[You are receiving a transmission from Planet C! Do not contact your Internet Service Provider! We have entrusted our ambassador, Courtney-seijin, with providing you with semi-regular updates on idols, magical girls, and sad old men consumed by a desire for vengeance. Please stand by.]
Our time with you is short, friends, and as we prepare to bid our fond farewells, there is still one last matter we must discuss with you!
Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger drew to a close long ago, yet several important questions may be at the forefront of your mind still: who was the actress who played Baisu Maimi and why is she so cool?
Sakurai Reika is a big deal. In 2011, when she debuted alongside her peers as a member of Nogizaka46’s first generation, she was already one of the fledgling group’s most prominent members, quickly rising to become interim captain a few months after debut and during the filming of the group’s original variety show, Nogizakatte Doko? in February of that year. Shortly afterwards, she was appointed the group’s first official captain in June. She went on to become one of the most recognisable faces in the group, its de facto leader, appearing on the A side of every single Nogizaka46 release right up until her graduation in 2019.
Wait, you may cry, what’s Nogizaka46? Why is this a big deal? The answer to this is very simple: Nogizaka46 are one of Japan’s biggest idol groups at present, the company founded with Sony money and quickly establishing itself as a franchise. At present, the group has three sister groups, collectively known as the Sakamichi Series, each one named after a street in the Minato area of Tokyo. It is arguable that two of Nogizaka’s sister groups, Sakurazaka46 (formerly Keyakizaka46) and Hinatazaka46 (formerly also Keyakizaka46, colloquially known as Hiragana Keyakizaka46 due to the difference in the way the name was written) are now as popular as Nogizaka themselves.
The initial premise of the group was for them to act as rivals to AKB48, although that rivalry was mostly marketing due to the fact that both franchises were helmed by longtime idol producer, Akimoto Yasushi, who had previously produced massively influential idol group, Onyanko Club from 1985-1987, and had amassed numerous songwriting credits by the time the world was introduced to Nogizaka.
To be at the forefront of such a group, to stand on that stage with the attention of all others upon is not something to be taken lightly. Nicknamed ‘Cap’ by her peers, Sakurai did not arrive as a part of Nogizaka as a fully-fledged idol however, she had experience with auditions before, most notably in 2010, when she came in 15th place during SMA Teens Audition HuAHuA 2010, but it is undeniable that being part of Nogizaka is what made her shine.
In 2014, there was a moment when it really felt that Japanese idol groups were on the cusp of breaking through into the Western mainstream. Attending Japan Expo in Paris that year, Sakurai performed alongside the group’s senbatsu, your loyal correspondent’s cherished friends filling out the audience whilst she languished at her day job feeding bits of paper into computers and trying not to feel bitterly jealous.
Looking back on this moment, it feels like an impossible triumph that a group now as renowned as Nogizaka46 performed at a Western anime convention.
Whilst a member of the group, Sakurai was often noted to be very close to fellow member, Wakatsuki Yumi. Perhaps as this is our last transmission to you, our friends from Earth, we can momentarily venture into slightly transgressive subject matter. Whilst there are only three works of fiction on popular yet frustratingly managed fanfiction archive, Archive of Our Own that depict Sakurai and Wakatsuki’s relationship as romantic, this writer has absolutely no doubt that there is a host of works presently unarchived, perhaps lost to time, perhaps only ever glimpsed on sites such as Livejournal during the height of Western awareness of the group. It is unlikely that Sakurai and Wakatsuki’s relationship ever took on this dynamic, but the elephant in the room here, the thing we have not explored previously out of politeness, is the unspoken way in which fanworks allow their authors to interrogate their own feelings. The nature of the audience’s relationship with idols is parasocial, a course that does not always run smoothly. To witness close friendships on variety television, to see those friends often jokingly referred to as being in a romantic relationship was a no doubt important way for some in fandom to explore things they were perhaps not ready to admit in real life.
During her graduation speech, she said of her decision, ‘I want to be someone that people will say, “Sakurai Reika was in Nogizaka46, and was even the captain, isn’t that amazing?”’ It is amazing. The landscape of pop culture is very different now and we may never see another ambitious idol group as vast as Nogizaka46 bankrolled by such a vast company as Sony again. One look at the line-up for NHK’s annual Kouhaku Utagassen events during the end of the year shows a shift away from larger idol groups despite the sway they still hold in terms of record sales and concert tickets. Had we met Sakurai Reika at a later point in her life, perhaps we would not know her as we do now, perhaps we would not have had these moments of joy brought to us by her time on stage.
Whatever happens next, friends, wherever you find yourself after reading this, please rest assured that the people of Planet C will be forever out there, watching over idols, over magical girls, over sad old men consumed by a desire for vengeance. Like those early writers of Sakurai Reika/ Wakatsuki Yumi we encourage you to keep on making fanworks, to keep on celebrating the things that you love!
We have been monitoring the radio waves form your planet for some time. Perhaps one day, we will be reunited once more...
