It’s been a blessing seeing Aisu mature from a 15/16 year old underground idol, to the extremely talented girl she is today. I’ll be sure to cherish her forever ♡
As of popular-HEROINES-member fashion she just recently released a solo birthday MV. It’s called PIXEL by PIXEL. Everything about this MV is so so pretty, the theming is gorgeous. And that ishou!! Hopefully her birthday performance is streamed to YouTube (which it probably will be) because I really wanna see it in action.
Did you know she co-wrote the lyrics? She’s so cool. She (and the other writer OKA-Nyan) did a really good job! This song is so pretty.
I really like how hopeful this song is. I haven’t looked much too much into the lyrics yet to be honest, but based on the MV this song seems to be themed around improving yourself PIXEL by PIXEL and how every pixel counts. I could be wrong, but that’s how I interpreted it.
Overall this MV is so beautiful, such a pretty way to celebrate Aisu’s birthday. Aisu’s been my kamioshi since iLiFE performed at TIF for the very first time, it’s been so amazing to see her grow since then. As I said before, I’ll cherish her forever. Shes really a one-of-a-kind idol.
I’ve been aware of Chegattz since their debut. I didn’t follow them super closely or anything, but I did enjoy their performances. After their disbandment back in March of 2025, their remaining members redebuted under either Cheeky ♡ Turtles, or Chiitan ☆ Bombers. Now, I meant to get into these groups back when they debuted, but I totally procrastinated and now it’s 2026. So… let’s just talk about them now.
Starting off with the group that took most of their younger members, Chiitan ☆ Bombers! As you could probably tell, this group is heavily themed after Japan’s infamous Mascot Chiitan. And guys, I really like this group, I can’t believe I didn’t get into them sooner.
They’ve currently got seven members; Momose Ron (pink), Himekawa Moe (purple), Natsume Yukari (green), Nono (yellow), Shinomiya Anri (light blue), Koiha Mero (white), and Cocomi Coco (red). Unlike everyone else, Mero and Coco aren’t former Chegattz members, which I thought was interesting.
I rediscovered them after stumbling across this live performance posted to YouTube. I’m kind of a sucker for these types of colorful ishou’s. While watching, I found myself really drawn to their pink member, Rin. Despite being their youngest member, she kills it! Shes a really good dancer for her age, honestly. However, the most memorable part of these performance HAS to go to when their yellow member, Nono, got sturdy during the third song’s instrumental break. And with the way the other members reacted, you can tell that wasn’t in the original choreography. Yukari looked so dumbfounded lol. I love when groups aren’t afraid to get silly.
You may have noticed that, despite Chiitan Bombers being a group of seven, only six were featured in the performance above. Yea, they almost never performed with their full lineup. One or more members are always missing, it’s just how the group is.
Theyve currently got one original song out on streaming services; Hetotsu, which translates to fart. It’s a song about farting, what more could I expect from a kids group? Y’know what’s funny, I feel like we just talked about that group -SETSUNA-, the one that had that lyric about farts. Such a strange reoccurring topic on this blog. Anyways, it’s unfortunately an incredibly catchy song. The MV for it doesn’t feature any of the girls sadly, just two Chiitans. But it’s a fun watch regardless.
They’ve also got this other group called Chiitan Bombers OSK which is made up of three teams; Team O (orange), Team S (yellow), and Team K (pink). They were formed a few months after Chiitan Bombers and have like 25 members currently. I don’t think they have any original music (yet?), but they’re still a fun group to watch perform.
Now, let’s finally move onto Chegattz other successor group; Cheeky Turtles. Also known as Cheeky-Ta, or Chikiita, or Chiquita. I’m not quite sure what the romanization of their group name is to be honest, they call themselves チキータ, or Chikiita. But they also occasionally call themselves Cheeky Turtles. I’ve also seen people called them Chiquita or Cheeky-Ta, so… I’ll just call them by the literal romanization of their name, Chikiita. Simplest answer.
