Kanna says goodbye to H!P

I called it, ladies and gentlemen. Arihara Kanna is a °C-utie no longer. I talked about whether Kanna would return or not here, and I still stand behind everything I said. 4 months before it was announced, I kind of knew that Kanna was never coming back, but I was hoping against hope that I was very, very wrong. Unfortunately, in this case, I’m not wrong very often.

I could make this a giant picspam or find some cute Kanna videos to remember her by, but I’m finding it difficult to get the enthusiasm together. I’ve known about this for a few days now, and I’ve only just gotten to where I feel I can talk about this without getting overly emotional. But tears are still welling in my eyes, and I’m miserable in a way that only a wota can be.

None of us know what motive Kanna has in not coming back. Maybe the time off from work made her realize how much stress she was under. Maybe she found a boyfriend who seems worth it to leave idol-dom for. Maybe she doesn’t feel missed enough from the group, especially since they seem to have already moved on. Whatever the reason is, she’s gone. She didn’t come back for a graduation concert, she didn’t try giving °C-ute another shot, and she probably won’t be showing us her charming crooked smile any time soon.

My hope is that Kanna still loves entertaining, though. I think she’s a fabulous performer, even if her voice isn’t the most spectacular. I think she has what it takes to make it bigger than °C-ute could take her, so I hope she’ll take some time to think about it, and then try again. Avex is starting to get a reputation of taking the girls that idol-dom forgot, and since Kanna is only 16 (freshly 16, at that) she had plenty of time to come back into our lives.

I hope she does. I hope to see her perform again. If she did something wrong, it wasn’t nearly as “bad” as what Aibon did, and she came back. Yet, somehow, I wasn’t as sad to see Aibon go because it felt like she would come back. Kanna… it’s iffy. Sure, she’s been in this business a few years, but it can’t be said that she’s enjoyed the same kind of popularity that Aibon had. She’s probably seen more of the downs than the ups of the biz. But my hope is that somewhere beneath it all, she absorbed the love all of the fans *did* show and that it will come back to her enough that she goes to seek it, and her fortune, again.

Losing an idol can’t be compared to losing a close family member, but it still feels like losing a friend. The whole idol business ensures that the fans get to know the girls and pick their favorites, and when your favorite leaves… it hurts. There’s a hint of betrayal in a large well of sadness, but it will fade in time. If we never see Kanna again, we’ll live. But I know for a fact now that nothing the remaining group of °C-ute can do will make me love them. What charm I thought they had is gone.

I do wonder how this might affect the performance of the remaining girls in °C-ute, though. I thought that losing Megumi made the group less impressive, but will the girls lose even more heart knowing that Kanna is officially gone from them forever? Sure, they’re professionals, but most bands who lose members never really recover, unless no one in the group was really all that close to the lost member. In any H!P group, I don’t think that’s a possibility.

Farewell, Kanna. I’ll miss you tremendously, and think of you often. Good luck wherever your life leads you, and I hope it leads you back to us. You are a truly amazing talent, and I hope you never fade.