My eyebrows kind of did that high-arch thing when I first saw this in the Idolmetal group yesterday — Himekyun Fruit Can, that is, the forever queens of idol rock and I will brook no disagreement, are graduating all* of the members in October because reasons:

ひめキュンフルーツ缶、全メンバー卒業を発表 https://t.co/lC7KQTHU64

— rockinon.com(旧RO69) (@rockinon_com) June 16, 2017

You can look at that story, or this one from Natalie.mu, but the facts are the facts. HKFC’s getting a reboot after a couple of concurrent tours and a festival and a best-of album and all that jazz.

This is the spot for the obligatory sad face, but naw. Unless I’m missing something from the very beginning, this unit has been together for seven years. That’s almost infinity in the idol world, and hard enough to fathom without taking into consideration that they also directly spawned FRUITPOCHETTE (which made it almost five years) and the Cunes that no longer exist. At this point, this is probably the most elegant way for the members to go out, with a planned exit and a chance to say goodbye. It’s literally the best way that MAD MAGAZINE has handled any of this stuff over the last couple of years.

And there’ll be a reboot. New members in November. It’d be cool if they could find something for Zuma to do, but I’d bet that this is going to be full of completely new faces. Or maybe the nanoRider members all get re-recruited and promoted to the big roster en masse, I dunno.

Anyway, show me anybody who did better than this:

Editing to add: Man, taking a little spin down memory lane reminded me that I should’ve done that “Before They Were Hoimcidol” thing for HKFC, because they’re perfect for it:

*except Honoka, who’s been out sick for a while and is now graduated