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Hanamoto Aoi (花本葵) is a Japanese trainee under Wild Melody Entertainment. She is a participant on WORLD CLASS.
History[]
Early Life[]
Hanamoto Aoi was born on January 3rd, 2005, in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. Aoi's love of singing started from a young age. Her two older sisters owned a lot of karaoke CDs, so Aoi would join her sisters in putting on performances with the songs. As the three of them grew up, they all began to take singing a bit more seriously. Aoi would help arrange vocal covers with her sisters that they would film together.
Aoi's interest in dance began when she was eight years old after her family took her to watch a professional ballet performance. After spending a few months attempting to teach herself how to dance, Aoi asked her parents to enroll her in ballet lessons. She began attending lessons at a local ballet studio starting at age nine. Aoi continued to take ballet lessons until she was fourteen. During that time, she passed the Grade 4 ballet exam.
Although her sisters had moved on to other pursuits, Aoi wanted to become a musician or a singer. In 2020, Aoi began listening to K-pop as a fan rather than just a casual listener. She used her experience with ballet to learn choreography and posted a few K-pop dance covers to YouTube.
Pre-debut[]
In 2021, Aoi auditioned for Wild Melody Entertainment and was accepted. She moved to Seoul, South Korea to live in the trainee dorms. Aoi also transferred to an online high school to continue her education in Japanese. In 2022, Aoi received negative online attention for comments she made during a trainee livestream. In the livestream, Aoi stated that she dislikes most men. After the clip of her comment went semi-viral, Aoi reiterated her statement and stood by it.
WORLD CLASS[]
In April 2024, Aoi was revealed to be a participant on WORLD CLASS.
Personality[]
Aoi is very much a girls girl. She is very encouraging and supportive of other female trainees and always tries to come off as friendly towards them as seen in trainee livestreams. Aoi has an outwardly elegant and professional presence that makes her easy to talk to. She doesn't like stealing the spotlight from others, but she loves being on camera. Aoi tends to push herself too much for the sake of others and will overlook her own well-being to do so.