Another Egg says goodbye... for now

It was announced today that Saho Akari also has completed her Egg training.

If you read my post about missing Eggs and are worried about Saho's future, do know that there is hope for her.

All of the Eggs (literally every single one of them) whose whereabouts are unknown (i.e. they probably are normal teens again) left without any official news of their leaving from UFA. All of the Eggs who "completed their Egg training" all had news announcements by UFA and they are all still with the company in some way.

Worst case for Saho would probably be her joining Kitahara Sayaka and Sengoku Minami (and the UFZS girls) in Up-Front Girls and still be associated with UFA. Best case would be a major debut under Hello! Project like Kikkawa Yuu will soon do.

But as for right now, we can only imagine what Saho's future holds. Will she be a soloist? Will a new group be created? Or will she be in Idol limbo with Saya-sama and Minami?



I just hope that she is allowed to debut within H!P just like Kikka. She doesn't have as great a voice as Kikka does, but that's just because Kikka is awesome. As a member of Aa!, Saho has performed with two of Hello! Project's best singers and held her own pretty well each time. Plus she's been an Egg since the beginning (7 years!) so she's had plenty of practice.

Saho has the voice of a soloist, but doesn't quite have the stand out personality that is desirable for that job. Ideally I see her as the lead singer of a small group like S/mileage. The only question is where to find a group like that. UFZS are doing their own thing and who knows what Sengoku Minami and Kitahara Sayaka will be doing. That just leaves a bunch of young, inexperienced Eggs, the Korean winner, and the existing groups.
Adding Saho to Berryz or C-ute would be interesting, but it has almost no chance of happening because those groups already have an established chemistry. A Miki-style addition to Morning Musume seems more likely, but if Tsunku wanted her to join Morning Musume, I don't see why he wouldn't have just added her at the same time as Mizuki, so that probably won't happen either. Adding her to S/mileage might work considering that she was a fellow Shugo Chara Egg member with most of S/mileage and not to mention the group is still pretty young.

On the other hand, there are the remaining 10 Eggs that are still with the company. The most experienced of the bunch are Kaneko Rie (13 years old), Takeuchi Akari (13 years old), and Miyamoto Karin (12 years old). They have been Eggs since 2008 and all have appeared in movies and plays, but still are not terribly experienced in being in a group.

So honestly I don't know where Saho fits in within the Hello! Project universe. Maybe her and the three above mentioned Eggs could form a group and go the indie route for a year (similar to what S/mileage did). That way, Kikka will have already debuted, so the focus would be completely on them and this time next year, the girls would be a year older and have more experience together.