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The story
A thread titled “Which Hello! Project members are secretly attending university right now?” went up on 5ch’s Hello! Project board, and posts speculating about individual members’ schools kept rolling in. Some claimed that members who skip college to devote themselves fully to the group get, upon leaving, the right to study abroad on the agency’s dime — though that’s never been confirmed. Others pointed out that several Juice=Juice members have taken a leave of absence or dropped out altogether due to their busy schedules, while some suggested a correspondence program like the Open University of Japan would make balancing school and idol work much easier. One blunt take that got a lot of agreement: “Hello! Project members aren’t famous enough for anyone to notice even if they’re quietly attending class.” The thread also lit up with name-dropped guesses — Murakoshi Arisa pegged for a MARCH-tier school (a group of respected Tokyo private universities), and Hamaura and others guessed to be at so-called “F-rank” schools (bottom-tier universities that are notoriously easy to get into).
What people said
Now that’s a solid agency, huh (said with a Kansai drawl)
Hirayama, Matsumoto
Matsunaga, Ebata
Fukuda, Yokaze
Kubota, Nishizaki, Tsutsui
Matsubara, Onoda Hana
Isn’t Hashida part of Roji too?
Don’t underestimate how low-profile Hello! Project members are.
— though if she went, it’d probably be a women’s college, not coed.
— sneaking around quietly would defeat the whole purpose.
Even back then, wasn’t Meguro Nichidai basically a correspondence school anyway?
If even Hamaura got in, anyone can — you can get into an F-rank school as long as you pay.
No idea which university, but she’s definitely attending one.
Background and Key Points of This Topic
It’s worth flagging that the claim circulating in the thread — that members who skip college to devote themselves entirely to Hello! Project get the right to study abroad on the agency’s dime — isn’t an officially announced policy; it never rises above rumor or joke territory on the board. It is known that, in the past, some members have passed on enrolling in a regular university due to busy schedules, or took a leave of absence or dropped out while enrolled, and this thread’s speculation builds on that track record. The point that a correspondence program like the Open University of Japan would make it easier to balance schoolwork with idol activities also carries some real-world weight, since it’s an option actual celebrities do choose. Meanwhile, the remark that “they’re not famous enough to get caught” is half self-deprecating joke, half plain fact — it reflects how, even in the social-media era, outsiders have a hard time identifying someone unless that person reveals it themselves. Readers should keep in mind that posts naming specific universities are purely fan speculation, not information confirmed by the members or their agency.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “So, which Hello! Project members are currently secretly attending university, lolololol?”
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