A Japanese idol has taken the world of Chinese reality TV by storm.
Singer and dancer, Mai Mizuhashi, who is widely known by her stage name MARiA, is a member of the band GARNiDELiA and has also become popular for posting videos on the Japanese video site Niconico.
However, this year her success has taken a new trajectory after she took part in the popular Chinese variety show Ride the Wind 2023, previously known as Sisters Who Make Waves.
Ride the Wind 2023 is a reality show on Hunan TV, one of the most prominent production names in the Chinese entertainment industry.
Broadcast on its online channel, Mango TV, the show is also considered to be the fourth season of Sisters Who Make Waves, which was first aired in 2020.
The show invites female singers and actors over the age of 30, who are well-known in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to compete in singing and dancing competitions, with the winners eventually being selected to form a girl group.
A small number from other Asian countries are also invited to participate.
This year, the crew of Ride the Wind 2023 invited 33 participants, including Japanese singer MARiA, who made her breakthrough in China and around the world seven years ago with her song Gokuraku Jodo.
The video that accompanies Gokuraku Jodo has been played nearly 100 million times on YouTube. On Bilibili, a popular video site in China, several videos related to the song have been viewed more than 10 million times.
In the first episode of Ride the Wind 2023, aired on May 5, MARiA sang the song again, wearing the same outfit she wore in the original Gokuraku Jodo music video.
MARiA came seventh out of 33 contestants.
However, after the show aired, she quickly became a hot topic of discussion on the Chinese internet, and the song Gokuraku Jodo has propelled her to the top of the show’s poll.
As of May 12, MARiA has received 47 million votes, significantly more than the famous Chinese presenter, Xie Na, who ranked second, and her number of votes continues to rise.
On YouTube, under a video of MARiA’s one-minute-39-second performance, one person commented: “I can’t stop watching!”
“Every second of this 99-second performance is full of energy,” said another.
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