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Berryz Cool

Aug 1st, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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So, if you haven’t noticed I’m a Berryz Koubou fan… notice it now.

Lately, Berryz have been on-the-ball. They aren’t hitting any wrong notes for me (well, okay, maybe Yurina had a few in the recent concert) and are looking more amazing every day (except that Squeak Puppet looks perpetually 12, which I’m sure is part of her appeal). The girls are becoming better singers (why, hello, Socko and your amazing ability to always hit that high note in “Rival”, except how the hell would she be able to lip synch that one note only) and better dancers (Captain had a few times recently where she didn’t stand out as being noticeably better than the rest… because some of the other girls were performing at her level) and the fame is… well, it seems like it’s finally coming.

Berryz is doing some kind of break from singles at the moment, as a new one has not been announced yet. (°C-ute has a new one dropping in September, I think.) What this means? Well, there are a lot of us who are thinking that a new album is coming. If that *is* the case, I’m looking forward to it. Berryz’ FIVE album was awesome, and I think they can only get better from there.

The next Berryz Koubou concert series will have a title that is something having to do with standing out, so I have high hopes for it. Additionally, one of these concerts is going to be played at C.C. Lemon Hall. While it is not a large venue (it can only hold about 2084 people)… it is almost never used as a dance floor, but is said to have marvelous acoustics. It could be interesting to hear some of the recordings from there, although I believe it’s one of the first shows for that tour so it’s unlikely to get recorded for the DVD.

I still need to finish watching the new concert… it’s already made a few people in Berryz lovers, so I know it has to be awesome, but I wonder if it could bring my own love to even higher levels. We’ll see. I have to do dishes and laundry first!

Posted in: hello! project.

°C-ute… 3 down, 5 to go

Aug 1st, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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Geez, guys! What is happening with the °C-ute girls lately, anyway?

Kanna is gone, and I’m still kind of devastated. But today’s news does, for whatever reason, make it better. It seems the tall girl of the group, Umeda Erika, will be getting a graduation concert in a few months here. Although, the fact that she’s going to study to become a fashion model… well, we’ll see. I know there are plenty of people who find her attractive enough (and probably even tall enough), but I do wonder what she needs to study for that.

We’ve seen how Berryz and °C-ute were developing for a while. Lately, especially, Berryz has been continuing to give the lesser known girls more and more lines. Now, most of the girls seem to have at least 2 solo lines per song, and the bit about who dances center doesn’t seem to stay as constant as their dances have had then moving around more and more. After 5 years, it seems like they’ve found what works, and with Berryz? That means just about everything does. They are turning into spectacular performers, and you can see that the girls are all happy to perform whenever they can… although I can see Chinami get frustrated sometimes because the dances are maybe a bit harder than she’s comfortable with, and she still often gets gypped in the line department.

Then, there’s °C-ute… which is often called the Maimi & Airi show. Sure, there are other girls in the group. But, the other girls don’t really get lines or focus. They’re just kind of there. And °C-ute’s been together for long enough, and the other girls are talented enough (even the ones I don’t like, myself) that everyone should be getting shown off at least a bit. But, they’re not. There are plenty of people who can name off Maimi and Airi, but have no idea who Nakki, Maimai and Chisato are. What does this mean to the future 5-nin °C-ute? I’m going to go ahead and call break-up. At this rate, if things continue as they have been, I don’t foresee °C-ute lasting another year. We’ve seen UFA be reluctant to “change their formula” before, and if they don’t do so here at least a bit… °C-ute will have no future. They had a meteoric rise, so in the entertainment industry… it wouldn’t be too surprising to see the whole thing go under. I think UFA and H!P could both move on from that, though, especially because of the talent present in the other groups.

I’m sure there are some people who are as devastated about Erika leaving as I was about Kanna. Many of you may try to hold out hope that °C-ute can make it past this. But, nearly half of the girls are gone! And look what’s been done with the group in the singles without Kanna. Have the other girls gotten more lines because of it? Well, Maimi and Airi have. That doesn’t exactly inspire growth within the group. It merely creates resentment.

