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The story
There’s been debate on 5ch’s Hello!Project board over how much popularity former Hello!Project members retain after graduating. The thread cited a list of X (Twitter) follower counts — Haruka Kudo with 124,000, Yuka Nihei with 79,000, and Karin Miyamoto with 73,000 — pointing out that popularity within a group doesn’t necessarily translate into solo drawing power. The rare exception named was Airi Suzuki, who reportedly inherited her group’s entire fanbase when it disbanded and got off to a strong start on her own, while posters repeatedly noted that other graduates are struggling just to fill livehouse venues.
What people said
What about Mei Tamura?
Tons of otaku followed her all the way to G-Rosso and halls across the country for the hero shows, and she filled 8 whole buses for her 2019 bus tour
If anything, her numbers dropped a lot more after Rupapato ended
I've seen a lot of otaku switch over to Mitomani and Kazusa Okuyama on social media
why would she have trouble filling livehouses now
well, no point overthinking it
People weren't coming for her specifically, it was always about the group first
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 Ogata 26,000
Kurumi Takase 25,000
Rikako Sasaki 21,000
Erina Ikuta 21,000
Rika Shimakura 19,000
Ayumi Ishida 16,000
Nihei's making her major label debut on Sony this fall, so her followers will only keep climbing
Most of Hello!Project's current groups just keep going, so fans tend to switch their support to a current member instead of following a graduate
I don't think the group's fans really followed her over like that
Did she actually pull off a strong start though?
She struggled at first, from what I remember
Actually she just landed a regular spot on terrestrial TV
That ended ages ago already
Ratings were so bad it got cancelled almost immediately
Doesn't matter if you were the absolute number-one ace of whatever group
you can't just bring the crowd from your active days along with you
What about Gackt?
In the real world people were laughing it off like "what do you mean 'do you know Airi Suzuki?' lol"
What a scary world
Because you need something to compare them against
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gg00yAKaMAQnn5h.jpg
Sato
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GZQs3gya0AA2EHF.jpg
Ogata
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GK3DEMAbEAAguXm.jpg
Made everyone think "oh, she could actually make it solo!"
And she's also the one who started the trend of coming back to the agency on a total misjudgment
Having Ayaya (Ayumi Matsuura's nickname) around at the same time just made how underwhelming it was stand out even more
She came back saying she wanted to be a singer-songwriter, had no actual skill, couldn't talk back when Taisei tore her apart, and just got stuck singing terrible songs — total dead end
Fans were all "Ma-chan, Ma-chan" nonstop, and then her CDs sold worse than Inaba's or Miyamoto's — that's brutal
Of course, not if you don't do handshake/meet-and-greet events
Her newly made account only has 20,000 followers
how many fans did she lose lol
Re: #75
These two weren't that popular to begin with
they worked together so much and even sold that flirty duo chemistry
Most of Oishi's fanbase is anisong otaku with just a few holdovers from her band days, so in that sense their fan bases are actually pretty close too
though Airi's popularity feels like it's dipped a bit compared to before too
Airi did dip for a while
but her draw has picked back up since then
the number of fans willing to actually pay must have dropped off a cliff
That's just how it goes for all the OGs
Background and key points of this discussion
In Hello!Project, it’s common for a group to keep going even after an individual member graduates from it, which means that, as this thread shows, even members who once filled huge venues to capacity while active get re-evaluated purely on their own solo drawing power once they leave. It’s worth noting that the X (Twitter) follower figures cited in the thread come from an anonymous poster’s own tally and aren’t officially confirmed numbers. Opinions were split on how to read Airi Suzuki’s case: some argued that because her group disbanded, its fanbase never got divided and instead consolidated around her, while others pointed out that she actually struggled to build an audience early on. What most posters agreed on was a more structural point — that fans are often supporting the group as a framework rather than the individual member, which makes it easy for them to shift their support to a group’s current members the moment someone graduates.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello!Project board) thread “The Hello!Project member who was so popular, but somehow lost her otaku the moment she graduated.”
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