'Top Twenty Faves' countdown for 2021: Position #10, the irresistible yet mystifying Miona Hori!

 

 Previous positions:

#16, Yuki Yoda .... #15, Mio Imada .... #14, Miru Shiroma .... #13, Nene Shida

#12, Minami Hamabe .... #11, Yui Kobayashi

 For a while thought this opening would be a bit too mean but couldn't do something like that to such a long time fave but will say I have been disappointed in her ex-Nogi career up until now. When an Idol leaves a popular J-Pop group those first six months are so important, it's a wise idea to remain extremely busy and there's always time for a break later on. Miona has been gone from Nogi close to eight months now and did have the female lead role in a drama a bit after her departure. But save for that she's done very few other activities which has really surprised me, the market is so full of ex-Idols so it's real easy to become forgotten. Not that I'm a world class master on the subject but after so many years of posting about Idols it's so easy to see patterns and what graduates do right or wrong.

 Miona hasn't appeared in a regular magazine since her graduation nor has she been at even one event. She was a guest host on a variety show in September and October but those shows are dime a dozen so how many viewers do those second rate ones get? To me Miona was always one of Nogi's most sensible members and did she work so hard for eight years just to be a co-host of under the radar variety shows? Wouldn't think she toiled so hard for that and I'll bet other viewers have had the same thoughts about her ex-Nogi career or about other Idols too. So while not an uplifting beginning she did make the tenth position on the list, a drop of eight spots from 2020 but it's her fourth time making the list.

 Will do a recap post for this year's list the day after number one is crowned. But have noticed that my huge faves haven't changed much over the past 3-4 years. Nine women in the top ten have made the top ten at least one other year, three were prior number ones and the one newbie did finish in the 17th position last year. For a while Miona was in the running for this year's #1 but fell flat on her face as this is her first post in almost five months, there's never been a gap like that before with her posts. As a matter of fact no Idol had as many solo posts as she did from late 2017 until April 2021 of this year so you can see why I'm a tad disappointed in her post Nogi career. So it's kind of odd how this may be one of the largest of the top sixteen posts, there's around 65 new pics plus plenty of oldies so the total could be well over a hundred pics.

 Those two above pics are from her graduation photobook that came out at the end of April. It was the eighth best selling PB for 2021 with a little over 40,000 copies sold. As I've moaned about before there's been no regular Nogi book in over a year as their last five have been for graduates. Have a little bit of many things and this small batch are Miona's graduation cards. But in an odd move to me other members had more cards than she did celebrating her departure, go figure....

 "Saretagawa no Blue" was the title of Miona's first regular drama, it aired from July 14th until September 1st. It was an eight episode series but only viewed half of it as those kinds of dramas aren't ones that appeal to me and as I've noticed many others. The plot was of marriage infidelities and I'd rather not watch depressing or unmoral shows like that though what took place is quite common. Aiko was the name of her character who wasn't a newlywed but hadn't been married to her husband Noburu for too long. He simply adored Aiko and would do anything for her, Noburu worked at home and was a successful designer. Aiko worked as an OL and began an intense affair with her immediate supervisor Mori who was such a creep.

 Being in an affair is bad enough but his extremely nice wife just had a baby two months before the affair began and he treated her like dirt. In a way Aiko deserved that type of man as she wasn't a much better person who was so two faced and while she didn't do openly hurtful things to her husband he was too nice of a man to deceive. So after four episodes just couldn't take finishing a drama like that, won't say it was a bad show as it wasn't but those types aren't my cup of tea. Do have some screenshots here from the first two episodes as I had been planning on recapping it.

 When Miona was in Nogi she was by far the top member in keeping her blog updated. She still does an excellent job with her Instagram page, have a huge amount of pics from it and could have had many more. She also opened her own site but it's not the greatest as of yet as she hasn't been too busy so there isn't a lot of news there. But she also has a YT channel and on that she does upload many videos, here's the links to both of them: Miona's site    Miona's YT channel

 Those first three above were for her 25th birthday which took place on October 15th. As mentioned there's been zero events since her Nogi departure, her only one this year was for the February 28th 'Tokyo Girls Collection' show. Will go back a bit in time to September 28, 2019 and the last regular 'Girls Award' show, their pics are usually much better. Did a post back then about the event but many of these weren't in that post, she took a stroll promoting Samantha Vega.

 Miona is still a model for the ar magazine but wish another site or two would sign her. These are recent pics from the mag's site, few are also in the spreads and these are some of her best pics of the year as she tries to find out if blondes have more fun....

 Since her graduation ar is the only magazine she's appeared in, Miona's spreads have always been terrific so that's a bit of a bummer. Top seven pics are from their September edition while the rest are from their December issue.

 Seems every year the months fly by even faster, three weeks until X-Mas and there aren't many other gals I wish were in my stocking! Many of these cards you've seen before but five are brand new, looks like I need a second job to please her....

 We've hit the end and will have some beyond perfect pics to view. Know I was kind of harsh to an extent in the beginning but it was mainly disappointment with her lack of activities over the past eight months and there's been very few bigger faves of mine than Miona over the last four years. What I'm worried about then is will she qualify for next year's list, visiting her site wasn't much mention of future activities. Will skip having a video as her only new ones for months have been at Miona's YT channel.