Trivia / Sakura Gakuin

• Creator Couple: "My Graduation Toss" and "Heart no Hoshi" were written and arranged by The Brilliant Green's Shunsaku Okuda and Tomoko Kawase.
• Fan Community Nickname: Fukeis or Fukei-san (父兄さん) literally meaning parent, guardian, or older brother. It's worth mentioning that even in Japanese the phrase isn't common, so it pretty much evolved past its meaning, at least considering the fandom.
• Fandom Nod
  • The girls did this on LoGiRL broadcasts several times, as well as in later FRESH! livestreams.
    • Acknowledgement of the (small but notable) foreign fanbase is what led directly to Saki Ohga coining her second catchphrase, "Good Ooganing!!"
  • As the Original Generation graduated, longtime fans would consistently figure out which girls among the Amuse Kids would join the group by keeping a close eye on their profiles. If a certain girl's weight got deleted from there, there was a high chance she'd be a transfer student. Saki Shirai, being the promoted fangirl, addressed this in her diary, and even Amuse have caught on to this: before the 2015 nendo – which would introduce an unprecedented six new girls – they deleted the weight data from dozens of profiles, throwing the fans off.
    • In 2018, Yume Nozaki was accepted into Sakura Gakuin and her weight data wasn't deleted. It finally was in Spring 2019 when Amuse updated her and her sister's heights.
  • In a guest diary message to the fans after her graduation, Rinon mentioned the band named after her which was started by Japanese fans. Rinon herself was not known to play any musical instrument and did not join.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Applies to nearly everything from this group except, somewhat ironically, most of the "tapes" themselves (that is, Road To Graduations and certain Festivals). OG-era CDs, especially early singles, are harder to find, but it almost doesn't matter since live performances of the same songs are easy to come by.
  • For unknown reasons, TV Asahi didn't archive Sakura Gakuin's or Ayami's livestreams on their LoGiRL service, even though other shows were archived instantly. This led to fans having to record and rehost them so they don't get lost forever. ^note  Might have been a blessing in disguise, as TV Asahi shut down LoGiRL at the end of March 2017, taking the archives with it. However, because Fukei had been obsessively ripping and archiving SG's Manande Monday as well as Ayami's ''IroDOLi, both series survive in their entirety (with the exception of the first part of Ep.5 of IroDOLi, lost to a combination of buffer-glitch and copyright bots).
  • This also applied to Sakura Gakuin's followup show FRESH!, as – despite its being a pay service – episodes are only archived for a week.
    • Taken to an extreme with the 2018 Transfer Ceremony. It was announced ahead of time that the two-hour show would be broadcast live but would not be archived at all. Naturally, Fukei took that as a challenge, so of course that show survives in its entirety, albeit with a technical glitch during "FRIENDS".
  • This can also apply literally, as video content only included on first-pressings (like the nendo tests or documentaries) would disappear into individual superfan archives if not for those same fans deciding that "Limited Release" really means "jailbreak the DeLoreans and upload onto any and every video site so foreign Fukei can subtitle them".
• Line to God: The blog on Ameblo enables (Japanese) fans to comment on the girls' diary entries, while a twitter profile is run by the management team and will sometimes relay short messages from the girls themselves (usually after a graduation or on a member's birthday). Some graduates have their own public profiles or blogs. ^note  NOT the Babymetal girls, though; they're notorious for having absolutely ZERO known social media presence. Photos of them out of uniform - aside from Sakura Gakuin meetups and occasionally backstage at festivals – are extremely rare for Moa (she takes a lot of selfies with her Idol friends but Koba demands they not be posted or, if they are, that Moa's face is obscured), and nonexistent for Yui and especially Suzuka. This is why it was such a big deal that a photograph of Suzuka and Moa wearing street clothes and sitting together in an oversized chair smiling leaked in April 2019. Graduates with public social media accounts include:
  • Ayami – twitter, Instagram, website, & Youtube (2 channels: one professional, one hiatus-era)
  • Ayaka – Instagram
  • Airi – twitter & Instagram
  • Marina – twitter, Youtube, website
  • Raura – twitter & Instagram
  • Hinata – twitter & Instagram
  • Hana – twitter & Instagram (her blog was shut down when Torahime-Ichiza disbanded)
  • Mariri – twitter, Instagram, Youtube
  • Saki O – twitter, Instagram, tiktok, Youtube^* (originally she shared a page with her college friend Moka where they would sing, but after they grew apart due to academic reality, she started her own channel based on her tiktok rapid-food-blogs)
  • Mirena – twitter
  • Aiko – Everything (but, all except her twitter & Insta were deleted a month after Amuse fired her)
  • Megumi – twitter
  • Marin – twitter
  • Yuzumi – Instagram
  • Kano, Soyoka, Tsugumi, Momoe – all share @onefive's twitter, Instagram, tiktok, and blog
  • Sana – twitter, Instagram
  • Cocona – twitter
  • Miku – twitter & Instagram^* (she also has a twitter feed just for her dog)
  • Yume – Instagram (shared with her sister Juna; it long predates her tenure in Sakura Gakuin)
• Long Runner: Really, any member who was in the group the maximum five years (i.e. since 5th grade) counts as this. Watching archival footage makes one realize just how long these girls hung around.
  • For the record, members who debuted as 5th-graders are:
    • Yui & Moa (2010)
    • Rinon (2011)
    • Aiko (2013)
    • Kano & Soyoka (2015)
    • Miku & Miki (2017) {fell 7 months short of the 5-year mark due to SG's mid-term shutdown}
    • Yume (2018) {only 3.5 years in the group due to SG's closing}
