So while cruising around Twitter the other day, looking for some Weekender material, I was reminded of Some Idols We’ve Looked at Before and happened to check up on Maria, which seems to be in some flux but does still exit. Okay good! But what about another group, similarly named, who are also Some Idols We’ve Looked at Before but not often, actually — Jeanne Maria.

Besides showing up for a minute in the Corenament, Jeanne Maria has appeared all of twice. Not really something to concern oneself with! But I do like to keep up, just out of a sense of pride maybe, or because idol is ultimately terminal for the people involved and there’s something validating in knowing how and when and why a group met its fate.

So I went looking. Nothing really on Twitter, other searches in other places mostly turning up old material. Nothing new! So what happened?

Serendipity, my friends. Serendipity happened.

“Say, who’s this that I’m apparently following but have no memory of ever having seen before?”

Jeanne Maria died a not-untypical idol death, and in so doing gave way to NEO BREAK; it’s the same group, in a sense, right down to just taking over and remaking the old Twitter account (hence why I was mysteriously following them and had something to check on).

The name is different, and the look is different, there’s a lot less goth and a lot more kawaii and several fewer members, but rock sound remains, and there’s … tumbling passes in the choreography:

It turns out that the change happened in April, right after the Corenament, and they’ve been staying pretty regularly busy since then.

So good! Jeanne Maria is dead, but NEO BREAK lives, and they can keep injecting upbeat fun into the world.