Sakura Gakuin

Sakura Gakuin (さくら学院, lit "Cherry Blossom Academy") is a Japanese idol girl group formed in 2010 by the Amuse talent agency.

Concept

Sakura Gakuin employs a line-up changing system with members joining and leaving. Since the group is conceived as consisting of girls up to junior high school, when a member graduates from junior high, she "graduates" from Sakura Gakuin too (i.e. leaves the group).

History

2010

The group Sakura Gakuin was created in April 2010 by the talent agency Amuse. In August, the group participated in the Tokyo Idol Festival 2010. This was the year when the event was held for the first time. In October 2010, a unit called Twinklestars, consisting of seven girls, was formed. In November, Twinklestars released their first single "Dear Mr.Socrates", which was sold only at live venues. Sakura Gakuin held its first solo event on November 28, 2010. On December 12, 2010, the group released its major debut single "Yume ni Mukatte / Hello! Ivy".

2011

Sakura Gakuin's first album, Sakura Gakuin 2010 Nendo: Message, was scheduled to appear on March 23, 2011, but it was postponed until April 27 due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami. On May 30, came the announcement that Twinklestars were to have a new single, titled "Please! Please! Please!", out on the 6th of July. In August, Sakura Gakuin took part in the Tokyo Idol Festival for the second consecutive time. On October 23, 2011, at an event held in Tokyo, it was announced that the group's second single would be called "Verishuvi" and it would be released on December 21 through Universal Music. The new song was performed for the first time exactly one month later, on November 23.

Cherry blossom

A cherry blossom is the flower of any of several trees of genus Prunus, particularly the Japanese cherry, Prunus serrulata, which is called sakura after the Japanese (桜 or 櫻; さくら).

Cherry blossom is speculated to be native to the Himalayas. Currently it is widely distributed, especially in the temperate zone of the Northern Hemisphere including Europe, West Siberia, India, China, Japan, Korea, Canada, and the United States. The cherry blossom is considered the national flower of Japan.

Many of the varieties that have been cultivated for ornamental use do not produce fruit. Edible cherries generally come from cultivars of the related species Prunus avium and Prunus cerasus. Cherry blossom are also closely related to other Prunus trees such as the almond, peach, plum and apricot and more distantly to apples, pears and roses.

Flower viewing

"Hanami" is the centuries-old practice of picnicking under a blooming sakura or ume tree. The custom is said to have started during the Nara Period (710–794) when it was ume blossoms that people admired in the beginning. But by the Heian Period (794–1185), cherry blossoms came to attract more attention and hanami was synonymous with sakura. From then on, in both waka and haiku, "flowers" (花, hana) meant "cherry blossoms". The custom was originally limited to the elite of the Imperial Court, but soon spread to samurai society and, by the Edo period, to the common people as well. Tokugawa Yoshimune planted areas of cherry blossom trees to encourage this. Under the sakura trees, people had lunch and drank sake in cheerful feasts.

Cuteness

Cuteness is a subjective term describing a type of attractiveness commonly associated with youth and appearance, as well as a scientific concept and analytical model in ethology, first introduced by Konrad Lorenz. Lorenz proposed the concept of baby schema (Kindchenschema), a set of facial and body features, that make a creature appear "cute" and activate ("release") in others the motivation to care for it. Cuteness may be ascribed to people as well as things that are regarded as attractive or charming.

Juvenile traits and cuteness

Doug Jones, a visiting scholar in anthropology at Cornell University, said that the proportions of facial features change with age due to changes in hard tissue and soft tissue, and Jones said that these "age-related changes" cause juvenile animals to have the "characteristic 'cute' appearance" of proportionately smaller snouts, higher foreheads and larger eyes than their adult counterparts. In terms of hard tissue, Jones said that the neurocranium grows a lot in juveniles while the bones for the nose and the parts of the skull involved in chewing food only reach maximum growth later. In terms of soft tissue, Jones said that the cartilaginous tissues of the ears and nose continue to grow throughout a person's lifetime, starting at age twenty-five the eyebrows descend on the "supraorbital rim" from a position above the supraorbital rim to a position below it, the "lateral aspect of the eyebrows" sags with age, making the eyes appear smaller, and the red part of the lips gets thinner with age due to loss of connective tissue.

Humour

Humour (in Commonwealth English), or humor (in American English) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.

People of all ages and cultures respond to humour. Most people are able to experience humour—be amused, smile or laugh at something funny—and thus are considered to have a sense of humour. The hypothetical person lacking a sense of humour would likely find the behaviour induced by humour to be inexplicable, strange, or even irrational. Though ultimately decided by personal taste, the extent to which a person finds something humorous depends on a host of variables, including geographical location, culture, maturity, level of education, intelligence and context. For example, young children may favour slapstick such as Punch and Judy puppet shows or cartoons such as Tom and Jerry, whose physical nature makes it accessible to them. By contrast, sophisticated forms of humour such as satire require an understanding of its social meaning and context, and thus tend to appeal to the mature audience.

Moment

Moment or Moments may refer to:

Science, engineering, and mathematics

Art and entertainment

Albums

Songs

Other media