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The story
Former Angerme member Kari Miyamoto’s comments about her Hello! Project years being called “youth” or a “club activity” have been picked up on 5ch’s Hello! Project board. The thread cites a remark she made answering a fan letter, to the effect of: “Looking back now, I guess you could call it ‘youth,’ but while I was in the middle of it, it was just my whole life.” Her view that, since fans pay ticket prices to watch her perform, she should carry herself with a professional’s self-awareness, sparked mixed reactions. Many posts also recalled the grueling tour schedules and health issues from that era, with the discussion spreading from debates about “youth” to comparisons of how many shows current members perform.
What people said
Miyamoto
Looking back now, I feel like my Hello! Project years were "youth," but while you're in the thick of it, it's just your life.
Right in the middle of it, you're just lost all the time.
I wish people who just phone it in could hear this.
(Let's not talk about my age.)
Meimi Tamura@Tamura_Meimi
A childhood friend I reconnected with recently introduced me to another one of my childhood friends.
"Oh, you're actually alive! Were you even around in middle school? I don't remember you," they said — but honestly, once I hit middle school I was busy working every single day, so my own memories of middle-school friends are basically just gone too.
My entire youth was S/mileage. I wish I could go back to that time, just for one day.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HQUuvtyacAAX75A.jpg:orig#.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HQUuvt8aQAAF6Un.jpg:orig#.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HQUuvt4aoAAx1un.jpg:orig#.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HQUuvt2bQAA8D0Q.jpg:orig#.jpg
Those days were fun.
Sounds like she's been through a lot and really thought it through.
Seems like she'd make a good producer, though.
She's saying being a pro means getting paid to perform for an audience, isn't she?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD6me0aRLRE
I mean, if she'd said that back then, sure, that'd be one thing.
But looking back and feeling like your younger self was naive, and calling it a "club activity" or "youth" in hindsight — that's totally fine lol
The general public has zero interest in Momoclo's live shows.
The sad reality is that a Dempagumi or Nogizaka46 member quitting gets more buzz than that.
Club activities fighting it out at the national level are run far more intensely than that.
(They made it all the way to the Budokan while also doing release events, meet-and-greets, and drama shoots on top of it.)
Miyamoto later had a long absence due to functional dysphonia, then Bell's palsy, then a vocal cord polyp — one illness after another.
Things like "I want to perform here" or "I want to be on this show" — they'd given up on from the start and never even aimed for them.
https://kizuna.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/morningcoffee/1780694091
Ria Matsunaga: "When I first joined Juice, I kept a lid on my emotions — once Uemura became leader, I was able to open up and be myself."
https://kizuna.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/morningcoffee/1720358807/
"The original Juice=Juice members burned out after their first Budokan show, and the tour that followed was rough.
Juice was heading toward a goofy, zany direction (like the 'foot-stomping tantrum' dance) when the technically skilled Danbara joined and saved them from it.
So that goofy direction ended up going to BEYOOOOONDS instead."
Background and Points of Debate
During her days in the former S/mileage and Angerme, Kari Miyamoto ran through a grueling 225-date national tour without missing a single show on the way to the Budokan, and afterward publicly disclosed having functional dysphonia, Bell’s palsy, and a vocal cord polyp. The remark cited in the thread is presented as coming from someone who lived through that punishing schedule firsthand, choosing to keep some distance from framing it as “youth” or a “club activity,” and instead speaking about the self-awareness required by a job where fans pay ticket money to watch her perform. That said, what’s quoted in the thread is only a fragment of the remark, and the full context of the original interview can’t be confirmed. The debate split between those who embrace the nostalgic “youth” framing and those who point to the number of shows current groups (such as Angerme or Juice=Juice) perform to argue “it’s easier now” — a comparison that drifts into a separate argument among Hello! Project fans about workload, distinct from what Miyamoto herself actually said, which readers can easily conflate with her original point.
※This article is compiled as an excerpt and summary from the 5ch (Hello! Project board) thread “[Good News] Kari Miyamoto: “I don’t want to call my Hello! Project years ‘youth’ or a ‘club activity’ — I’m a pro who gets paid ticket money by fans to put on a show”“.
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