spooktober challenge

Hono no Tenko Tchionger Seven is a delight, a love letter to the original Kamen Rider, to older tokusatsu in general. The moment I first encountered and realised it was filmed and broadcast on a local network in Niigata, I began clutching at straws, wondering if there was an NGT48 tie-in that I could chase down. Sure enough, the second season of the show from 2021 features a supporting cast made up almost entirely of second generation NGT members! There’s Morohashi Hinata! There’s Ogoe Haruka! There’s Oguma Tsugumi from the first generation! There’s Otsuka Nanami playing a mysterious woman with a dark past!



In June 2018, amidst uncertain waters, NGT’s second generation debuted with Nanachi in the line-up. By August, it was time for AKB’s second Unit Janken Tournament, a result that ended in the CD debut of the sub-unit Fortune Cherry (Matsuda Yumi and Tada Kyoko). Because of the way this contest was set up, contestants entered in groups, with Nanachi numbering amongst the members of 2ki, an NGT kenkyuusei gathering with Morohashi at the centre. Against all odds, they got really far in the contest and earned themselves a place on the B side of the Fortune Cherry single! Drone Jealousy is an odd song, but it’s upbeat and exciting, so even if Akimoto didn’t hit the ball out of the park with the lyrics, it's still a good song, a song sadly forgotten now as it came at a bad time in NGT’s history. I don’t want to attribute too much to it but it’s really telling how only now is it considered an NGT song, whereas previously it was a song belonging to the kenkyuusei runner up group of that contest.

With their success, the second generation of NGT became more well known, continuing activities as 2ki until the end of the year. In November, Nanachi appeared in a revival of Team G’s first stage, Saka Agari, as an understudy for Seiji Reina, Sugahara Riko, and Kamimura Ayuka. 2019 was a year in which NGT underwent a lot of changes. It feels like a long time that Nanachi and the second generation kenkyuusei were left hanging, but in 2020, Nanachi was announced as a member of the senbatsu for the group’s fifth single, Sherbert Pink, standing shoulder to shoulder with a number of original members and a whole host of kenkyuusei, not least of all, the demoted Kato Minami. After this, the second generation was finally codified as ‘official’ and Nanachi, Morohashi, and Ogue and their peers were ‘promoted’ into their own generation.

Nanachi became a familiar face in the senbatsu, and whilst NGT48 singles have dwindled to a once-a-year event, Nanachi has been on each of them since Sherbert Pink, and with the two most recent release, Isshun no Hanabi, and new single, Kibou Ressha, she appears as joint centre!

If you are new to NGT, or if you are willing to put the past behind you and wanted to know who to look out for in the group, my advice would be to follow Nanachi. Having weathered the storm and now being one of the group’s longest serving members, Nanachi is clearly in the hearts of fans.

Last week, lulled by the movement of the train, I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok, and I spent a long moment thinking about the fairytale of New York. I can't imagine New York outside of cinema and records. Some of you live there and I deal with this contradiction daily, the idea of a city as a fantasy and a city as a fixed location. This book made me think a lot about my relationship with the world around me, the world to come. I realised I don't want to talk about that ever; I realised that this was something I held deep in my heart and that it has become who I am now that I am adult, and I don't want to talk about it so I won't. Yet I keep thinking about the friendship this book depicts, the things it says about our relationships with our fathers, with the fathers of our fathers. I should have read this book long before this past week, I thought sadly as I turned the final page.

Last night, I watched Fruit Chan's Made in Hong Kong, also for the first time, and whilst it did not speak to me in the same way, it held in it a portrait of another city that also resonated, one I know slightly better, one I am forever mourning. Mourning is not the right word. Hong Kong was never mine. Much like the idea of an acceptable Jewish identity, it was simply something I ached for. I hate typing these words because I can see the fault line of my father's behaviour in them. Sometimes, on the Piccadilly Line, swaying back and forth on the way to work, I'm scared of what I have left to lose, what is almost out of my grasp.

A year ago, I wrote a story about a character that I was already in the throes of being obsessed with. To-day's flavour of frustration with myself feels very apt. I didn't realise to-day was its anniversary and now I am a jumble of feelings.

Title: Menhera
Universe: Kamen Rider Black RX
Character(s): Fumiko, Masaki
Series: The Unspeakable Oath | Between To-day and To-morrorow | Pagliacci | The Ghost of a Flea | Dangerous Days | dérive | In Accordance to Natural Law | Shadow Moon | Wake Up the Hero! | Rêve | Channelling the Power of Souls | Evanescent Quietude | Pearls Before Swine | One Day Closer to the End of the World | Lonely, Lonely Heart | Life Eternal
Rating: 15
Warnings: Discussion of mental health, suicide
Summary: Her smile faded a little, she looked away, staring down at her plate, expensive pasta, expensive bolognaise. She would regret spending so much on the night when her rent was due. It was easier when people knew about it, she thought. If she told them, then she wouldn’t have to worry about them hating her. She would know for sure.
Length: 946 words
Author's Notes: I feel like I need to start making notes about where all these kid characters, now grown up, originally appear. We first meet Fumiko in episode #18, Masaki appears in episode #11 (PSA: he's the kid that turns into a bike), Chigusa appears in episode #9, Shizuka and Yuichi are from episode #10, and Tomoka is from episode #8. also: external link.



( Menhera )