Ogawa Saki's graduation...what?

OK, so I'm not the best font of Hello!Project information anymore, and S/Mileage has never been my big focus. However, big news has forced my hand to talk about this S/Mileage news, and that's that original member Ogawa Saki has decided to graduate from S/Mileage.

Now I'm more of a fan of Yuukarin myself when it comes to S/Mileage. However, Ogawa Saki's graduation announcement isn't the only thing that is making this news. It's the fact that Saki is graduating in only three days on August 27th.

In case there's any casual Hello!Project/idol fans reading my blog, when an idol announces that they're graduating a group there's usually a good amount of time before they actually graduate. They announce things months in advance, which ends up giving ample time for fans to plan to go to that idol's final concert and say farewell. So already, many eyebrows are being raised at the reasons given for graduation and the hasty nature of it all.

The only time that girls get quickly dropped is either that they're Eggs and UFA thinks THEY'RE disposable or that there's a scandal involved. This leads me to believe that something fishy is going on either with Saki or with UFA, something we might never no or something that might show up in a tabloid eventually. At this point we can only speculate, but so far NO ONE I've seen is taking the concept that Saki is graduating by her own free will any seriously.

According to the statement by Tsunku as translated on Hello!Online, Tsunkku said that Saki requested to graduate back in May. However, why did this graduation announcement happen now? It's really odd, and I think everyone I've seen is rather suspicious.

Still, regardless of motive and what has happened, I wish Ogawa Saki the best of luck with her school life and with her life beyond being an idol!