C-tan entered SG along with Yamaide Aiko in May of 2013, in what a lot of fukei regard as the least impressive transfer-in student class in Sakura Gakuin history. I'm not sure that's a fair assessment, but even if it were true, it was still a noteworthy class because of who Shirai was/is: the first fukei to ever enter Sakura Gakuin.
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| Shirai Saki attending Babymetal show circa 2012 |
She is one of us! And it's just now dawning on me how hard it will be to watch our surrogate fukei graduate.
C-tan has managed to fly somewhat under my radar until quite recently, probably around September of last year.
I antnicipate that, due in no small part to C-tan, the upcoming graduation has the potential to be the best (i.e. the most cryingest) one ever. Looking back at their history, obviously 2012 was hard grad to get through, and more or less universally acknowledged as the best. The 2013 Nendo's Fab 4 were graduating just as I was having by perspective blown far and wide by Babymetal - which is maybe a good thing, because if I knew Marina then like I do now, it's fair to say I might have been completely devastated by her leaving SG, especially if I had any inkling how scarce she would become post graduation; she almost as elusive as Nene!
Last year's graduation of Moi, Hana & Yunano was my first as a fully fledged fukei. I remember thinking it was weird how not quite emotional it was at the time. This was probably because of the extended time between the lead up to RTG (including a farewell episode of sorts on LoGiRL), the event itself (with accompanying sound-bites and bits of news trickling out during and immediately following the event), and finally my ordering and receiving the Blu-ray of the concert/ceremony. Maybe it was oddly less emotional than I had anticipated due to the long time period I had to process the reality of it? I'm not sure, but it was still plenty emotional.
But the RTG coming up in March will be the first one since all of the original members have gone. Yes, if you want to get nit-picky about it, Yui and Moa were considered transfer-ins, but for all intents and purposes, they were originals. And I fully anticipate it being a rival to the 2012 Nendo graduation, it terms of The Feels.
Now I'm coming to terms with the fact that I've become more of an SG fan than a Babymetal fan. I had always assumed that SG would be more of a supplemental enjoyment - given the often long stretches of time between particularly noteworthy Babymetal happenings...I mean other than shaky, warbly concert footage, the accompanying flash-in-a-pan merch dumps on Asmart, and the occasional interview, it can be months between significant events.
And just in case any Amuse marketing types are reading this (doubtful), I would totally buy SG funko pop rocks dolls. Make SG funko pop rocks dolls.
