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The story
Hello! Project’s new member Yuina Sugiyama has become a hot topic on 5ch, with users weighing in on her current dance and singing ability. Since she’s a K-pop-school-trained dancer with real experience, her dancing gets high marks — but opinions are split on her singing, with some calling it “still developing” and others saying “her voice type might not be able to reach the top tier.” The discussion expanded into comparisons with existing members and how well junior members tend to be accepted by fans.
What people said
Whether she can reach S-rank, who knows.
Well, she's not at the level Sayu was when she'd just joined. ("Sayu" = fellow H!P member Sayumi Michishige's nickname, referencing her early days)
What about singing?
Could she get up to Yamazaki/Shimakura/Takase level?
Given her voice type, that might be a stretch, don't you think?
Though I'd love to see her get there.
She's supposedly a hard worker in practice too, so the technique should catch up.
Dancing: excellent.
Singing's still a work in progress, but she's got the guts to deliver her lines without getting shy — that's a plus.
She really pops on stage.
Sugai-chan will probably bring her up to a level where she doesn't stick out awkwardly in BEYOOOOONDS.
and she'll end up being the center.
As for Yuna, though….
That's probably exactly why they're spoiling her rotten, to keep that from happening lol
Totally accepted.
Great personality.
She's already turning into a popular member.
Oh no, that's bad lol
but there's zero write-ups on it — did the fans not even bother going to see it?
Singing, no clue.
They do approve — and honestly, they're jealous.
They're not sold on her singing, but she can dance, has a great personality, and is upbeat — that's what they're jealous of.
Probably the same crowd that's been spamming YouTube comments saying they wished Yumeha had ended up in Morning Musume instead.
Background and Key Points
Hello! Project (H!P) is the umbrella idol production founded around Morning Musume in the late 1990s, and it now oversees a family of subgroups that includes Juice=Juice and BEYOOOOONDS, the group Yuina Sugiyama recently joined. Fans commonly grade idols on an informal “S/A/B” scale — not an agency metric, just message-board shorthand for overall stage ability — which is why posts jump straight to ranking her without explaining what the letters mean. Names like Sayumi Michishige (an early Morning Musume member whose debut-era singing is a benchmark for “still developing”) and references to a K-pop training academy assume readers already know these are credibility markers within the fandom.
The thread doesn’t actually split on dancing — her K-pop-school background settles that as a strength. The real disagreement is over singing: some posters hear untapped power that a strict in-house vocal coach can shape, while others argue her voice type simply may not suit the group’s top vocal parts, regardless of effort.
What outsiders are likely to miss is that several posts (the “life support,” Ookami-forum, Morning Musume-fan-approval remarks) are really about BEYOOOOONDS’ comparatively small, anxious fanbase, not about Sugiyama herself — her popularity is being used as a proxy battle over the group’s visibility. The thread also never cites anything concrete — no age, debut date, discography, or actual vocal test results — so what reads as an assessment is entirely secondhand fan impression, not documented evidence.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project) thread “I’m curious about Yuina Sugiyama — how’s her performance being rated so far?.”
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