    • Sakia (2019) {only 2.5 years in the group due to SG's closing}
• The Merch: All kinds, ranging from their trademark pink flag to DeLoreans (CD's, DVD's, Blurays), photobooks, pins, T-shirts, wristbands, and even lunchboxes. They even had a promotional menu for MiniPati in the cafés of various Tower Records stores. The School Store Club is partly about promoting the merch.
  • Aiko has photographed herself drinking from a Road To Graduation mug. She has also been known to bring Road To Graduation DVDs with her on vacations.
• Meme Acknowledgment:
  • There's a running joke among the fandom that the Student Council President will be the shortest member among the seniors.^* In reality, the President is, with one exception, the girl with the most seniority of the group. If two or more girls have equal seniority, as happened in the 2013 and 2014 nendos, it'll be the girl who is the most amenable, who coincidentally was the shortest in both cases: Marina and Moa. Just barely averted in 2019 & 2020 – Kano is a couple millimeters taller than Momoe, and Kokona is ~3cm taller than Sana (but still shorter than VP Miki) This was referenced by Ayami in a tweet after Rinon – much taller than either Saki – was chosen for 2015, breaking the chain.
    • The 2017 class was back to form with Aiko being significantly shorter than Megumi and Momoko.
    • 2019 remained up in the air, as Kano was taller than Momoe from the get-go, but the difference narrowed officially to zero – the New Year's 2020 update put them both at 155.8cm (5’1⅓”) so it's at least possible Momoe could have passed Kano by graduation — probably not, though.
    • Kokona, 2020's President, is rather short for her age. She averts the curse because her sole classmate Sana is even shorter.
  • Yui's "Tomato-kun" impression arguably counts. Everyone knows she loves tomatoes, so why not roll with it and create a character around it?
  • One of the rare photos of high-school-era Saki Ohga (taken by Aiko) shows her wearing a black jersey with "OOGANING" on the back in gold letters. Saki also occasionally did the gesture on her own livestreams (albeit with some embarrassment as by then she was a full-fledged adult… who looks absolutely no different than she did at 15)
• Newbie Boom: The exploding popularity of Babymetal beginning in 2014 brought many new people into the Sakura Gakuin fandom, mostly from outside of Japan.
  • Slowed down after awhile due to Yui's & Moa's graduation, though foreign Fukei have openly expressed hope that the addition of younger SG members Momoko and Kano as two of Babymetal's three "Avengers" (backup dancers filling Yui's vacated slot) might bring more curious people down the rabbit-hole.
• Promoted Fangirl: Now that all of the original members have long since graduated, it is increasingly common for new members to have been fans.
  • Saki Shirai has said numerous times how she used to collect merchandise and was deeply involved with the fandom before joining. These days, as noted above, fans refer to her as "Number-One Fukei". She was one of the graduates most likely to make it to live shows despite also being one of the few to not live in the Tokyo area.
  • At RTG 2012, Saki Ohga told Suzuka that Su was "[her] one and only idol", and that it was because of her that Saki decided to try for Sakura Gakuin – Saki had met Su and the rest of SG at the 2011 Ciào Girl Audition.
    • Mariri has said much the same thing about Suzuka. However, she had been an admirer of Su's since back in their days at Actor's School Hiroshima. She was clearly flattered when Su remarked that, upon hearing another ASH girl would be joining the group, she knew it was Mariri without even needing to wait for the reveal.
  • Yui technically counts despite being (effectively) a founding member. She was a huge fan of Karen Girl's, the group Ayami and Suzuka had been part of a couple years earlier – as mentioned elsewhere, she was fond of Ayami. Yui's final audition (with Moa) was dancing to the short version of KG's "Over The Future". She later said that getting to perform that song live with Suzuka during Babymetal's "Legend D" concert was the fulfillment of a childhood dream.
  • Maaya Asou joined the Amuse Kids when she was in 2nd grade and quickly became a huge fan of Sakura Gakuin when she saw the Original Dozen perform. She wrote them a fan letter, which was answered by Suzuka – there exists a photo of a tiny Maaya with Suzuka and Moa along with several other Amuse Kids of the time. As soon as she was old enough, she auditioned for a slot in the group …and failed.^* That year was 2014, the only year aside from the first where there were only ten members. Mirena was also turned down for membership that year. Fan speculation is that the senseis intentionally kept the group small to take pressure off Moa and Yui, who they knew would be absentee leaders due to their double-duty in Babymetal. Essentially, Mirena didn't need three years in the group due to her experience, while Maaya as a 5th grader would have needed attention Moa and Yui could not provide. Megumi and Sara hit the sweet spot of needing the training but not being too young. She auditioned again the next year and succeeded.
  • Miko Todaka is the third ASH veteran to join Sakura Gakuin, and explicitly mentioned in her introductory diary that she looks up to Suzuka and wanted to follow in her footsteps. By coincidence (maybe), some of her quirks are similar to Suzuka's, including a tendency toward airheadedness offstage.
    • Perhaps unsurprisingly, Miko ended up taking her intention to "follow in Suzuka's footsteps" literally, as she got to act as "Mini-Su" during three Babymetal shows in 2023 and then later that year became the frontwoman for Babymetal's sister-group METALVERSE.
• Release Date Change: Twice now…
  • The 2011 nendo transfer-in ceremony (which introduced Hana and Rinon) was supposed to be held in May, like all subsequent ones were, but got delayed to July due to the Tohoku Disaster.
