I started thinking
Saito Kyoko was great before I even really knew who she was. On the Yamanote Line at the time of writing this, there are a series of adverts and features on the television screens above the doors, and one of them is a weekly repeating
drama starring starring Saito, nicknamed Kyonko, and Yamoto Yuuma as a pair of co-workers who go out for meals occasionally. I usually hate all this stuff, standing in the crowd, looking up to see the television trying to show me how to cook some kind of disgusting meat or watching actors visit restaurants for exotic meals, but whatever the case, maybe because this is a drama, maybe because Kyonko is so expressive, this one makes me smile whenever I see it.
Originally a member of Hinatazaka46’s first generation, I never knew Kyonko when she was in the group. In fact, if you ask me to name a single Hinatazaka song, I can’t do it, I can only tell you about Hiragana Keyakizaka46. Kyonko first arrived in 2016 before the name change with the song,
Hiragana Keyaki, a B side on actual Keyakizaka46 release,
Sekai ni wa Ai Shika Nai, a song which, like all Keyakizaka songs, packs more of a punch that is deserves to.
The idea of a sister group within the main group was a genius one, with Hiragana being allowed a softer, quieter sound initially than the full force of Keyakizaka. This group could easily have got lost as a subsequent generation of the original group, but instead became something else, pushing Kyonko forward through a storied career to these moments on the Yamanote Line when I look up and see her face.
By 2017, a year after her arrival, she was already acting as centre for songs like the folk-tinged
Soredemo Aruiteru from Keyakizaka’s majestically presented fifth single,
Kaze ni Fukarete mo. Can you feel the force of how impressed I was by Keyakizaka? By contrast, Hiragana were softer, gentler, less confrontational, and in a way, listening to the interplay between members in the songs, I always wondered if this was how NGT48 were intended to be.
Whilst I was failing to pay attention, Kyonkon appeared on an AKB B side for
Sashihara’s graduation single,
Jiwaru DAYS, as part of the SAKAMICHI AKB line-up alongside
Shitao Miu,
Fukuoka Seina.
Yamauchi Mizuki,
Okabe Rin,
Oguri Yui, Sakaguchi Nagisa, Yahagi Moeka, and others from the sister groups and the Nogizaka groups, including Yoda Yuki who only graduated recently, and Koike Minami, who is my favourite Keyakizaka member. The song in question,
Hatsukoi Door, is kind of great as well, a real mix of the sounds of both groups.
Last year, in a big event in Yokohama in April, Kyonko graduated, so the long and short of all of this is that I am an idiot who did not appreciate her when she was a part of her group, and it took a television series only broadcast on a trainline in another country for me to really come to appreciate her. Sorry, Kyonko! I’m supporting you from now on, I promise!