After I’ve given this a LOT of thought, it’s finally time for me to keep answering this challenge xD

Day 12: Your favorite Hello!Project Idol

This question is so so hard for me… I used to be a huge H!P fan, but my interest has dwindled and now I just casually check what they release to see if I like something. The truth is that my favorite girls were in the Elder Club and after they axed all of them I was a bit lost about who should I like. So yeah, I thought about this a lot, and I came to this conclusion:

Michishige Sayumi, of Morning Musume. It’s strange that I came to this conclusion, I always liked Sayu because she’s full of spunk and personality, and well, she’s super gorgeous, which doesn’t hurt at all. Her singing used to bother me, but I really love about her how serious she is about her work and how much she has improved over the years.

If there’s anyone in Morning Musume who knows what it takes to be an idol and plays her role perfectly it’s Sayu. She knows that it’s important to create a distinct persona, but still works hard to polish her skills in order to not fall behind her fellow group members. She’s never going to be a stellar singer, but she works fantastically with what little she has, and she’s just a delight to watch on stage. I love dedicated people like her <3

Another thing that made her climb my rankings is her love for idols in general. Here you have a girl who not only loves her work, but also admires the whole industry she’s a part of. It was heart warming to hear her humming Ponytail to Shushu or wearing an Idoling!!! T-shirt.

And then I just recently watched the Mujack episode where Morning Musume interacts with Takahashi Minami of AKB, and Sayu was obviously being her sharp tongued self (Reina too…) but after that part of the show ended, she apologized profusely to Takamina, saying that she really didn’t mean those things, all while some other MM members (I can’t even remember who, probably JunLin) were pointing out how she’s very kind and nice to everyone. Sayu appeared to be distressed that her true personality was showing up, and she said “Stop saying those things, I’m a horrible person, people have to believe it or they’ll stop inviting me on TV shows” or something along those lines xD That’s amazing right there, she’s so focused on making her career succeed that she doesn’t care about all the bad things that come with it (in every most disliked woman in Japan poll that other women take part in, she’s in the top 3) because she knows what being an idol is all about, and it’s not just about singing and dancing beautifully.

I can’t wait for Sayu to be the leader of MM, I think she’ll be amazing at it and certainly give the group a different flavor and image.

Hi everyone! The Idol Challenge has been getting a bit harder xD So I’m taking my time to think about the H!P questions, so I thought I’d review SKE’s latest stage in the meantime. I’m not a huge SKE fan because I have no time to follow any more groups that I already do, I already have to study a lot so my time is very limited. Also, SKE has a youthful energetic feeling to it that isn’t really my thing (I feel like I’m a bit old for that to be honest) so I kind of pass on their singles most of the time.

However, their original stages are amazing. S2 and S3 are certainly among my favorites ever, they are intense and have a great variety of songs, so I was obviously looking forward to Team KII’s first original stage!

With everything Akimoto Yasushi has on his plate right now (Team A, Team K, Team B, AKB singles, subunit singles, soloist singles, SKE singles, NMB singles, Nogizawa 46…) he has no time to write stages anymore, which is a damn shame for all of us old school fans who fell in love with AKB because of their stages. In Team KII’s case, it was even more heartbreaking, because they debuted a long time ago (in 2009) and they performed a revival of an old AKB stage, as it’s the tradition. Theirs was Team A 2nd “Aitakatta”, in the meantime Team S was getting their original stages, and well, pretty much everyone else was too. After a while of performing their rehash everyone was excited for something new, and then it was announced that they would be covering Team S’ second stage “Te wo Tsunainagara”. After performing that one for a while as well, finally an original stage was announced and everyone was really excited. That stage was rumored to begin around the end of last year, yet nothing ever appeared, and the girls had to keep performing the old stages they had already been given.

It was very sad, especially because they had debuted a long time ago yet didn’t have a stage to call their own. Until earlier this year in the elections, when Team KII captain, Takayanagi Akane aka. Churi included in her election speech something along the lines of “Akimoto sensei, please write an original stage for KII soon!”  So with all the spotlight on him and the angry fans of KII wanting to emasculate him, he finally got his ass in gear and wrote the stage like a month ago. That is over a year after he was supposed to do so ugh.

