Starra wrote:You do realise that they probably had no say in the matter, right? It was most likely this situation or graduate completely.
And I think you missed the part where Country Girls are probably going to not be doing anything for a couple of years. It's not like they're doing the exact same workload in their new groups AND CG at the same time. The entire reason they're being shuffled around to these other groups is because they want to stay active and do more than just sitting around waiting for the one time out of a year that Yamaki and Ozeki's schedules might allow them to release something. The Country Girls announcement said any new songs would most likely be digital only and they'd only participate in H!P concerts, which makes it sound like the group's basically dead (if only temporarily).but I liked 'stable' groups like berryz and C-ute and I am longing for a new 'stable' Group to fall in Love with... Sadly H!P Doesnt seem to care about longlasting groups anymore.
And you're missing the entire point of H!P groups. I hate to break the news to you, but Berryz and ℃-ute were abnormalities. Pretty much EVERY SINGLE H!P GROUP EVER (that lasted, lol) has had member additions (and graduations). The only ones that went, say, more than 5 years without change (that had a significant number of members to begin with) were Melon Kinenbi (at the time they were known for it), Berryz Koubou, ℃-ute and kinda Juice=Juice almost (although IIRC when they were announced they did say it was potentially a changing lineup).
Lastly: THEY CHANGE THE LINEUPS LIKE THIS SO THAT THE GROUPS CAN BE LONG-LASTING. Guess what? Sometimes idols want to go and do other things. Sometimes circumstances don't work out and they have to leave for whatever reason.
You're in the wrong place, the exit is that way.
EDIT: Melon Kinenbi, Berryz Koubou and Buono! are the only long-lasting H!P groups that never added any new members. ℃-ute doesn't count because Kanna was added 6 months after the group was announced.
This was a little harsh, no? Especially your last line.
Historically, H!P may have had revolving groups but that was not true for historically recent H!P aside from MM17 and Angerme (and more on Angerme later). And while Miekie did not indicate it, you don't know how long other fans have been fans for. I personally became a fan in the '09-'10 period when H!P was as stable as possible; hell, even MM was stable during that period. During that time I got to watch and experience the slow and steady climb of C-ute and Berryz go from fairly mediocre sales (I just checked and Kiss me Aishiteru only did 20k~25k) to a more respectable 60k.
The first addition I experienced didn't happen until I was a year, a year and a half in, and the first group I saw debut from "indies" to "major" was Juice=Juice, a solid 2~3 years after I became an MM (and eventually H!P) fan and aside from losing a girl they also haven't seen any changes. Berryz is the first real group I've also seen totally disband and I've been a fan for 8 or so years now (which by my quick calculations I've been a fan for almost 40% of the history of H!P). For a recent (or fairly recent fan in my case), all of these changes to the groups is unusual.
You're also not taking into consideration (choosing not to? failing to?) that the first batch of non-MM groups were literally Morning Musume off-shoots, a lot of them even had some version of "Morning/Moni" or "Musume" in the name. In those cases it was expected that the groups would change as girls graduated from the mothership and that other girls would be added to replace them to keep the groups active.
That wasn't the case for Berryz, C-ute, or Juice=Juice; the members weren't MM girls doing a side job. Even the one offshot group (Buono!) was damn stable because the girls were pulled from stable groups and even when one of the groups disbanded, the two that were in Buono! remained active idols.
And to the S/mileage/Angerme point, I'm not entirely convinced they were intended to be a growing and shrinking group. Adding 2nd gen seemed completely reactionary to losing Saki and Yuuka in rapid succession and not wanting to admit that S/mileage was a bust. The name change to Angerme (smartly, IMO) was an effort to shed the S/mileage back history. Graduating and adding girls to Angerme seems to have become the norm but not necessarily because it was planned that way.
You, as a very longstanding H!P fan, may be experiencing this as par for the course but for many of the rest of us these shakeups are new experiences. Please don't suggest people take an exit out of the fandom, you saw H!P through the "dark ages" and therefore you, of all people, should understand that in order to keep H!P (or any other entertainer/fandom) alive that fans need to be maintained (and increased), not lost.