We’ll see what happens, and if I’m right. For those of you who are big °C-ute fans, I hope I’m not… but I wouldn’t mind seeing some more love for Berryz come about if I’m right. We’ll wait. As fans of H!P at all, that’s all we can do.

Posted in: hello! project.

SHG’s 2nd Annual AKB48 post

Jul 22nd, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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Here’s something somewhat hilarious: as AKB48 gets more popular (or at least has higher sales), I like their singles less and less. I thought 10nen Zakura was a travesty, and Namida Surprise sounds like synthesized armpit farting. Now, as an H!P fan, I know that I am not the measure by which everyone likes their music. Even with H!P, several of the popular members and groups just don’t resonate with me as well as some of the overlooked, but still immensely talented, other girls.

AKB48 has been doing a lot lately, and I have a lot to say about it, so I figured “Why not?” This is my wota blog, and while I wouldn’t call myself an AKB48 wota, I still know more than the average J-pop fan, so it counts.

On the seibatsu: As a matter of principle, I agree with the idea of a voting system used to determine which girls will be in the next single. But, the implementation, for me, left something to be desired. Certainly, a tie-in with the previous single helped to inflate “Namida Surprise”’s numbers, but who knows how much? If you were desperate enough to want 1000 votes to make sure your girl was in the top 21, you would simply buy 1000 CDs. Now, it doesn’t seem as though many people went to that extreme as most girls seemed to get between 1000 and 5000 votes. But, 100? I think that’s not too off base, potentially, especially if you look at the fact that Sayaka, who hasn’t been in a few singles now because she’s not as popular, got more votes than Sae, who is rather popular. It’s just another way to make your idols start to go crazy and to gouge the pockets of the fans. And wota? Well, if nothing else, they’re used to that. We’re nearly as exploited as the girls themselves.

On the Japan Expo in Paris: As far as content goes, you’ll be wanting to go here because SaeYaka Paradise has videos. It seems the French are not the camera nazi’s that other nations are. Several of the videos are decent looking, and one or two are even decent sounding. It seems the girls (the not-as-popular girls of Team A, I believe, as the super-popular ones were promoting some baseball thing or something) performed both “Bingo!” and “Oogoe Diamond” in English, did a French chorus for “Sakura no Hanabiratachi” and spoke a bit of French during their intro bits. From what the videos show, it was a good two concerts, but not really all that long. But at the same time, it made me look forward to something else.

The New York Anime Festival: Someone from Stage48 emailed the NYAF about AKB48 being at their convention, and received this response:

“Thank you for your email. The New York Anime Festival has not officially announced AKB48 as guests, so I can only give you a “no comment” about that, but I can say that AKB48 will be performing in NYC during the dates of the festival, and we’ll be making an official announcement soon.”

I think this means you can all start booking flights pretty soon. (The festival is from September 25th-27th, in case you’re wondering.) There is a $200 VIP package for the convention (find info here) which seems to include early seating at all events, a guaranteed autograph from Yui Makino after *her* concert, a coat check and concierge service (you don’t even know how handy that is… buy swag and then leave it with them until you’re ready to go!), and… 10% off of show store purchases… which may or may not potentially include AKB48 goodies. (Oh, and a 10% coupon for Kinokuniya bookstore, and a 2-week trial of premium CrunchyRoll membership.)

On SDN48: Meetan and Nonti, the 2 AKB48 people who are my age (I just discovered the Meetan is exactly one week older than I am) are officially going to be part of “Saturday Night 48″, where the skirts may not just get shorter… they might come off! Shows were supposed to start in a few days, but it seems they’ve been pushed back because the girls aren’t… ready. I don’t doubt they need a bit more time to be mentally prepared. At the same time, though, I think this will help out the popularity of those girls who are participating, if not in the healthiest way. I like Meetan quite a bit and would like to see her do more, so this is at least something that the younger girls won’t be encroaching on, and somewhere she’ll definitely be in her element (as her element may well be softcore porn). It’ll be interesting to hear reports of how these events go, but in my head, they won’t go for too long before they become more trouble than they’re worth. But, I suppose it depends on how much “sex” they’re selling.

