ORI☆HIMETAI started out with 6 members, but currently have 12, with one of them listed as a trainee on the official website. How long one stays a trainee before becoming a full member is unclear. For example, KAREN, the youngest member, was listed as a trainee for over a year before becoming a full member of the group. The members of ORI☆HIMETAI go by their given names only written with English letters in all capitals. (Defunct idol group PEACEFUL did the same thing.) The leader of ORI☆HIMETAI is NODOCA, who used to spell her name NODOKA, and she isn't the oldest member of the group. This is another thing that makes ORI☆HIMETAI a bit different from other idol groups.
While ORI☆HIMETAI are like many idol groups that try to keep a positive, happy attitude, once in a while you will see a blog post such as the one written by ANNE on April 8, 2013. In this blog article ANNE mentions that ORI☆HIMETAI helped to clean up a school that was still damaged after two years. She mentions all the broken glass that needed cleaned up as well as the death toll in that area. This is a real wake up call, a stark contrast to the ultra cute blog posts many idols make.
I watched a few hours of videos on YouTube these past few days looking for some good ORI☆HIMETAI videos to share. The group has an official YouTube channel called TRACK JASIA (the name of the studio where they perform), but there isn't an official music video for any of their songs, and many of the videos on this channel are low quality, with some that even get cut off suddenly. The fan videos are sometimes in HD, but they also suffer from a variety of picture and sound problems. So, I'm going to share a couple videos that aren't perfect, but worth watching if you want to check out the group perform live. I wanted to find a recent video of the full group, so I'm choosing a song from the TRACK JASIA channel from November 2013 called "Christmas Kiss".
The next video is from March of this year, and it's in HD, but it only has 7 members in it.
Members:
NODOCA, formerly NODOKA, Leader - Born on November 24, 1999
ERINA, Sub-Leader - Born on October 6, 1996
HANNA, Sub-Leader - Born on July 29, 1998
RINA - Born on January 23, 1999
YUNA - Born on June 27, 1999
ANNE - Born on April 24, 2000
YURIA - Born on February 15, 2000
ERIN, formerly ERI - Born on September 28, 1999
MARIE - Born on July 30, 2001
SORA - Born on September 24, 2001
KAREN - Born on November 26, 2002
Trainee:
MINAMI - Born on August 22, 1998
Discography:
Singles:
"Heart to Heart x 9" (CD + DVD) (June 2, 2012)
"Papa ~Sunaoninarenakute~ Just the way you are" (October 28, 2012)
"ORI☆STAR Love Jet" & "Orange Ole! Ole!" (December 24, 2012)
"Namiuchigiwa no Kataomoi" (February 24, 2013) (HANNA solo CD)
"Don't play hard to get" & "Matta itsuka" ("Someday") (March 31, 2013)
"Sora ga Aoi" ("The Sky is Blue") & "Shanpu PUPUPU" ("Shampoo PUPUPU") by RINA (June 9, 2013)
"Christmas Kiss" & "Onichan to Yoba Sete" by MILKYWAYS* (October 27, 2013)
"Kimi ni Todoku Kaze ni Nare" & "Takara Mono" (March 16, 2014)
*MILKYWAYS is a subunit with YUNA, ANNE, MARIE, SORA & KAREN
DVD:
"Lyashi.." ("Healing..") (December 8, 2013)
Various Artists Compilation Album:
"Japan Idol File" (April 28, 2013; Disc 1, Track 5, "Sakura no Hana ga Saku Goro"
Official Website
Official Blog
Official Twitter
Official Facebook
TRACK JASIA YouTube
