Birds of a Feather

I was completely thrown by the idea of Takahashi Juri in a K-pop group. It was a suckerpunch, a rocket punch, if you will. It's a little hard to process, but really Juri was one of the first, if not the first to jump ship, and, in doing so, signal the beginning of the end of an era for AKB48.



Juri auditioned for AKB in 2011. In March of the following year, she was promoted to Team 4 at the Saitama Super Arena concert following Oba Mina's reinstatement as captain. Alongside her, both newly promoted and already established, were Kawaei Rina and Iwata Karen, who you can see with Juri in the Sailor Zombie drama, Iriyama Anna, Tano Yuka, and Waseda University student, Nakamata Shiori. Alongside, Karen and Juri, the twelfth generation featured such talented members as Saeed Yokota Erena, Muto Tomu, Hirata Rina, Sasaki Yukari, and, of course, Eguichi Aimi. 2011 gave us a great number of talented members and the rejuvenated Team 4 should have been a great thing... only they were disbanded in August with Juri, Anna, Karen, Rina, Yuka, and Shiori dispatched to Shinoda Team A.

Juri's first appearance in the senbatsu came whilst she was still in the kenkyuusei, in 2012 for Manatsu no Sounds good!, which I remember feeling very sheepish about buying due to the beach/bikini theme of the promotional material and for which the mildly harrowing original video still isn't available on youtube. There's a larger discussion here to be had about the sanding down of AKB's rough edges, the way in which some of the group's more challenging moments are glossed over when we present the past now, but I'll save that for somewhere that isn't the middle of an entry about Juri. Everyone looks so great in this video, I need to exercise more. So yeah, Juri. Labrador Retriever followed in 2014, another beach themed MV, proving that someone in AKS was keen to see Juri in a bikini, and with it came both Sailor Zombie and her move to Kuramochi Team B and her first placement by fan votes in the general election ensuring that she got into Undergirls, a position she held two elections in a row. Following this, she was selected for the senbatsu for celebratory anniversary-ish single, Kibouteki Refrain.

At this point, it maybe felt like staff were pushing Juri quite hard as she was appearing in the front rows of every other single if only because people at AKS were fans. I don't mind that. As much as we're taught to be on the look out for bias and are likely to fly into a rage at any suggestion of unfair line distribution and our oshis not getting the respect we feel they deserve, a large amount of idol group management is curation, which is only easy to say if you forget the members are young girls. Whatever the case, someone at AKS liked Juri and they wanted you to like Juri too. Bokutachi wa Tatakawanai arrived in 2015 with Juri back in the senbatsu, but her real arrival came later in 2016 with the Mukaichi Mion focused Tsubasa wa Iranai, appearing alongside fellow Sailor Zombie cast member Oshima Ryoka for what was the beginning of a new era for AKB with Juri remaining in the senbatsu until her graduation, her final appearance being alongside similarly departing Sashihara Rino on Jiwaru DAYS.

Juri is one of the only "original" Team 4 who was shuffled back into Team 4 and became its new captain in 2015, heralding the debut of Takahashi Team 4, with Owada Nana as her vice-captain and Izuta Rina, Kojima Mako, Tomonaga Mio in the line up. After two years though, it was back to Team B, which is where Juri was when she made her choice to graduate. By 2018, Produce48 had happened, Miyawaki Sakura, Honda Hitomi and Yabuki Nako were in IZ*ONE and either Juri was the smartest girl ever, sensing the winds of change, or she made a calculated gamble, but whatever the case, having placed sixteenth on Produce48 and not having made it into IZ*ONE, in a gesture that might be seen as spite, during her graduation announcement, she informed that she had signed with Korean agency, Woollim. In August the same year, Rocket Punch debuted.

It is a shame that a lot of Rocket Punch's back catalogue sounds exactly like you would expect K-pop from 2019 to sound, incredibly formulaic and dull. Whatever the case, after several years, Juri graduated again, and as recently as 15th September 2025 has returned as producer and lyricist of new idol group, Nü FEEL. I don't know how I, wait for it, feel about the group's debut song, KIRA KAWAII, but I think it puts previous decisions in a different light. Regardless also of how you (I) might feel about Juri's departure from AKB, it's clear that she is, and always has been, someone who clearly understands the idol industry.