They’ve currently got seven members; Ehuku Iroha (orange), Hoshimiya Karen (yellow), Kusunoki Fumine (red), Miyaichi Meru (white), Ehuku Kaho (blue), RION (purple), and RINKU (green). Similarly to C☆B, Chikiita also almost never performs with their full group. In fact, Moe of C☆B often performs as a support member of Chikiita during their concerts.
Between Chikiita and C☆B, I was definitely less interested in Chikiita than I was C☆B at first. But now that I’ve officially given the group a chance, I see their charms. They took most of Chegattz older members, which gives the group a more mature feel, but that doesn’t make their lives any less fun to watch. My favorite member is their oldest girl, Meru. She’s a really good performer and I like her voice! Plus, she’s got super long hair, which makes her even prettier than she already is. This performance in particular really shows how cute she is.
They’ve also got one original song out on streaming services; CHEEKY LOVE GANG. There’s no MV unfortunately. Luckily, the song is REALLY good. I might even like it better than Hetotsu. The chorus is so so good!! I really like their voices hehe. The instrumental is super cute too. I’m not sure how to describe this song without calling just calling it fun over and over again, but that’s what it is!!! Fun songs are good songs.
I can’t believe I didn’t get into these groups sooner. Chiitan Bombers and Chikiita are both groups with very promising futures, hopefully we’ll get some more original music, maybe even some MV’s. All in all, I look forward to seeing what 2026 brings these talented girls!
Dorothy Drop is a group I’ve been following before any full-group photo were even released. They had such a unique concept and all the members had such pretty visuals and personalities. But now, it’s officially January 16th, the day of their disbandment.
It’s a shame they lasted such a short amount of time. They were only active for, what, five or six months? The fact that they debuted with seven members and disbanded with only three left… I regret not savoring the time that Karen was still in the group.
Maybe one day DoroDoro’s final three, Usa, Lei, and Hitsugi will redebut. Or maybe we’ll see one of the four that left DoroDoro before disbandment, Karen, Nemuru, Kila Innocence, or Ramu, redebut one day. Or perhaps, they’ll all go back to living an average life. No matter what, I’ll support their choices.
This was such a sudden ending to the group. They’re not the first group under Mimy to end activities like this. I believe Maumau dealt a similar fate. Shijun no Armeria seems to be inactive as well. I really wish they had better management, disbandments like these are always the most painful. Hopefully Dura Moon doesn’t fall victim to this Mimy curse as well, they seem to be their only stable group.
I guess this is really it for DoroDoro. Thank you to Meizu Usa, Meidou Hitsugi, and Lei for staying with the group till disbandment. Thank you to Yumeno Nemuru, Maizono Karen, Kila Innocence, and Nikoto Nemuru for everything you did during your short period in the group.
For some reason, my Twitter timeline has been overrun with random group announcements in that big picture of text form, y’know what I’m talking about?? Anyways, I normally don’t pay any mind to them because I simply don’t really know or listen to those groups. But today? Three groups I like posted the omissions block of text that normally isn’t good news. And all three were either hiatus or graduation notices.
Firstly, DIAVEL announced that Kinomi Soara will be suspending her activities due to being unstable. Luckily, this is only temporary and she’s not totally withdrawing. From what I understood, she’ll come back to perform on January 27th. Hope she recovers and rests until then.
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Next, CAL&RES announced the graduation of not one but TWO members; Naruse Naru, and Himari Moa. No way… I just recovered from Kiwami’s graduation :’’) Their final performances will take place on February 16th. After their graduation, CAL&RES is gonna be down to just five members. And they’ll still probably be using that 9 member artist photo from back in April.
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And finally, 7 Genme no Fleur announced the inevitable; the official graduation of their third year members. If you don’t know, Nanafleur operates in a similar way Sakura Gakuin did. It’s kind of like an idol club, and members graduate from the group at the same time they graduate from high school. So yup, on March 8th, they will have their first graduation ceremony to send off the five third years in the group; Takeuchi Haru, Takayanagi Saaya, Katsumi Sono, Kataoka Niko, and Okazawa Yui.