So, yeah… I do kind of want to see AKB48 when they’re in New York, especially since I’m already planning a trip to D.C. around the same time. We’ll see if it all comes together, but I can’t express how upset I’ll be at not being able to see Momusu, but having the opportunity for AKB48. Still, I’m holding on to the possibility of Berryz Koubou for next year.

Posted in: akb48.

Kanna says goodbye to H!P

Jul 11th, 2009
by superhappygenki.
1 comment

I called it, ladies and gentlemen. Arihara Kanna is a °C-utie no longer. I talked about whether Kanna would return or not here, and I still stand behind everything I said. 4 months before it was announced, I kind of knew that Kanna was never coming back, but I was hoping against hope that I was very, very wrong. Unfortunately, in this case, I’m not wrong very often.

I could make this a giant picspam or find some cute Kanna videos to remember her by, but I’m finding it difficult to get the enthusiasm together. I’ve known about this for a few days now, and I’ve only just gotten to where I feel I can talk about this without getting overly emotional. But tears are still welling in my eyes, and I’m miserable in a way that only a wota can be.

None of us know what motive Kanna has in not coming back. Maybe the time off from work made her realize how much stress she was under. Maybe she found a boyfriend who seems worth it to leave idol-dom for. Maybe she doesn’t feel missed enough from the group, especially since they seem to have already moved on. Whatever the reason is, she’s gone. She didn’t come back for a graduation concert, she didn’t try giving °C-ute another shot, and she probably won’t be showing us her charming crooked smile any time soon.

My hope is that Kanna still loves entertaining, though. I think she’s a fabulous performer, even if her voice isn’t the most spectacular. I think she has what it takes to make it bigger than °C-ute could take her, so I hope she’ll take some time to think about it, and then try again. Avex is starting to get a reputation of taking the girls that idol-dom forgot, and since Kanna is only 16 (freshly 16, at that) she had plenty of time to come back into our lives.

I hope she does. I hope to see her perform again. If she did something wrong, it wasn’t nearly as “bad” as what Aibon did, and she came back. Yet, somehow, I wasn’t as sad to see Aibon go because it felt like she would come back. Kanna… it’s iffy. Sure, she’s been in this business a few years, but it can’t be said that she’s enjoyed the same kind of popularity that Aibon had. She’s probably seen more of the downs than the ups of the biz. But my hope is that somewhere beneath it all, she absorbed the love all of the fans *did* show and that it will come back to her enough that she goes to seek it, and her fortune, again.

Losing an idol can’t be compared to losing a close family member, but it still feels like losing a friend. The whole idol business ensures that the fans get to know the girls and pick their favorites, and when your favorite leaves… it hurts. There’s a hint of betrayal in a large well of sadness, but it will fade in time. If we never see Kanna again, we’ll live. But I know for a fact now that nothing the remaining group of °C-ute can do will make me love them. What charm I thought they had is gone.

I do wonder how this might affect the performance of the remaining girls in °C-ute, though. I thought that losing Megumi made the group less impressive, but will the girls lose even more heart knowing that Kanna is officially gone from them forever? Sure, they’re professionals, but most bands who lose members never really recover, unless no one in the group was really all that close to the lost member. In any H!P group, I don’t think that’s a possibility.

Farewell, Kanna. I’ll miss you tremendously, and think of you often. Good luck wherever your life leads you, and I hope it leads you back to us. You are a truly amazing talent, and I hope you never fade.

Posted in: Uncategorized.

