Thank You, E-girls

At last, the time is getting real close to the official disbandment of one of my favorite Japanese girl group: E-girls. I actually debated myself whether I should write a post or not about them, but I decided to do that as a tribute and my way of thanking them for ever existed. Aside from the fact that they are one of the few Japanese girl group (not idol group) that catch my eyes.

 

E-girls Promoting E.G. TIME

 

I still remember clearly the thing that brought me to the name of this group. It was a comment on a local J-pop fan account during AKB's Teacher Teacher era where the comment that caught me was about the song's style to E-girls (considering how upbeat it is, perhaps). I can't remember the first song that I heard from them, but I was very impressed by their talents and concepts. Especially the vocalists and performer concepts, which I eventually found out that it was originated from their brother group EXILE. Since then, I feel like LDH groups (that follow the formation of Vocals and Performers) are the place where singers and dancers can share the same stage without overshadowing each other. The vocalists may dance along in their MVs, but they mostly focused on singing during their live performance. As for the performers, they were more focused during the dance break and each of them occasionally were given the chance to do their freestyles on concerts. Essentially, their roles were perfectly focused on the talent that they used in the group.

 

 

E-girls Promoting Dance Dance Dance

Not long after that, I was hooked on most of LDH's groups and now I only haven't stan their younger groups that much because I haven't paid attention to them yet. I became informed that E-girls was made as a joint project to combine the girlgroups in LDH: Dream (the only group where all members sing & dance, and not initially originated from LDH), Happiness, & Flower. I instantly love each of these groups and began my exploration further into the fandom. The early EG Pyramid system, as well as the new EG 11 formation within the circle of EG Family which included the remaining girlgroup and female soloists and artists who previously involved with E-girls and remained in the agency. Coincidentally, I only became their fan during the EG 11 era. And next year (which is only two days apart from now), EG Family is changing into LDH Girls as the group that has the name in the collective artists (???) officially disbanded. But let's get to the disbandment stuff later.

E-girls Last Live with Back Dancers (©: reina.washio.official on Instagram)

 

Their style is probably the big factor of why I became their fan, considering I initially was a fan of western upbeat dance and pop music during my adolescent era. Next came the talents. The vocalists really have the gifted voice with them, and they were truly trained to use their voices to perfection. And the performers are no different; they were trained to bring their best in performing the choreography. Branding themselves as an artist (instead of idol), the members also had their fair share of involving in the creative production. Furthermore, I find their early releases more fitted to the category of "cheerful pop" instead of "cute/kawaii", considering how different they use the generally called cute concept compared to the orthodox Japanese idol groups. As time goes by, their concept shifted into a more mature concept which I love, similar to Happiness who grew from cheerful upbeat pop to badass girl crush concept. They also used various concepts like retro style in Dance Dance Dance, and took a melody from a legendary Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra's song "Rydeen" while giving it a twist of Latin dance music for their song "Dance All Night (Rydeen)".

 

E-girls Last Live (©: reina.washio.official on Instagram)

During their remaining two years prior to their announcement of disbandment, I have known their style and the remaining two groups within the EG Family circle. So when it was mentioned that the members had different opinions sometimes, I recognized a slight pattern of their releases with the style of the other LDH girlgroups. Like how "Show Time" could be Happiness' concept with the similarity of the style to Happiness' "Gold", and how the MV of "Pain, pain" resembles Flower's style. And perhaps their disbandment is purely the members' decisions, which I respected regardless of the short two years that I became their fan. It's also still shocking that two members of Happiness/E-girls decided to leave the agency, subsequently leaving their groups and disbanding their trio unit at the same time when E-girls disband. Regardless, I can only respect their wishes and continue to support them regardless of having different paths with each others. As I believe that the agency also respected the artists' decisions.

 

E-girls Cake (©: reina.washio.official on Instagram)

In the end, I basically want to thank E-girls for ever existing. As their existence has given me enough evidence of their creativity, talent, and style. It has been a short two years and I may not have the chance to attend their concerts; but I have supported them in my own ways. Two memorable years and the members are set to step on their different paths. I would keep on supporting Happiness with their 5 members formation, as well as Reina Washio's solo project as Rei. I may check into their younger sister group Girls², but I might not check them that soon. Lastly, E-girls might disband but they have left their artistic footprint in the industry of Japanese entertainment. The footprint which most likely won't fade within my memory.