I find that I'm actually not sad -- sentimental, maybe, but not sad. And that's really because of what Reina has going for her: She had a great 10-year run in Morning Musume, and now she's going
to a very promising post-MM career.
Rika left Morning Musume for 美勇伝
not even going to try to deal with the correct romanization at this point , but 美勇伝 was firmly in the idol ghetto right from the start, which did turn out to be a limiting factor in terms of range of audience appeal.
LoVendoЯ, on the other hand, is definitely
not in the idol ghetto -- rock audiences have different demands and expectations
(even when they're made up largely of the same actual people as an idol audience ), and I think that LoVendoЯ makes the grade without any problem. I could see them holding their own against SCANDAL, with at least as large and enthusiastic a following.
So in a lot of ways, I think Reina's on a roll.
If madness made us strong, we would all be invincible.