She Loves to Hear, See, and Feel New – Delima Rizky

This week’s featured member is Delima Rizky, the cute and maturing, Pilong!

Delima’s nickname is “Pilong,” (“Pipi bolong,” literally meaning hollow cheeks) and it is a term of endearment given to her because of her dimples. This, combined with her slightly chubby cheeks has become her charm point and it easily makes her a recognizable face in JKT48.

Because of her cute factor, D5, or Del (her other nicknames) also started out in JKT48 with a “little sister” image during the group’s early periods. However, she has since matured a little and outgrew it.

Despite growing up, Delima has kept her very playful nature. She is one of the loudest and craziest members (second to Nabilah), especially when she is playing and having fun with other Team J members.

You can see this part of her during theater MCs, but she talks reaaaally fast too so it will be a challenge to understand her if you’re not local. She’s still fun though!

(You may want to lower down your speaker volume for this video below!)

Before joining JKT48, Delima was already appearing on Indonesian TV as a child actress in various “Sinetron-sinetron” (soap operas or drama serials) as well as CMs.

There is a clip of Delima’s acting from the show “Senyuman Ananda” where she gets kidnapped by bad guys. She attempts to escape but eventually gets caught and manhandled by the bad guys. Now I do not approve of bad guys touching my idol >:( but it is particularly endearing to see Delima so young here.

Unfortunately. Delima hasn’t had any opportunities to further her acting interests whilst in JKT48. She hasn’t been able to come out tops in any of the major voting contests either, but she did receive a gracious chance as a senbatsu for JKT48’s first single release, River.

As of now, the best way to catch Delima is at the JKT48 theater. She is approaching her 300th theater show and is within the top 5 members with the most number of theater performances.

Another reason to look at Del in the theater is to witness her “Eyelock” in action, or to get yourself caught in it too – if you’re lucky enough. Eyelock is a special type of fan service where members look into your eyes for a long period of time as they perform. There are a couple of members who do it regularly, but Delima is well-known for it.

Speaking from experience, it’s a pretty enjoyable experience if you get caught in it, especially if you love the member. However, it does feel -dangerous- if you get caught by other members who are not your oshis…. and it may appear rude if you break off a member’s eyelock halfway and then turn to look at others.

In recent months, Del has taken a greater interest in singing and has posted a video of her singing her unit song, Bird. She also sang her other unit song, Rider in her 2015 Sousenkyou Election video and sang Jessie J’s Price Tag at the last KazeFute handshake event. She hangs out a lot with Sendy too, so hopefully Sendy can coach her to be an even better singer! It is certainly something to look forward to.

Delima also makes a superb performance for Bird during JKT48’s 3rd Anniversary concert. (Watch the video here.)

She enjoys making short and weird but also, funny videos with members such as Nabilah, Beby, Gaby and Sendy. These videos are not the typical cutesy idol type of videos and many times you will see them in various unglam situations and nonsense. But they are crazy and entertaining once you get used to it, and the acts they do are often a parody of the current Indonesian youth trends.

A couple of favorites are:

1. The Expectations and Reality of an Idol (Nabilah – Delima – Beby)
2. Forever Alone at the Train Station (Beby – Delima – Gaby)
3. Please pick up the Phone (a ringtone parody) (Sendy – Delima)
4. Which “Teng” makes you healthy? (Shania – Delima)
5. Rising Star (TV singing competition) parody (Sendy – Beby – Gaby – Delima)

Although she doesn’t feature prominently amongst the other regular members, she has her quirks and is a joyful and fun member in JKT48. I hope you have learnt more about Delima JKT48. Try to catch her eyelock the next time you see Team J in the theater!

P.S: if you would like to volunteer to translate this article to Bahasa Indonesia, do let us know via the contact form or tweet us at @jkt48stuff!

Special credits to Pitra and ExPersia for their fabulous photos (especially for the images used in the featured banner!) and Delima’s Twitter.