by Celedam » Thu Jan 23, 2020 4:08 am
I know someone, somewhere is going to frown at me for jumping in like this again, but I want to remind everyone that much of Japan's civil society is organized around the April-to-March fiscal year. It may seem weird or alarming to us outside of Japan that all of these changes are happening at the same time, in mid to late March, but it's quite normal to them. We as idol fans have been spoiled by the big, lavish, end-of-tour graduation ceremonies that are specifically designed and scheduled to maximize engagement and revenue. Those aren't normal. This is normal.
The next obvious question then is "Even if this is normal for Japan, it's not normal for H!P, so why is it happening now?" I think that might be simply because H!P is so much larger now, with more groups and more generations and consequently more turnover. Maybe the management has decided the schedule isn't big enough to give each and every graduating member a big ceremony, so it has stopped trying. <shrug>
All that being said, I will miss Murota and I wish her well in whatever she does next.