What does it feel like to stand onstage and dance to a crowd of mostly male fans screaming your group's name while waving glow-sticks in their favorite member's color?
What does it feel like to be called an Idol, to adhere to Idol rules and regulations, even at the comfort of your own school?
What does it feel like to have lived a life that thousands of other girls would pay dearly to live. A life mixed with equal parts of glamour and pain sprinkled with generous servings of laughter and tears. What will you do, when you find out that you inspire many people not only in your country but also around the world yet find out that you can never truly be free of the restrictions of the life that made it possible for your face to be seen around the globe.
What did it feel like to go to the audition that fateful day nine years ago, to see that more than 27,000 other kids showed up, many of them more beautiful, more cute, and arguably a lot more talented than you are?
How does it feel like to be included in a group with seven other girls, six of whom she will spend the next seven years with?
How does it feel finding out that your debut wasn't as big as you were expecting, but the happy moments with your friends more than made it up?
I wonder what it feels to see one of your friends go, knowing you may never see her again?
I wonder what it feels like to finally hit it off, to go to Hawaii the first time, to get scared by a stranger in your van, to be picked on by the chef at a restaurant, to go back home only to find out that there is more work for you and your friends, work that will cause them to fall sick one by one?
What does it feel like, after all these years that you've worked hard, people still regard you as a mere decoration, a background girl, "the fat one", and many names associated with an idol that some fans just can't resist making fun of?
How does it feel like when after all crap you went through, when you are feeling down, a member comes to hug you and call you "Mama"?
How does it feel like, to be Sudou Maasa?
When 2011 came in, they were supposed to be hitting the ground running. Heroine ni Narou Ka! Was released on March 2, 2011 and gave them their first daily number 1 ever.
However, March 11, 2011 came and everything came crashing down. For probably the first time in their lives, they escaped a certain doom. They were scheduled to have a concert in Sendai on March 12, and the venue was just 15 kilometers away from the coast.
Yet they survived and went on to Sakura Con 2011, their first performance in the US mainland. Maasa finally saw with her own eyes how she and Berryz Kobo were loved by people on the other side of their world. People who could barely understand their songs but still sing it anyway.
They returned to Japan and released their next single, Ai no Dangan. But despite massive promotion, the single did not sell well, barely hitting the 20,000 sales mark.
But for Sudou Maasa, will it stop there?
Apparently not. By any means, she's having a great time.
The history of Sudou Maasa is the history of Berryz Kobo. The history of the group is intertwined with the history of its members just as each member brings color to the group, the group breathes life to the parts that make it up.
The Idol Industry glorifies youth and in a group like Berryz Kobo, there will always be fan favorites and high sellers. But Sudou Maasa has captured the hearts of fans everywhere for her hard work, her leadership skills, and her strength of character. In a world where many Idols construct make believe backgrounds and attitudes, Sudou Maasa has remained true to who she really is.
If there is one thing I learned from making this timeline, it is that each of us can do our own thing and matter even if someone else gets the limelight. There will always be someone out there who looks up to you, and all that matters is that you keep believing.
I have always loved background members. With the exception of Michael Jackson, all of my favorite members are the ones in the background doing their own thing. I always found a silent dignity in working in the background. A humility that most of the time is absent on the one who is in the light.
As she turns 19, Maasa is now in the twilight of her Idol career. When she turns 20 next year, she is officially an adult. The music of her group is fast becoming mature, and I have noticed that they are having difficulty executing the jumpier dance steps of their eariler songs. She is no longer the awkward little girl of 2002, she is now a young woman who is living in the now as much as she is looking into the future.
What does it feel like to be Sudou Maasa? I may never know. But I take comfort in the fact that no matter how it hard it might be, she's having the time of her life.
+++++++++++
Many thanks to my friends out there in the Sudou Maasa thread. Dran, Nao-kun, Kaeseki, ninety9nights, Gin, JuulChii, Mimi-chama, and all of those whose names I forgot, who have made the Maasa thread their home (or rest house). This timeline is a personal achievement since this is the first time I was able to do something of this sort.
Last but not the least, thank you to the girls who we all follow and adore from the bottom of our hears: Shimizu Saki, Tsugunaga Momoko, Tokunaga Chinami, Sudou Maasa, Natsuyaki Miyabi, Ishimura Maiha, Kumai Yurina, and Sugaya Risako. The eight girls who gave us reason for listening to H!P and J-pop music and to watch videos and movies even though we we do not undertand 98% of what they were saying. We love you girls, don't give up (even you Maiha, whatever it is you are doing now).
May the Maa be with you!
Enjoy a little picspam of our beloved Maasa...
