Former Last Idol Center Nanami Abe Announces Retirement from Entertainment Industry

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The story

Nanami Abe, who once served as the center of idol group Last Idol, has announced her retirement from the entertainment industry. Following the announcement on the official site of her talent agency, Full Course, Japan’s 5channel Hello! Project board lit up with posts looking back on her career. She began her idol career at age 3, performing under a string of names — “Ichigo Rex,” “rex,” “mImi,” and “Pax Puella” — before becoming the center of Last Idol in 2017. She later re-debuted with Full Course, a group under the Heroines label. Posters also brought up the anecdote that her parents were Hello! Project fans who named her after Natsumi Abe, with many lamenting that she never actually joined Hello! Project itself.

An Announcement Regarding Nanami Abe’s Activities

Source: fullcourse-fc.com / Original article here

What people said

5AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:10
Wait, didn't she join a new group?
6AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:10
Some group that was doing… honestly I don't even know what
7AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:10
I remember Hello! Project fans wanting her while Last Idol was airing
9AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:12
Is Full Course an underground idol group?
60AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:35
Re: #9
Heroines.
The lineup was really solid and expectations were high, but once it actually launched it struggled way more than the hype suggested.
Rimika-chan from Nippon Produce 3 (a Produce 101-style survival show) is in there too
11AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:14
The Last Idol management team really… I just… (sigh)
12AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:15
Tall, good looks, good personality —
the only thing she never got was luck
17AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:17
Re: #12
Pretty sure she could sing well too
15AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:16
I don't know anything about Last Idol, but I did see that she re-debuted with Heroines
She was even unveiled at Heroines Fest at LaLa Arena, their biggest event yet
She's in the same group as Mizukami, a former HKT48 member who got eliminated from Produce 101 Japan
Guess she's realized she's never going to break through
16AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:17
Is she connected to that "Dorothy" whatever group?
Since she's the kid of a Hello! Project fan, people were calling for her to come to Hello!
I think she'd given up on being an idol for a while and was doing livestreaming or something
Full Course only just started up as an idol group recently, right?
18AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:18
Heroines is at the point where members quitting abruptly probably outnumber proper graduations, so honestly just graduating cleanly already puts her ahead
If you only look at what's around iLiFE! it looks all sparkly, but the reality is the bottom-tier groups are no different from any random underground idol act
19AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:18
I wanted to see this girl and Airi Yamamoto in Hello! Project
20AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:18
Is the trio group they formed after Last Idol even still going with just two members?
21AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:19
Wasn't she doing a part-time factory job or something?
23AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:19
By the way, is Hashi-Momo-chan (nickname for Momoko Hashimoto) still active?
24AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:20
I've heard her name pop up here and there over the years
So she was on Last Idol together with Momoko Hashimoto, huh
27AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:23
This era was the best
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Uc5euNZ_o4&t=10
29AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:25
https://fullcourse-fc.com/profile/images/e5yfu7esdutnoewpsxn6sao68nd9fh.jpg
30AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:25
If she'd come to Hello! Project she could've been an instant ace
31AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:25
It was a group born out of a collab between Heroines and Twipla (a Twitter-based idol/event platform)
32AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:27
https://ogre.natalie.mu/media/news/music/2018/0506/11_suzukiairi_TK87826.jpg
33AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:28
She joined Step One in 2005, starting her idol career at age 3. She joined "Ichigo Rex" in 2006, "rex" in 2008, and performed as "mImi" (Mimi) from 2011 (renamed "Pax Puella" in 2016), then also served as the center of "Last Idol" starting in 2017.

Guess if you fail right out of the gate…
her biggest failure really was Last Idol
34AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:28
Wasn't this group — with the whole "calling for Momoko" thing back in the day — used as a stick to bash Hello! Project with?
Those people are probably swinging a different stick by now 😔
61AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:36
Re: #34
Takaneko I could maybe see, but Full Course is out of the question —
she doesn't have that kind of name recognition among the "Ookami" fandom (nickname for the group's fanbase)
36AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:28
No idea who this is, I'm about as interested as I am in Ikuta
37AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:29
Heroines keeps churning out regional groups and collab groups with basically everyone — they're up to over 30 groups now, spreading themselves way too thin
They're probably just milking iLiFE! for cash while it lasts and will scale everything back the instant things look shaky
I've already started calling them the "Tokyo Chikara Meshi" of the idol world (a chain famous for overexpanding fast then collapsing)
39AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:29
A Hello! Project fan who never actually became a Hello! Project idol
41AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:34
Okay good, Karen Abe is safe…
42AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:34
By the time of that surprise at SSA Viva la Pop where Airi popped out from the side, I'd already lost interest
That untouched, transparent charm she had up through junior high was the best part
43AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:35
Nanami Abe
Last Idol → Full Course

Momoko Hashimoto
Last Idol → Takane no Nadeshiko

Reina Doi
Ange et Folletta → SCRAMBLE SMILE

Kotomi Tachibana
Ange et Folletta → CANDY TUNE
44AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:35
She had about as much potential as Meruru
She should've gone solo as a talent under a major agency
46AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:38
If Doi-chan had stuck around she would've been in Morning Musume's 15th gen —
filling the Osaka slot that opened up when Ogata graduated
49AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:42
Not Hello! Project, but the miracle of her actually singing a Tsunku song
52AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:56
When she became the center of Last Idol, I genuinely thought she was the top-tier talent of the idol world
55AnonymousSep 18, 2026 19:59
Her parents were Morning Musume otaku who named her after Natsumi Abe — so why didn't she ever come to Hello!?
56AnonymousSep 18, 2026 20:10
Re: #55
Guess she figured she'd sell better under an Akimoto Yasushi production

Background and Key Points of This Discussion

Abe began her idol career in 2005 at age 3, moving through a string of groups and stage names — “Ichigo Rex,” “rex,” and “mImi” (later renamed “Pax Puella”) — before becoming the center of “Last Idol” in 2017. After leaving that group, she re-debuted with “Full Course,” a new group under the idol production collective Heroines. Heroines is an agency that has launched more than 30 groups in a short span, and some posters in the thread noted that her name recognition and scale of activity never quite lived up to the early hype. The anecdote that her parents were Morning Musume fans who named her after Natsumi Abe also drew attention, though it’s worth clarifying this is only the origin of her name — it does not mean she was ever actually a member of Hello! Project.

*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5channel (Hello! Project board) thread “Former Last Idol Center Nanami Abe Announces Retirement from Entertainment Industry.”

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