The return of all of the groups that never died

Jun 17th, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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Much has been made of the revamping of the defunct and now soon-to-be-reborn Minimoni. We have two members announced (Linlin and Fukuda Kanon if you’ve been living under a rock) and it’s known that they’ll have a song on the upcoming H!P wedding songs album.

Announced just recently on Tsunku’s blog? Every H!P member will indeed have a spot on the album somewhere (though this does bring to mind the question of whether this is just traditional-sense H!P, or if it includes H!P Kansai [finally a song from SINA?], H!P Taiwan, etc.) and there will additionally be new Tanpopo and Pucchimoni units to come, although it seems they won’t perform as those groups on the album.

My ideal Tanpopo would have Captain, Maasa, Kikkawa Yuu, and Yuuka Maeda. My ideal Pucchimoni would have Chinami, Umeda Erika, and Junjun. However, we won’t find out the members for these units until July 19th when it is announced at an H!P concert.

Much like my feelings with the Minimoni revival, I don’t know how to feel about this right now. If the right girls are chosen, I’ll love it. As it is, most of my unliked members are already in new units (with the exception of Chisato), so I feel that as long as the Eggs put into the group aren’t really awful (and most of the Eggs are not), then I could find enjoyment from these groups… and this is despite not being the biggest fan of the original groups. As much as I individually loved the members, I prefer Morning Musume to both Tanpopo and Pucchimoni, whereas Minimoni has a good handful songs that break above most Morning Musume songs on my list of favorite H!P songs.

I am excited to see H!P attempting, in any way, to go back to their roots. I kind of hope to see this be the extent of the madness, though. Country Musume and Coconuts Musume can stay defunct, in my opinion. Coconuts brought over Mika and Ayaka who I rather enjoyed in what they did, but the group when it came to singing left me uninterested. Country Musume did a few things I liked when Morning Musume members were “visiting” the group, but as their own unit left me not caring about hearing more. Still, if Tsunku can get the announced units performing (and selling) well, I have no doubt we might get a few others revamped groups. I doubt there will be another W (mostly because of the bad press associated with Kago Ai’s termination from Hello! Project), but we may see actual new units begin to pop up as well.

As part of what a lot of people (myself included) love about Hello! Project are the fun things they do like the shuffle units, I’m excited at the prospects that are being created for the future with this. I hope to see more of the members who have never been in groups before allowed to be in these new units. Still, I’ll have faith in the power of H!P that I’ll find something to my liking in all of this, yet.

Posted in: hello! project.
Tagged: · ·

Happy 16th, Kanna!

Jun 15th, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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My favorite H!P groper-girl turns somewhat legal today! Yay!!!

Kanna is in absentia from her H!P “duties” at the moment, but that doesn’t mean she’s being forgotten. I’ve seen a good number of birthday posts go up for her already, and her thread on Hello!Online is being bombarded with both birthday and get well wishes.

As any reader here should know, Kanna is my favorite °C-ute member, and is actually way up the list of favorite H!P members. You may wonder why, though. I’ve talked previously about how I think she’s cute (always good in an idol) and interesting (sometimes hard to find in an idol) and a groper (that gives us common ground)… but I think Kanna is the type of girl that makes you love her if you give her a chance.

Here’s her performing Berryz Koubou’s “Tsukiatteru no ni Kataomoi” for a fanclub event:

Yeah, sure, not the greatest voice, but it’s cute without being squeaky, and she’s got some energy behind it, too. But here’s the backstage bits of that same event:

I melt. Seriously. Kanna… I <3 you. I want you back. She's adorable when she's nervous and when she's getting into the handshakes (I see a female fan!)... she's not the performer that a lot of the H!P members are, but I think she does have more personality than just about anyone left in H!P. Sure, Mikitty might have had more, but too much is just as bad as not enough!

That said, what kind of birthday post would this be without a bit of picspam? So, here goes.

plaidpinkkimonoflowerfireworksboyblue

So, happy birthday, Kanna! I baked you a cake (a molten chocolate cake with caramel), but I already ate it. :p If I thought it could have gotten to you, I would have sent it on along. Good luck with your healing so you can get back to groping (Airi especially) soon!