Anyway, all this long intro is so that you know why this particular stage was so important, both for the girls and the fans. And for casual fans like me, having any kind of new stage is a treat, after all, this is the backbone of my particular fandom!

DISCLAIMER: All the pictures come from scrambled egg because SKE LODs have horrible quality and all the screenshots I took looked really awful.

1. Kizashi (Signs)

I’m a bit meh about this song, it has something dissonant about it that I hate in the instrumental build up before the choruses and verses. The girls are cute but and the choreography is impressive with all the position changes. lol at Shawako completely bumping into another girl and freezing for like 2 seconds. I’m not impressed with the outfits either, marching band meets inseki no kakuritsu? Meh.

2. Koutei no Koinu (Schoolyard Puppy)

This isn’t a screencap from this song, but it’s the same outfits, only imagine Ishida Anna with dog ears xD Much better! Really cute! Reminds me of Sobakasu no Kisu and the such. Annya has dog ears? How adorable. I’m really enjoying this one, the choreography is bouncy and cute without being psychotic like SKE’s usually are. It sounds reminiscent of Onyanko Club stuff. I love it.

3. Disco Hokenshitsu (School Infirmary Disco)

Oh, this is right up my alley. And I’m loving the new outfits! They look like Kuroi Tenshi’s plus a bit of Junjou Shugi’s. Great. The cheap synth is killing me a bit, but I guess that’s where the disco comes from, and the sass of the song kind of makes up for it. The little dance solos are interesting. The lyrics in this song are very very shocking haha about a girl who has a forbidden relationship with a teacher, but they are quite racy, I think I’d be up for translating this stage (I’ve done all of the other SKE original stages after all). I’m happy to hear dirty lyrics again, this is why I love stages: the songs can be about anything and everything, singles are just too vanilla.

4. Omatase Setlist (Awaited Setlist)

And we’re back to the Onyanko Club sound, I actually love it. lol Akimoto wrote them a song about how he didn’t give them an original stage until after like a million years passed since their debut. This is really cute, reminds me of Shonichi, only from the showa era xD and the girls look so happy. Awww. However, the cynical in me wants to side eye Akimoto for being like this, because it’s not like the girls didn’t try the damn hardest to get him to move and write them a stage. At least he gets point for writing “It’s like we were forgotten” in the lyrics I guess… Insight is important.

5. Cross (Takayanagi Akane, Wakabayashi Tomoka, Matsumoto Rina)

This is totally my jam. They all look cutesy, which makes it a little weird, but then they start rocking out like crazy, it’s a very interesting gap. I’m really loving the melody and the rock twist of the song. The only downside is that the costumes remind me too much of Glory Days :S But the song is flawless, the dance gets a bit weird with sentai positions and kicks, but it works anyway. Amazing song is amazing

6. Finland Miracle (Mukaida Manatsu, Yakata Miki, Akaeda Ririna)

Wtf is up with that title. This unit is cute. The music sounds like something from an old Kotoko album, but that’s a good thing anyway. I kinda dislike the costumes though, they look heavy and kinda out of place for the song, but they look like they might grow on me later. Overall nice, but Manatsu bores me a bit, and I think she is upstaged by the other 2 girls whose names I don’t know, especially the one in the blue outfit (who according to my research is Yakata Miki aka. Mikitty (!)).

7. Manazashi Sayonara (Furukawa Airi, Ogiso Shiori) Gazing Goodbye

Airiiiiin. Wow. Those costumes are gorgeous, instant favorites. And the song has a mid tempo chorus with beautiful sad verses, I didn’t know Ogiso could sing (oh wait she can’t lol) but she held her own anyway. Musically weird, but still works, and I like how they look like lonely cabaret girls xD What I don’t like is the abrupt ending I thought my media player had frozen and died lol