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Those are all the announcements I wanted to share with you today. I don’t really have anything else to add honestly. Out of the groups I follow, I don’t think I missed any other graduation/hiatus notices, although let me know if I did because I have done that. Thanks for reading.
I, unfortunately, found myself unironically scrolling through YouTube shorts the other day. Luckily, my feed on there isn’t all that brainrot-y. It’s primarily just cooking videos, people dubbing Tumblr or Twitter posts, little minecraft facts here and there — and of course, idols. While doomscrolling, I saw this reel of a few girls playing around. I assumed they must be an idol group by their outfits. They looked cute so I checked out their channel out and yup, they’re members of the idol group -SETSUNA-.
Top, L > R: Aayan, Reichemu
Bottom, L > R: Riichan, Kanon
What really made them stand out from the sea of chika idol groups to me is just how.. heisei they feel? Maybe not entirely heisei, but their music and MV’s feel like something you’d see from an older underground group rather than a newer one. They have a sound you don’t really hear often in jpop today, and their group photos aren’t an unnecessarily detailed conglomeration of colors and weirdly ai-looking graphics. I really like their style, honestly. It’s refreshing.
I believe they were formed in October 2022, and currently are a four member group. The members being;
It’s really hard to choose a favorite out of everyone honestly. I’m leaning towards Reichemu cause I like her personality, but they’re all so cute and charming it’s hard. Picking an oshi out of four member groups is always tricky for me, dunno why. I have the same issue with Wasuta and Kyurushite. Four member groups always have such a solid lineup.
Anyways, in October 2022 they were formed with 3 members; Takahashi Eri, Izumi Yukina, and Riichan whom is the only founding member still in the group. Then in 2023 they had a bunch of members join (don’t ask me who they all were, I do not know. Fake fan alert, sorry). What I do know though, is that the other active members Kanon, Ayaka, and Rei joined during this period. Then in 2024, a bunch of people left and we got the four member lineup you see today.
With this lineup, they’ve released a solid amount of really cute MV’s. Like I mentioned earlier, their style is very heisei feeling. While a lot of underground groups today either overuse the Medansy mixing + Kazushi Fujii image design aesthetic, or the Circle Lychee / MADS INK alternative rock aesthetic — SETSUNA feels way different than all of that. The MV for their song Tokyo Yabai really embodies this whole underground-idol-group-from-the-late-2010s aesthetic to me.
You could probably tell just from the thumbnail, but this MV is a full of the two absolute best elements an MV can have: fun and chaos. The song is shockingly catchy, and some of the lyrics are gold, lol. “It’s not a fart, don’t worry about it” WHO COMES UP WITH THIS STUFF?!??! I guess it’s not that crazy of a lyric but it definitely caught me off guard, since when do idols talk about farts? In a song, no less.
Other than that, I really like the creative direction of this video. It’s nothing high budget — many people would argue it’s low budget. But with the budget they’ve got, this MV has a lot of really cool visual effects and elements. I like the overlays and stuff they do over girls in the many verses. The effects get especially crazy near the end of the song, a lot of flashing lights. Which uhhhh.. now that I’m thinking about it, maybe that’s something I should’ve warned about earlier? This videos got a lot of flashing text, overlays, etc. I will admit, I do prefer the visuals that aren’t so flashy near the beginning because you can actually see the girls, but the flashy-flashy does has its cool moments.
Another video I REALLY like is their most recent, Demo Demo Datte. It’s got a totally different vibe from the other MV, having more of a peaceful autumn theme than whatever was going on in Tokyo Yabai. And fun fact, this was the first song I checked out from -SETSUNA-. In other words, the song that got me totally hooked.
This video is just… so… so… so…cute… there’s no other word to describe it. Absolutely cute, kawaii if you will. This song is also super super catchy, it feels like one of AKB48’s modern day title tracks. Kinda reminds me of Masaka no Confession, which I freaking LOVE. Both cute and sweet little love songs with even cuter MV’s… both peak.
