Welcome to Gaia! ::

Wow...an English paper? That's pretty awesome...all my English papers had to be on actual texts and literature, not music ^_^;

I have my opinion on the issue if you want to talk to people in the fandom about the issue.

Its a rather unpopular opinion, but yes. maybe its best to conduct a survey on a forum where you know there are a lot of people familiar with An Cafe and who feel something for the issue?

I'd suggest somewhere more concentrated like Batsu...you probably won't get many good responses here.

It's a web forum/message board for jrock.

You'll probably find a thread dedicated to An Cafe there that might help you.

I personally don't like the place...a lot of fangirling and elitism and unecessary web rudeness and drama as the fandom is wont to do.
But when that's not happening its undeniably a good resource for news and other goodies.

You just might be able to get a more organized and concise response from a board where people come only for talking about jrock.

As for my opinion...
I don't really care so much that Bou is leaving.
Bands will change and grow, its unfortunate that a band member people have come to like leaves, but it doesn't mean its the end of the band or the end of things for Bou. Good bands have gotten through more catastrophic line up changes before. (Anyone remember when BOTH guitarists up and left Vidoll? Now they're doing better than they were before. Or you know...when Moi dix mois keeps on losing like...3/4 of their line up all the time, or the fact that the only original member left of Sex Machineguns is Anchang?)

Bou doesn't make the band, he is not what defines An Cafe unless all fans care about is looks, then maybe An Cafe is a hair less floofily adorable without its token cute factor.

A good band will get through this, get a new guitarist, move on and get better.
If An Cafe is a bad band, then they will fail from just one member leaving their number.

The music is tantamount, not the image.

My problem is with people swearing up and down that An Cafe is doomed because of Bou leaving, so much that the band had to issue a statement reassuring their fans that nothing was going to happen to the band.

I think its kind of an insult to them if people think they can't go on because they're no longer as cute... rolleyes

I don't even like An Cafe's music or as a band, but I'd hope they have it in them to get beyond this obstacle and prove themselves greater than just the value of its individual members.

Yeah, Bou's leaving *sobs* Today's going to be his last concert. Rumor has it he's leaving to take care of his sick parents, though nothing official has been released on it. I'll give you links later to the sites I've found and you can read about it. I guess, when he told An Cafe members that he was leaving, he seemed really sad too sad and that's not good for our happy Bou. But the rest of the band wants to make today his best concert with them.