Originally from here:
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/01/1 ... er-doomed/

There are rumours amongst Shoko-tan fans that she is not long in the world of show business, and that the cosplay idol and blog queen will soon be forced out entirely, having completely fallen from grace.

Exemplifying this is what must have been a crushingly humiliating appearance in a recent episode of variety programme “Anmitsu Hime 2”, where she was snubbed so completely as to not even have been given a microphone, let alone any sort of role:

She was conspicuously excluded from the teams on the show, and was basically ignored. Why even invite a talent to a show if they are not to participate? To grind a message home?

You’ll also notice she has not even been given a lapel microphone as everyone else has.

Fans have gone so far as to call this harassment, and it is easy to see why. She looks positively dejected.

It is said she may have fallen from favour in a show business clique (and is perhaps not as novel as she once was), resulting in the career destroying treatment you see.

It is not all crushing humiliation for Shoko-tan though. She still has her own TV programme, “Shokorita”, where she gaily engages in cosplay and singing, as you can see below with her Ranka Lee group cosplay, not her first by any means:

She looks happy enough here, but one TV programme does not a career make, and she might soon find it cancelled and herself disposed of should she further fall from grace.

Via Let’s Geinou News and Jabro.

With such blatant and harsh treatment, some informed commentators speculate that she may not last out the year; whatever the case, she is certainly at a perilous precipice indeed…

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If you look at some of these pictures, there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that on this show in particular, she was REALLY being excluded, and quite purposefully. However, I think this article may be blowing things slightly out of proportion. Just because one show decides to reject her, does not mean that every show is going to. In the last month I saw her featured on Shin Doumoto Kyoudai (they seem to love her there) as well as appeared on a few other shows where she was interviewed, and did perform.

Now if her music career got canned, then things would probably be pretty much over for her. But as long as she has that, she's definitely going to be invited to a few music programs as long as she keeps releasing material.

I know a lot of people are tired of her, or didn't like her to begin with. For me it went exactly the opposite way though. I thought she was kind of dumb when she first started to become popular. And while right now she certainly isn't one of my favorite artists, I find her interviews and appearances to be generally amusing, as well as her personality. She really is basically a geek who hit it big, and she's enjoying herself without trying to hide who she is completely. I actually applaud her for that.

God, she looks so depressed in those pictures. I wonder what happened, did a female guest on the show feel threatened in some way? There's plenty of scenarios that jump to mind for me. Poor Shoko-tan, she's just trying to live out her geek dream.

Whatever it is, I'll definitely be keeping my eye on the programs that I regularly watch that she sometimes appears on, to see what happens. I seriously doubt more than one show would do this to her...the more conventional way would be to just not invite her on. That way is at least less humiliating, and it still gets the message across. I don't know why someone felt the need to do something like that to her. I don't know of any artist that I feel deserves that sort of treatment.