My opinion of this H!P member drastically changed when...

[Celedam]

Attending the one handshake event also left huge impressions on me that shifted girls up and down. Sakura went down

Why, if I may ask?

[fujii hina]

I know many people came to love Sayu since she became leader, but as for me I found the light when I read that she sent letters to the former leaders to tell them that she has become the leader of the group. I love history and tradition.

My opinion of Karin went from just-knowing-her-name to not-wanting-to-know-any-more-about-her when I read that she disrespected the Up-up Girls.

Romance-related scandals really shake the boat for me and send girls flying overboard and off my ship. They know what they want and they do what they do. As with anything, I expect only the natural and logical results.

[forgetmenots]

Attending the one handshake event also left huge impressions on me that shifted girls up and down. Sakura went down

Why, if I may ask?

It's kind of a silly reason, honestly. While the rest of the girls gave full handshakes and tried to look you in the eye, as soon as my hand touched Sakura's she kind of yanked it back and she didn't really attempt to give me the short second of eye-contact everyone else did. So it was kinda like wota rejection It probably wouldn't have been so bad if mostly everyone else hadn't been much better. Maachan's was the second worst if I remember correctly, but it didn't leave as big as an impression as Sakura's did. I shouldn't have let it affect my opinion, but I guess it's hard to help it.

[randompasserby]

Interesting thread. I remember musing about a similar topic in the pointless thread lol

Strictly speaking, I suppose I don't really have anyone in mind that would fit the "drastically changed" part. From a scale of 1-100 most of their starting baseline is at around 50-70ish and it took years of keeping up with their activities for them to climb up my adoration rating. A lot of them simply stopped climbing altogether because I couldn't find compelling enough reasons to keep peeling through the layers so to speak, although that doesn't mean I thought less of them. It's for this reason that I doubt anyone will ever replace Sayu as my favorite because I sadly doubt I'll get the chance to get to know another idol who can keep my attention for 8+ years and yet somehow continues showing me more and more of her charms all the while.

On the other hand, there are also very few things that would make me think less of a girl drastically. Atm I can only think of two girls actually who had significant drops on my adoration rating and even then it was a gradual, over a long period of time thing. Risako because her starting baseline is ridiculously high (the highest in my personal scale in fact) to begin with so my overblown expectations is partly to blame there, and Koharu who keeps sliding down ever so slightly everytime something she did/said caught my attention

That is of course, barring catastrophic events like Yaguchi.

[JonCC]

Most of my 'opinions' remain close to 100% identical throughout an idol's career. It's afterwards that things tend to change.
There are serious scandals (you all know which ones) where I am very much of the opinion that these people would be best kept away from newer generations.
Because they not only damage themselves but also indirectly (by association) the newer H!P idols.

I've also been pretty much soured towards the 'Golden Age OG's' post 2012 15-anniversary-TV-special and the whole notion of Dream Morning Musume...
http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic= ... msg1096573
http://forum.jphip.com/index.php?topic=30924.860
...but I was already quite ambivalent towards them anyway.

Related sidenote: I bought the Countdown Live Blu-ray.
I wish they had sold both discs separately because I found myself skipping through the majority of disc two.
Granted that's also because of LoVendoЯ and Bitter & Sweet, but still... I could have saved some money.

[BerryzCelebration]

^ Pretty sure it was a (bad) joke.

A very bad joke.

[claneksi]

My opinion of Karin went from just-knowing-her-name to not-wanting-to-know-any-more-about-her when I read that she disrespected the Up-up Girls.

Where did you read that?

[Jessi]

My opinions of Risako and Maimai changed when they got older. They used to be two of my favorites in H!P and now they look a bit more stuck up.

[Chibs]

I think that the only scandal about the dating rule is that it exists. As far as I'm concerned, the rule itself is inexcusable.

I think a good thing about the dating rule is that some of these girls won't get preyed upon by some old men in the business, granted some do even with the rule (Aibon). I remember that utaban from 2010 where Kaori, Nacchi and Rika were talking about how they were approached and when they were young too.

[TotallyUncool]

But the dating rule won't stop the old men who are actually in the business and have some power or connections -- they're the ones who make the rules, and I'm quite sure that as far as they're concerned, what goes on behind the scenes or behind closed office doors isn't subject to the rules, as long as it benefits them.

But I'm just cynical about power, and about the entertainment industry in general -- I can't bring myself to believe that things like the dating rule serve to do anything other than make the girls more marketable to wota, and I think that the industry has more than its share of predatory older men who don't consider themselves to be bound by any rules.

This is, however, one of those debates that's been going on among Jpop idol fans for as long as I've been involved in any of this. I think that the only way that we'll get any clear answers (if we ever do) will be if enough former idols write tell-all memoirs or talk openly about what it was like -- which would probably reveal a lot of things that will surprise us all, one way or another, and which might or might not be a good thing.

(I recall reading some of Kudo Shizuka's comments about what it was like behind the scenes with the Onyanko Club -- she said that there were a lot of things going on that she just stayed very far away from. )