Jurina is back

Right after AKB48's general election, Matsui Jurina was taking a break from all Idol activities, including 48group and also dropping out of Produce48. Jurina had health problems prior to the election and as they were getting worse she decided to stop all activities for a few months.
Well, now she has returned to perform with AKB and SKE again and she is slowly resuming other actvities as well. She is still not active on social media though.

In her absence, I as well other fans were of course worrying a lot about her. I think it was definitely a  good decision to take a break judging from her health problems (also concerning her mental health). It feels as if Jurina has been working for more than 10 years straight without ever really taking a break. Especially now with so many seniors graduating she must be stressed out even more. Knowing that she is a hardworker I think she has a lot of pressure as the number 1 in the whole 48group. Hence, I can also understand why she will not participate in the next single. Even more than her being active I want her to be healthy so I see her condition to be the most important. It makes me really happy that she had the chance to even take such a break and that she is now healthier and most importantly happier!

She won the election but she could not participate in any activities surrounding the single. Not even the filming of the music video. To keep up AKB48's important single schedule they did film a video - without her. This became a big issue.
I can kind of understand this decision from a marketing perspective as this single is important not only for the Senbatsu winner. Adding to that, they did not know when Jurina would return. Still, it is kind of sad to see this video, especially how it was produced. They did not simply film it without Jurina, they left drawings for her scenes. I guess these should later be replaced by real Jurina scenes but it is kind of weird to see. The whole story in this video is very emotional which does not make it better (and Sakura overshadowing Dasu by a lot).

The most surprising thing though was when a computer animated Jurina appeared in the dancing scenes:

Again, I understand that they had to release SOMETHING and the approach is not bad but this animated Jurina does look really weird. Seems like they just thought about how they would renew the scene later so it has this unfinished touch.
To be honest I do not really like it. The video as a whole looks beautiful and has some really nice shots and scenes but this feels quite cheap.

But I guess I cannot change a thing and I can definitely live with this.
I am just happy that Jurina is back being happy and healthy. I do also wonder how the remake version with Jurina actually being there will look like.

Jurina is back, as am I :)