Sakiko Matsui

Wow.

There have been some really good birthdays lately, but this looks like the last one I'll be freaking out over for a couple of weeks ^__^

Let the record show that Sakiko Matsui is among the girls that I liked and decided to support way before 90% of the AKB fans knew her name or face. Now that she's becoming a bit more popular, she doesn't feel so..."mine" any more. Heh. I both love and hate when my underdogs start to become well-known.

I don't know what it is about her. She's just somehow extremely captivating. She seems like one of the more mature members of the group, both acting and looking her age, and she's amazingly talented.

A display of talent is what got her in the spotlight and into the hearts of fans back in July. The final show of the big summer concert weekend opened in a very non-traditional manner. After the upbeat and fan-hyping usual overture, the so-called curtain opened on Sakiko alone on stage at a piano:



An AKB concert opening with a Chopin etude? Crazy. But brilliant, especially coming from a girl who was not really well-know at the time. Good grief, I can't tell you how excited I was to see that. I wish that video had gone on a bit longer, because right after the Chopin piece, she played a small arrangement of the (then) new single, before jumping into the actual piano intro of "Ponytail to Shushu" as the senbatsu members took the stage to sing it and start the real concert. Absolutely fantastic, and one of the best moments of a momentous year.

So...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAKIKO!!!