I've been watching
Sailor Zombie recently, and it's kind of a little disappointing, lacking the immediate grotesque charm of the game. When that arcade cabinet first surfaced in 2014, I was awed and enthralled by it, the idea of an entire
House of the Dead built around shooting down your zombiefied oshimen. The television adaptation of
Sailor Zombie is not really like that, structured around a handful of AKB48 members locked together in a makeshift commune within a school, the cast rounded out by more seasoned actors. The central character, Maiko, is played by
Owada Nana, and the drama uses a framework in which Maiko will sometimes look inward and talk to herself, her subconscious taking the shape of former idol unit, MILK PLANET (
Yokoyama Yui, Watanabe Mayu, and Iwata Karen). We're not going to talk about any of those members however, because I'm obsessed with the little café some of the students run in the school, and the character of Arina's obsession with
Izuta Rina.
Izuta Rina doesn't appear in
Sailor Zombie beyond a few glimpses of an AKB48 Café & Shop photograph, but the presence of her image is enough to signify her growing importance during this period of the group's history. Passing auditions in 2010, Izurina remained in the kenkyuusei up until 2012 when she was transferred over to Team Unknown, a year after this same placeholder was used to codify the existence of Team 4. This use of the placeholder was not for bolstering the ranks of Team 4 however, and, along with
Fujita Nana and a number of other kenkyuusei, these members were dispersed throughout the original three teams, with Izurina landing in
Team A.
From 2011, the then current kenkyuusei had begun to appear on the B sides of singles, and although Izurina's results in the elections in which she participated amounted to not much of anything, I think it's important to remember that during these years, if you were competing in the elections, you were basically competing against the Kami 7, and I think that's something to considered when asking ourselves why certain popular members weren't more successful.
Despite a string of B sides, despite being transferred several times over (
Team B in 2014, Team 4 in 2015) during shuffle events and big concerts, you could argue almost that Izurina's story doesn't really begin until 2017.
Joining Team Kaigai, AKB's placeholder for members transferred abroad, seems like something of a poison chalice if we only consider
Suzuki Mariya and Miyazawa Sae's history with SNH48. However, there were other members who made it work, most notably
Nakagawa Haruka. I think Izurina made things work also. In the theatre, on 13th April 2017, she announced her own transfer to the nascent BNK48, the first generation members having only just been announced in Bangkok several months earlier, as well as also announcing
Abe Maria's transfer to what was then still being called TPE48.
BNK48 was an unusual proposition. I don't feel I am in a place to talk about these groups as I have very little experience with them, nor do I have any experience with Indonesian or Thai pop culture. I have, like, two CDs by Thai groups bought on a whim,
Neko Jump and
ZaZa, but that's the full extent of my somewhat dated understanding of the arena into which BNK48 debuted. One thing that has struck me though, and I hope you will forgive my lack of any real understanding, is the way in which these groups have historically been more open to supporting LGBTQIA+ issues. When AKB's Thai sister groups changed their logos to
incorporate the Pride flag on social media during 2023, I didn't really think anything of it; in 2025, however, it feels like a lifeline. I don't even know what the rainbow flag means to me anymore, but seeing a 48 group so proudly—no pun intended—flying is important. I digress.
Perhaps the first time the general public in Thailand became conscious of Izurina was her inclusion in the senbatsu for the group's second single, a cover of
Koi Suru Fortune Cookie, the original of which also prominently featured the Pride flag in the video. The release of this single came in December 2017, the same month Team BIII was formed. Behind the scenes, whilst not appearing on further BNK A sides, she became an integral part of the team. In some ways, members transferred overseas are faced with a no win scenario. Often the motivation for moving was the stiff competition at home, yet overseas, there is naturally an inclination by management to focus on homegrown talent rather than centering a foreign girl at the heart of the group. Where Izurina came into her own was behind the scenes, however, specifically in 2019 with her transfer to new Thai sister group, CGM48, and the creation of the group's General Manager position.
As well as appearing in the senbatsu for five out of the eight singles released by CGM, Izurina took her job as manager seriously, using her experience with AKB and BNK to support the group in a way that only someone who knows the pressure of being an idol could. As established, I don't know too much about the overseas sister groups, and yet even I am aware of the successes of CGM48, and I think a large part of that is because of the work Izurina did.
In November of last year, Izurina graduated from CGM48, and in December, she released her first solo single,
My Sakura, declaring that her intent as solo artist was to further strengthen the bridge between Japan and Thailand. Izurina has a lot to be proud of. Her story is not the conventional idol success story, but it is a success story nonetheless. AKB48 tenth generation's ace, the last member of her generation to graduate, friends, we have a lot to thank Izuta Rina for.
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threesentenceficathon.
