What’s Up With Candy Zoo?

When one of your favorite music groups change their lineup, should you keep on supporting them?  This is a question that often goes through my mind.  Candy Zoo have gone through a handful of lineups since their formation in May 2013, and the current lineup seems like a talented bunch of girls.  But still, all the girls that I liked the most have now left the group.  And while I have no proof or facts to back up a theory I have about the current lineup, if anything I suspect is true then I’m pretty upset.

I was a big supporter of the original lineup up of Candy Zoo as well as the first person to write about them in English.  They seemed like a fun and cute group of girls with some exciting songs.  I liked all the girls, but had my favorites, as many idol fans do.  The first girl to graduate from the group was Ootsuka Minami, the lion of Candy Zoo and my favorite.  I continued to be a fan despite that she left, though.  New members continued to join just as some of the original members left.  I remained a fan through all of these changes.  By May 27, 2018 all the original members of Candy Zoo had graduated. 

Later in 2018 remaining members Katayama Yuara (who joined Candy Zoo in April 2015) and Sugaya Natsuko - or Kako, as she likes to be called - (who joined in February 2016) were joined by two new members, Nakahara Fuumi and Hashimoto Ryoka.  Although Yuara is younger than Natsuko, her longer tenure in the group presumably made her the leader of Candy Zoo. Interestingly enough, it was Fuumi who created her own SHOWROOM Live live stream “room”, which no other Candy Zoo member had.  Being the oldest member, an unfamiliar new fan might have mistaken Fuumi as being the leader.  In March 2019 Candy Zoo credited their nighttime performances as Candy Zoo Nightmare, complete with electric hula hoop dresses.  Their electronic reworkings of older songs and several new songs made me think that Candy Zoo were heading in a new, interesting direction.  Then Natsuko graduated from Candy Zoo on September 8, 2019, making Candy Zoo a trio.       

Everything I just typed in the above paragraphs are fact.  From this point forward almost everything is my personal theory that I can’t back up with proof.  Candy Zoo’s company, RIZE Idol Productions, probably wanted to create a new lineup without the older members in 2018 so all the remaining original members, Yamamoto Himiko, Nishisato Rina and Sakamaki Yuuna, were asked to leave.  Sometime after Fuumi and Ryoka joined RIZE probably were thing about creating a bigger lineup, and with Fuumi as leader.  The only way they could do this would be to get Yuara and Kako to graduate.  So they asked Kako to leave the group with the promise of bringing her back later.  Then RIZE asked Yuara to graduate in January (which she did) while they were auditioning new members.  With Yuara, the leader and member with the longest tenure in the group, gone, they were free to declare oldest member Fuumi as the new leader.  RIZE added four new members and brought back Kako, who could not be the leader since she had left the group temporarily.  Fuumi’s fans are probably overjoyed with this, while this Candy Zoo fan is not.  And while the newest songs are decent “cutesy” pop, similar to older Candy Zoo songs, I doubt if the Candy Zoo Nightmare songs, designed for a quartet of singers, will be sung again.  So much for the new, interesting direction!