Speaking of the MV; it’s adorable, if you didn’t hear me the first ten times. Everything from the simple set, the outfits, the slightly awkward lip-syncing — every shot of this MV is ADORABLE. And the lyrics?? This song is so cute I might faint.
I’d also like to take a moment to appreciate the fact that they provide ENGLISH SUBTITLES!! They only have these subs on MV’s, no other videos. But still, most jpop groups don’t even do that!! I think that was part of what made them stand out to me. It’s really nice to see an underground group at least kind of care about demographics outside of Japan. And yet, they’re still so shockingly underrated. Hell, I might be one of their only international fans (sigh).
The final thing I wanna talk about today is the fact that they performed at Nippon Budokan!! Literally today!! Or.. technically yesterday? Time zones are weird, Japan’s a full day ahead of my area. Whatever, on January 14th, they were a part of Giovanni 44 Fes, which took place at Budokan. I was honestly shocked to hear that such a small-scale group was performing at this huge venue, but good for them! Even though I’m still an incredibly new fan, I can’t help but be proud. You don’t just casually get invited to stuff like that. I hope to watch this amazing group of four climb even greater heights in the future!
2026 is off to an… okay start. This year has felt kinda doomed ever since iON’s pink member Koharu Nene was kicked out due to an “extreme breach of contract”, which is basically just code for “had a boyfriend.” Yes that was technically last year. I don’t care, I’m talking about it now because seriously! When is Imaginate gonna let that dating ban go?! These constant withdrawals are the exact reason why people are starting to loose interest in your groups, Imaginate.
On the contrary though, I do wonder why idols under HEROINES keep getting involved with fans. I’m not blaming them at all, the dating ban is undeniably stupid and overprotective. But like, an underground idols career isn’t normally super long anyways, I feel like it can’t be that hard to wait till graduation before hooking up. It’s not like anyone’s unaware of Imaginate’s strict policy. But maybe that’s my aromantic-ness talking. Also, I wouldn’t be surprised if more than a few of these girls were sorta… forced into a relationship. In which case, I feel horrible for and hope they’re doing well after withdrawal. And even if they weren’t forced, I guess maybe things just happen. I dunno, I don’t date, I don’t know how any of this works. Don’t take this as me defending the dating ban, it’s weird.
At the end of the day, time will always just keep passing; new members will be added, new music will be released, and someday disbandment will come and your saioshi will retire and disappear from the public. That’s simply how the cycle of j-idols work, never get too comfortable or attached to a lineup.
Anyways, now that fans have had time to accept the sad sad fact that Nene’s left, iON has just announced that Osu Kanon of Tenshinranman and Maisen Ekubo of Nanakorobi Yaoki will be joining as support members. Both of their member colors are pink, of course.
These two have a surprising amount of stuff in common. For one, both of their main groups from one HEROINES’s non-Tokyo branches. Kanon’s being from Nagoya, and Ekubo’s being from Osaka. Furthermore, both of their original member colors are red. They’re also both people I did not expect to temporarily join iON. I honestly kind of expected a MEGAFON member to join.
I feel like Kanon and Ekubo being from different prefectures and cities might make activities with iON a little hard. That could be why there’s two support members instead of just one, in case one can’t make it to a performance or something. Kanon’s also still in high school, so Ekubo, whom I assume is in her 20s, joining alongside her was definitely a good idea on their part.
Honestly, seeing the two in pink instead of their usual red threw me off a bit. I’m just so used to seeing them in red LOL. I feel like it suits them better, especially Ekubo. But they’re both cute in pink too :))
Kanon’s already made her debut with iON. The performance was streamed to YouTube and I heavily suggest watching it, it’s a good show. Nothing too special or crazy, but a fun performance regardless. I don’t think Ekubo’s debuted yet though.
All in all, I do really miss Nene. I’d been following her since her Kenkyuusei era and was really excited seeing her debut. It’s unfortunate her career ended so abruptly because of Imaginate’s overbearing rules. But I do look forward to this new era of iON, because the one thing groups under HEROINES are best at is coming back from controversies stronger than before. iLiFE’s proven this many times. I have absolutely no doubt iON will recover with grace.
