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Idols from the sea! Massive haul of idol singer photos wash up on Japanese coast【Photos】

Casey Baseel Sep 23, 2021
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Not the kind of trash beach-cleaning volunteer expected to find.

Japanese Twitter user @warunori_55 is a guy with a lot of pride for his hometown, Kanagawa Prefecture’s Fujisawa. About an hour south of downtown Tokyo, Fujisawa is part of the Shonan coast, one of east Japan’s most popular beach areas. The beaches near Fujisawa’s Enoshima island even afford gorgeous views of Mt. Fuji when the weather is clear.

最近綺麗っすねー💫 pic.twitter.com/LwV50qFP22

— WARUNORI🚯 (@warunori_55) August 5, 2021

Because he loves his town, @warunori_55 regularly volunteers to help keep the beaches clean by picking up trash that’s been left behind by inconsiderate visitors or washed up on shore. Usually, that would mean things like empty drink containers and snack wrappers, but earlier this month he spotted some very different debris.

Bunching together in the water near the shoreline were dozens of pieces of paper. Ordinarily, you’d expect such material to dissolve after prolonged exposure to saltwater, but these were laminated, because it turned out that they were…

…pictures of idol singers! And not just any idols, but two especially famous ones, Natsumi Abe and Maki Goto.

江ノ島に #安倍なつみ大量🙄
嫌いになっちゃったのかな🥲#ハロープロジェクト #モーニング娘 #後藤真希 pic.twitter.com/iNrvsBBlg6

— WARUNORI🚯 (@warunori_55) September 17, 2021

You might not be familiar with those names if you’ve only recently gotten into idol music, but both Abe and Goto were members of idol mega group Morning Musume, which dominated the genre during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Abe was a member of the unit from 1997 to 2004, and while Goto’s membership was shorter, 1999-2001, she was arguably the most popular idol in the entire country at that time.

▼ Maki Goto

後藤真希だけ持って帰ります❤️笑 pic.twitter.com/qghQPQWA44

— WARUNORI🚯 (@warunori_55) September 17, 2021

However, that vintage makes the way the photo cards were discovered all the stranger. While both Abe and Goto went on to have moderately successful solo careers, they’re still best known for their time with Morning Musume, and it’s been over a decade since either was a bona fide A-lister in the Japanese music industry. “I wonder if the owner stopped liking them,” wonders @warunori_55, but it seems like if someone was just going through an Abe-and-Goto phase, they would have gotten over it long ago, making now a weird time to throw their no-longer-wanted treasures into the sea.

流してたらめっちゃ好きになってきた🥲#安倍なつみ pic.twitter.com/gCRpSgyupX

— WARUNORI🚯 (@warunori_55) September 17, 2021

Though he initially intended to take only the Goto photos home with him, as more and more Abe cards washed up, @warunori_55 started to develop a fondness for her as well, and so he’s hanging onto the whole set for now. We may never know how the idol pictures ended up in the ocean, just like we’re still not sure how that amazing set of Yi-Gi-Oh cards appeared in a river elsewhere in Japan, but it’s starting to look like a good idea to keep your eyes peeled when around the country’s bodies of water, just in case some collectibles come floating your way.

Source: Twitter/@warunori_55 via Kinisoku
Images: Twitter/@warunori_55
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Follow Casey on Twitter, where it’s only a matter of time before he’s talking about Shonan or ’90s J-pop again.