Even the title is like a Onyanko Club song xD I love the line distribution, and Sawako looks graceful and it’s interesting to have a song centered around her like that I really like the music, it’s again very showa idol, but that’s a plus in my book. I’m loving all of the costumes, and the choreography is definitely interesting in all of its calculated refinement, especially because not only Shawako is doing it but everyone else as well. AKB could cover this, with Komori as center I think Komori is better than Hata at it, but what do I know about ballet anyway…

11. Ima Kimi to Irareru Koto (Being with you now): Lovely outfits (they remind me of Kimi no koto ga suki dakara), and what a great dramatic start for this somber ballad! I love that it’s not just the whole group singing but duets or solo lines actually exist in the stage! And they aren’t all for the front girls! The chorus is a little weird, like it lacks a bit more punch, but it’s still a good song, and I love the electric guitar in the background. This sounds like something Melon Kinenbi might’ve sung I miss them

12. Winning Ball:

Now this is more upbeat and idoly, but I still think it has a bit of a retro feel. The dance is cute as well, with them doing a little bit of mimic and jumping around. A filler song, but a great one at it. I like the touch of having one of the girls hit a ball with a bat to try to make it fit through a tiny basketball net in one of the pillars. I highly doubt any of them will be able to achieve such a complex thing though xD

13. Akushu no Ai (Handshake Love): No picture for this one! Bad scramble egg xD Their outfits remind me of Shiokaze no Shoutaijou but without the ridiculous jean corsets. I like the fact that it’s not a ballad, but actually quite upbeat, which is a great way to finish the stage (I’m not too fond of ballads myself, so the lesser the better for me). I like it. The cute high five / handshaking thing they do is also adorable, especially when they get down from stage to shake fans hands xD BTW, they modified the stage and now it has a tiny runway which they mostly use here and in Kodoku na Ballerina and Nice to meet you. Bummer for the loss of seats, but it’s interesting to see what they will do with it in further stages (like in a million years amirite?)

14. Bowling Ganbou (Bowling Wish):

I hate bowling shirts, so I’m not thrilled about this costume, however it’s nice that they gave each girl a different color I do like the technoish beat in the background music of this song and the electric guitar riffs! However, I feel like it might get a bit lost with so many similar sounding songs in the stage ;A; I’ll need to listen to it more to decide, but it sounds promising. The dance is pretty standard except that the girls take turns to mimic bowling and the others standing as bowling pins xD

15. 16shoku no Yume Crayon (16 colored crayons of dreams):

Cute. I always like self referential songs, and this one is upbeat without being too hyper Now the bowling shirts colors make sense , and it’s pretty clever! Overall I like it, but it might be the bottom of the Team songs for me right now because the others are so over the top xD KII is a stupid name though, so there wasn’t much that could’ve been done about that, sadly.

16. Ramune no Nomikata (How to drink Ramune):

Oh, now we get the ballad. SKE ballads tend to be better than AKB’s so I have hope xD Funny that this is the only stage after K5 to be named after a ballad. Well, the song is cute, and I like the acoustic guitar, but uhh… A bit underwhelming, especially the verses. The ramune props are cute though.

17. Single Medley:

Unnecessary, should’ve been Ai no kazu, which is a great song. And this is just so pointless xD Reminds me of the old times when singles were stage songs (and Team A always got a bunch of them in their stages) But uhh. No thank you. And the outfits are ugly too IMO, at least they should’ve shuffled up the colors a bit.

Overall, I feel like this is a great stage, definitely reminiscent of the good old days when all of the kami stages were written. The retro sound that made me adore AKB is present in almost every song, which is amazing for me personally. The girls of KII are a little bit less about crazy convulsive dancing when compared to their S counterparts, but they sound better than their senpais (and I’m not into intensive dancing anyway lol) so they might pretty much be my favorite SKE team so far (I know nothing about E, but I won’t bother with the LQ LODs until they get an original stage. Yup.). A great stage, and IMO better than A6 and B5.

CODA: I’d like to take this small space to wish a speedy recovery to one of my favorite AKB girls, Kasai Tomomi, who apparently has peritonitis, a serious condition. Since she’s been blogging and all, I’m a little bit relieved, but I still wish her all the best, and I hope that she can get well soon, and hopefully not have any sequels that might affect her in her life later on.