    • As shown in the SMILE documentary, Hana and Rinon had actually met the rest of the group that February and the extra two months were spent integrating them into the group. This worked so well that many fans consider Hana and Rinon to be part of the "Original Generation" (OG). Moa openly speculated that the integration might not have gone as smoothly had the transfers been any girls other than Hana and Rinon. ^note  This statement irritated Yunano, who joined a year later. Rinon had been one of the Amuse Kids prior to Sakura Gakuin – footage exists of her at age 8 or 9 amongst a group of children (boys and girls) being taught by Kuramoto that included Yui, Nene, and Raura. The video is from a TV segment called "It's Prius World".
  • The worldwide novel-coronavirus pandemic of 2020, despite not hitting Japan as hard as other countries, still forced the postponement of many things including the Tokyo Olympics. Sakura Gakuin was not immune — it suspended activities in early March and sent all the girls home. Two Road To Graduation shows were cancelled outright, while "Anthology of Song" and the Final were postponed. In the end, Anthology was cancelled and the Graduation Final was a livestream with a truncated setlist (due to lack of practice time) and no audience. The 2019 Photobook was also delayed – in addition, the traditional autograph handover session was cancelled; KSTM simply signed a few dozen of the photobooks in advance.
    • Of course the 2020 Nendo couldn't start officially start until 2019's ended, so its start-date was September 1st. This meant that every member officially stayed in their old grade long after starting a new one in their real school, something Kokona and Sana both noted after entering high school yet still being counted as middle schoolers in SG.
• What Could Have Been: Had a couple of casting snafus not occurred, Sakura Gakuin could have turned out very different.
  • Apparently Yuika Shima, the third Karen Girl's, was asked to be a founding member of Sakura Gakuin. She turned it down because, at the time, she still lived in Kumamoto Prefecture on the west coast of Kyushu – a far more brutal commute than even Suzuka (from Hiroshima) had to make. ^note  Su herself moved to Tokyo at the start of her 9th-grade year, when her sister Himeka was accepted into Nogizaka46. If Yuika had accepted, which girl would have been passed over? The most likely candidate is Airi – who never quite understood why she was taken in to begin with – meaning she never would have been given the direct care to overcome her shyness and become an actress and top-tier model, and she likely would not have had the chance to form her close friendship with Ayaka.
    • Yuika of course later moved to Tokyo and is a personality and actress in her own right. Because of her connection with Su and Ayami and still being under Amuse's umbrella (until 2023) – she has worked with several other Sakura Gakuin alumnae – SG fans in the West often consider her an "honorary member" and follow her career just as much as actual former members.
  • By the same token, Mariri Sugimoto left Sakura Gakuin after just one year – partly because she had steady modeling work in Hiroshima, but also because of the gruelling commute which Suzuka made note of in her graduation speech. It is likely that, had Mariri stayed, fan-favourite Saki Shirai would have been passed over. No producer in his right mind would have rejected Aiko. ^note  There's a practical reason for this. In order to maintain continuity and institutional knowledge, the group needed an elementary schooler to replace Suzuka, preferably a 5th-grader. Saki Shirai was entering junior high, so accepting her instead of Aiko meant all members would have been 7th grade or higher and thus a 100% turnover in three years.
    • A small irony of this is that all three of Sakura Gakuin's 2015 nendo graduates – Rinon Isono, Saki Ohga, and Saki Shirai – opted not to continue on in the entertainment business. Meanwhile, Mariri is still in the public eye, the only one of the four with a social media presence (prior to Saki Ohga joining twitter in April 2020) and, as she neared her 18th birthday, began getting work outside of her usual LoveBerry magazine spreads, including jobs where she could put her ASH skills to use.^note  Saki Shirai for years after leaving entertainment appeared in photos taken by her hairdresser in Niigata. She also appeared on local television a couple of times during her high school days. In September 2020, she took a yearlong post as one of three "Ambassadors" for Niigata Tourism and appeared on media promoting her hometown. Unlike the Sakis, Rinon dropped off the map completely. Until her surprise video cameo at the 2020 Festival, she had not been photographed or even seen in public since November 2017 (that year's Festival), and NO ONE had claimed to have even communicated with her – Saki Ohga said during an mid-2020 livestream that she worried about possible awkwardness if she ever tried to reconnect with Rinon. Sure enough, once she did contact Rinon a few months later, it was very awkward. In 2021, Rinon returned to work directly for Amuse as a stage-producer, just like she had promised six years earlier. Her first job was helping with Sakura Gakuin's final stage-shows (the first since the pandemic to have live audience).
  • It is very likely that, had Shinzo Abé (Japan's PM at the time) not bungled the response to SARS-CoV2, mostly regarding testing and contact tracing, and had Amuse not overreacted to the pandemic – numbers in Japan were for two years minuscule compared to Europe, LatAM, & especially the USA, though granted Tokyo was a relative hotspot – Sakura Gakuin could have survived as-was beyond 2021 — other non-Amuse Japanese groups resumed live shows not long after SG finally held its RTG'19 Final. Babymetal itself managed to hold ten shows at the Budokan between January and April 2020 (concluding shortly before another Emergency Order shut down live shows again).

