Manety is a manager at the same talent agency who has handled several Hello!Project graduates, and this post is seen as part of that same pattern. Opinions split in the thread over whether Spotify monthly listener counts really back up the claim of a “big response,” with some pointing out that the play-counting method was recently changed, making simple comparisons difficult. It’s also worth noting — something not obvious from outside the fandom — that the show she’s currently in is a so-called GL (Girls’ Love) drama depicting romance between women, and that the market size and the bar for a sequel differ from BL dramas, making it hard to compare its buzz directly to works in other genres. Among fans, opinions also diverge on how to weigh this latest response, given the long history of the agency putting significant resources behind her dating back to her Morning Musume days.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello!Project) thread “Manety: “Even the Morning Musume director told me Koufuku Shikkaku is a good song. Sayashi’s really been putting in the work. I’ll keep grinding it out, inch by inch.”“
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