Posted in: hello! project.
Tagged: · ·

Berryz Koubou Alo-Hello! DVD Start!

Jun 13th, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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So… I’m going to review the Berryz Koubou Alo-Hello! DVD (subtitled version, courtesy of Hello! Fansubs) as I watch it. I’m kind of curious myself about how many words this will spawn, as I usually review after the fact and forget half of the things I want to say. So… here goes. A lot of this is describing things that happened as I saw them and reacting to them as I always seem to do in reviewing.
cover
Continue reading →

Posted in: hello! project.
Tagged: · ·

My other blogs! and stuff

Jun 5th, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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Okay, now that I’ve got stuff posted at these blogs, I’ll link to them.

Cafe Buono! is a site co-written by K. It’s about Hello! Project, and food. There are a handful of recipes up at the moment, and a few H!P food-related clips. It’s, well, yummy.

Igni+ion is my new non-idol J-pop and J-rock blog. I’ll probably talk a bit about what little K-pop I actually listen to here as well.

Also? I’m a new contributor over at International Wota. Wish me luck? ^_^

I’m going to do my best to keep all of these going strong. Thanks!

Posted in: hello! project, other.
Tagged: · ·

Minimoni, part deux?

Jun 4th, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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I feel like I should have talked about this earlier when it was first revealed to be happening, but then I started holding off because I wanted to know more information, but now I’m just going to talk about… my feelings.

Minimoni is the first Hello! Project group that I remember hearing about. A girl I knew online was obsessed and often posted pictures. When I got some Minimoni stuff in a grab bag at a convention, I gave it to her because while I kind of recognized it, I didn’t like it yet. In exchange, she sent me a VHS tape full of Morning Musume appearances (around the time of Mr. Moonlight) with a bunch of PVs thrown in (shuffle groups, Gomattou, Yuko, etc.) as well as some more Minimoni. Knowing what I do now, I almost wish I’d kept the stuff for myself, but I know she appreciated it and she is, without a doubt, one of the reasons I got into Hello! Project in the first place.

While Mika was never very close to my heart (because she was intentionally cast out as the different one, because her accent was odd, because she was the killjoy, I don’t know), it didn’t take long to fall in love with Minimoni as a unit.

The name of this blog comes from an inside joke my husband and I have about Hello! Project music, as mostly relating to Minimoni, and the genki-ness that is soooooo prevalent there. This is not his kind of music at all, but he likes some Morning Musume and a few others… what he doesn’t like? “Strawberry Pie”.

That was my first H!P PV download. It was the first dance I learned. It was the first song I learned all of the lyrics to. While none of that is difficult, really, it was a little labor of love. And while he’ll have none of it for himself, my husband does encourage my love of the genki.

Minimoni is where my love for Aibon came alive. Those curled pigtails… so cute! (If you’ve ever read the manga “Full Moon wo Sagashite”, the main character’s hair is based on Aibon from Minimoni.) She was so into the music and the dancing (more than I think she was for any other group she was a part of) that is was difficult not to have my attention drawn only toward her.

I had a love/hate relationship with Tsuji back then, though. It had a lot to do with the fact that she was trying to sell pretty much the same image as Aibon, but without as much cute and genki to go with it. Also, she was portrayed in the animated bits as having purple hair… and I really don’t like the color purple.

Finally, the Gooch. I never liked her as much in Minimoni as I did in Momusu, but I still liked her character. She was constantly exasperated, but she was amazing. She wasn’t allowed to be as cute and pretty as Aibon was, so it was difficult to buy into her image, but I tried.

I suppose I should discuss Takitty… but I think that she kind of killed Minimoni the first time. Somehow, I don’t mean that in a bad way. But, you take a group of girls who have a certain level of talent but a whole lot of personality and then add in a girl who is at a higher level of talent, but doesn’t have the personality that the others do… Takitty only did a few singles with Minimoni, really, and with Yaguchi gone… It just wasn’t anywhere near the same.

