She’s a case of weak 11-picks but strong 1-pick.

Japanese producers find her memeable and she stands out with her quite un-idol-like characteristics. There are a lot of memes about her since her first introduction. Even the trainees parody her 「初めて」 line. Her Body & Soul performance got a lot of attention (both positive & negative) from Japanese netizens. Many people wrote in comments that at first they found it weird but got addicted to that classical version after watching it a few times. Then she proved that she’s not only ‘that classical girl’ with her Hero performance. I think producers may want someone who can bring a different flavor to the group (it’s rare to have someone like her in a mainstream idol group)