Out of all the foreign members in popular 4th-gen girl groups, Kazuha had the biggest individual debut hype by far, both in Korea and internationally. But over time, she kind of faded into the background.
Meanwhile, other foreign idols like Yuqi, Giselle, Rei, and Hanni have been getting more and more popular than her in Korea, even though they didn’t start off with as much initial hype. I know some will argue about this and that but remember Kazuha’s debut hype was indeed massive. She had this amazing backstory that everyone loved including Koreans: a former ballet prodigy who give up that career to become an idol. She instantly became a fan favorite, and her visuals reminded people of Suzy, one of Korea’s darlings just boosted her popularity. The Garam controversy not affecting her yet it actually just solidifying her status as the group’s main visual. Plus, after lsf’s debut, she was the quickest to score brand deals (not including Sakura). What really surprised people was that, even Sakura unable to have any individual CFs in Korea at that time, yet Kazuha a Japanese idol who was just freshly debuted managed to land one.
With such a strong debut and being in such a popular group, with Hybe actually keep pushing her just as we can see in Lsf's mvs as well, it’s surprising how quickly Kazuha’s initial hype seemed to fade this fast.