And now Tsunku is trying to bring the magic back. We know, so far, that they’ll be 4 short girls again. We know that two of them are (former?) Egg Fukuda Kanon and Momusu member Linlin. I believe it’s also been announced that there will be at least one more Egg in the group… one who hasn’t had as much focus as Kanyon.

So far… I’m actually liking the choices. Much has been made of how much Kanyon looks like Aibon. I don’t know much about her personality. And I know I’m kind of a Linlin hater, but she definitely fits the spirit of the group, and she’ll be the leader (which also seems to indicate that the other members will be younger than her 18 years of age). Since Linlin did train with the Eggs for a bit, I can kind of see this working so far.

My biggest question, though, is about the music. Will these girls be able to handle the genki-ness that is the Minimoni stable of songs? I think Kanyon will, easily. I question it about Linlin, though. She’s proved she has good chops in Aozora, but is she too good? Will her somewhat odd accent and vocal tone translate well into these numbers? I thought she stood out a bit in a bad way during Momusu’s Guru Guru JUMP, but I also see that Linlin is improving. There’s also the question of the two girls who are as-yet-unannounced.

This new Minimoni will perform as a group on the upcoming H!P wedding songs album, but no announcement has been made regarding which song they’ll sing.

Another big question to ask: will this be a completely new Minimoni, or will they try to emulate one of the former generations?

Regardless, I’m having a hard time shelving my anticipation here. This could be good, this could be bad… but never let it be said that Hello! Project lets their wota get bored.

Posted in: hello! project.
Tagged:

Go, go, FIGHT!

May 21st, 2009
by superhappygenki.
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The Berryz “RIVAL” PV is now out, and since I’m going to be out of town this weekend, I’m going to try to do a very quick review.

There is the PV for your viewing pleasure. Now, from the get go… it seems like a fun little video. But! It also seems pretty obvious that all of Berryz’ budget went to the “Seishun Bus Guide” video. This is a white background with yellow squares on the floor, and while the instruments, tables and benches look real… everything else is made of glued-together cardboard. Some people have said they couldn’t tell… but I think those people were just distracted by Risako’s up-skirt shots.

All of the girls are wearing short skirts, and they all do them justice. Berryz has slimmed down (it may just be a natural response to all the dancing they’re done in their latest tour). Because of this, there are a lot of close-ups on LEGS and SKIRTS and other happy things.

I don’t really know if I actually like this song yet. It’s acceptable, at least. There’s a hint of the Beatles in the sound (that goes well with the image from the other PV) and the dance is fun and simple and involves, well, upskirt shots. (You clearly see Risako’s safety pants at least twice.) I think everyone likes the girls shouting “Go, go, Fight!” and the talking bits are okay. My biggest concern is Risako’s high note and how VERY much she is going to murder that in concert. She hit it fine for the song recording, but I don’t really have high hopes for her in concert in that regard. Ears may bleed.

There are a lot of cutes bits in this PV, though. I think my favorite bit was Captain’s fake cardboard tears-on-a-stick. When I saw it, I actually had a stronger “Aww!” response than when I saw pictures of a baby deer and baby bobcat cuddling together the other day. I said it out loud. My husband may now think I’m more of a nut than he previously thought.

The girls with instruments is fun. Buono! has explored this before, so Momo and Miya are old hands in this regard. The other girls give it their all too, but poor Captain! She’s stuck with the instrument that’s pretty much larger than she is. (And as I actually handled my father-in-law’s double bass the other day, I know JUST how heavy and awkward that thing can be as I’m about Captain’s height.)

So, I’m not that impressed with the PV overall, but there are bright colors, cute moments, a decent song, and other things. It still trumps a lot of things that H!P has done.

And there you have it. SHG’s 15 minute PV review. Enjoy!

Posted in: hello! project.
Tagged: ·

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