Member Data

Because height plays a major role in dance and photograph positions plus, as mentioned on the main page, members talk about it a lot, including with respect to graduates, it seems only fair to list the most recent known height data for members who have (probably) stopped growing. From tallest to shortest:

• ① Ayaka Miyoshi – 171cm / 5’7⅓”
• ② Airi Matsui – 170cm / 5’7”
• ③ (tie) Yunano Notsu & Mariri Sugimoto – 168cm / 5’6⅛”
• ⑤ Miku Tanaka - 166cm / 5’5.4”
• ⑥ (tie) Rinon Isono & Megumi Okada – 165cm / 5’5”
• ⑧ Soyoka Yoshida - 163cm / 5’4.17”
• ⑨ Hana Taguchi - 162.5cm / 5’4”
• ⑩ Raura Iida – 161cm / 5’3⅖”
• ⑪ (tie) Suzuka Nakamoto, Nene Sugisaki, Sara Kurashima, Momoko Okazaki – 160cm / 5’3”
• ⑮ (tie) Hinata Sato, Tsugumi Aritomo – 159cm / 5’2⅗”
• ⑰ Maaya Asou – 157.5cm / 5’2”
• ⑱ Yuzumi Shintani – 157cm / 5’1⅘”
• ⑲ Yui Mizuno – 156.5cm / 5’1⅝”
• ⑳ (tie) Kano Fujihira & Momoe Mori - 155.8cm / 5’1⅓”
• ㉒ (tie) Marina Horiuchi & Saki Shirai – 155cm / 5’1”
• ㉔ Moa Kikuchi – 154.5cm / 5’0.8”
• ㉕ (tie) Mirena Kurosawa & Marin Hidaka – 152cm / 4’11.84”
• ㉗ Aiko Yamaide – 151.1cm / 4’11½”
• ㉘ Sana Shiratori - 151cm / 4’11.45”
• ㉙ Saki Ooga – 150cm / 4’11”
• ㉚ Ayami Muto – 149cm / 4’10⅔”

