i love Ryo!

I've always said that NewS is the only JE debuted group i've never found myself really interested in but i just read here in LJ and in Tokyohive that the 6-member group will be cut down to four since Yamapi and Ryo left the group on the same day...

i've read the rumors about Yamapi wanting to go solo and to be honest, i think he had wanted to do exactly that for a long, long time now, maybe even from the start... maybe with the well-received debut of Kisumai earlier and an upcoming new group debut later this year, i guess Johnny finally decided to give in to what he wanted...

Just my shrewd opinion but i do believe that there'd be lesser pressure on the jimusho's part to try and squeeze in work (like singles, albums, concert tours) for NewS (without Yamapi and Ryo) now as compared to before... i mean, Yamapi and Ryo had always been the more prominent members of the group, whether we like it or not, and it's their fans who compose a majority of the NewS fanbase... majority not all...

i've seen a few NewS clips, not really that few but a lot less than the number of clips i've seen of the other groups, and well, the future is not that bleak, i guess... Tegomass has their own fanbase, considerably smaller than Yamapi's or Ryo's maybe but that's a start... besides, they've got talent, they've got beautiful voices, they can still survive if they really try... and maybe it's just the non-Yamapi follower in me saying that maybe it's finally a chance for the others to shine, to be given attention... because really for the past years, we have to admit that NewS is also known as Yamapi with Ryo and others...

as for Yamapi going solo, well, he's been going solo for the past couple of years already... i don't think there's going to be a huge change there... would he be more successful when he focuses on his solo career? i won't put too much hope on that. i read somewhere that Yamapi may have a bigger fanbase but Jin has a better voice range... Yamapi, and even Jin for that matter, will never reach the status Matchy had made for himself... good luck to him though...

as for Ryo, i will be very honest, which in turn will make me sound really bad, when i say that i've always wanted him to leave the group...

i love Kanjani8! i really do... i love the teamwork, the camaraderie, the craziness, but that isn't even why i wanted Ryo to leave NewS... it's because he always looked a bit forced whenever he's around NewS... i mean, compare him when he's with Kanjani8 and when he's with NewS...

with Kanjani8, he talks a lot less than the others but he always looks relaxed... he always looked, well, peaceful... he always looks comfortable... but with NewS, often times, i get this feeling that he's only there because he needed to be there, not because he wanted to be there... with Kanjani8, he can relax a bit because if he can't come up with something, it's a guarantee that the others would pick up the slack... with NewS, he always has to be on his knees because there's only him and Yamapi who usually has to speak up...

i love Ryo, i like Tegomass (i particularly still enjoy listening to AiAi Gasa), i'm not a Yamapi fan and well, Koyama and Shige aren't in my idols to follow list but i do respect them at some point or another... in their new-found situation, i have to say it's a Win-Loss situation... some are winners, some would lose... but at this point, no one can really say which is which... after all nothing is a guarantee... :)

and so ends my little bit of, well, not exactly rant but, ramble...