One of the primary ways for the girls to reach out to fans outside of shows or livestreams are the diaries on Ameblo – written by hand & scanned by the staff – which were a thing even before SG made its first public appearance. The following list shows, in descending order, the number of individual diaries by each graduate.^* (i.e. not counting joint or group entries, which are noted separately on the site)

• 180 – Aiko
• 140 – Saki-O
• 138 – Moa
• 122 – Rinon
• 119 – Yui, Soyoka^* (Soyo might consider her total "115" because she split her 100th diary into 4 parts)
• 100 – Marina, Saki-S, Kano
• 92 – Raura, Megumi
• 91 – Suzuka
• 86 – Nene
• 82 – Maaya
• 76 – Hana
• 73 – Hinata
• 70 – Yunano
• 64 – Tsugumi
• 57 – Ayami
• 53 – Sara
• 47 – Momoko
• 36 – Momoe
• 35 – Marin, Yuzumi
• 34 – Ayaka
• 33 – Airi, Mirena
• 16 – Mariri

Other Fun Tidbits

• It has been sort of a Running Gag amongst Fukei to guess which graduates would get themselves an Important Haircut (i.e. long to above-the-shoulders) within a year after graduation. At this point, it's actually a shorter list of which girls didn't. What follows is a list of members who kept their hair long until at least age 18. Some have kept their hair long to the present day either due to their job or personal preference. Obviously, the few girls who had short hair during their SG tenure (Sara, Kokona, etc.) don't count.
  • Airi (she did eventually bob her hair but not until well into her 20's)
  • Suzuka
  • Hinata
  • Yui (unseen since 2017, but was 18 at her final public appearance, so she counts)
  • Moa
  • Hana
  • Mariri
  • Megumi
  • Momoko
  • Tsugumi
  • Kano
  • As of this edit, the remaining long-haired members have yet to graduate high school.
• Maybe a little less fun, but there are a few Sakura Girls who opted not to continue in entertainment upon entering high school and/or University. Others stayed in the public eye but left Amuse (or were fired).
  • Left Entertainment Completely:
    • Nene – Became a nurse
    • Yunano – Went to university, got a degree in Economics, now works at some office somewhere
    • Saki Shirai – Returned to Niigata, current job unknown (briefly a tourism ambassador)
    • Rinon – Kept a low profile after SG; now helps with behind-the-scenes stage work at Amuse
    • Aiko – Fired by Amuse (or quit) shortly after her 18th birthday, has yet to permanently resurface
    • Maaya – Quit Amuse upon graduating high school to focus on Arts College; insists she will return
    • Yume – Quit at the start of her junior year of high school to focus on studies; said she will return
  • Left Amuse but later returned to the stage
    • Ayami – Spent a couple years in New Zealand, returned to Japan as a Singer-Songwriter
    • Raura – Quit Amuse in 2018 but soon joined another company; still does stage work
    • Hana – Lost her slot at Amuse when Torahime-Ichiza folded; still does stage work and modeling
    • Mariri – Quit Amuse at 16; signed with a model-focused agency; still does modeling and stage work
    • Saki Ohga – Quit Amuse after SG; returned to public life on her 20th b'day; makes tiktok videos
    • Mirena – Left Amuse to concentrate on university entrance exams; still does stage work
    • Momoko – Left Amuse to study abroad; tried & failed to become a K-pop star; now Babymetal's 3rd member
    • Miku – Quit when she entered high school to become a "normal student" but soon started her own agency
  • Still Officially Active but On Hiatus
    • Yui – No one has seen her since 2018 but she remains on Amuse's roster; future goals unknown

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