Bikkuri Project

I think I’m going to do more cross-posting, and by that I mean writing things that apply to both Hello Projects and Johnny’s. Such entries will be posted in one blog and linked in the other. It may well be that only the 4 or so people who read my blogs and are fans of both will enjoy these kinds of posts, but I’ve just been itching to make them, so here we go. This is posted in Bikkuri because three out of my five choices come from h!p

Here we have the top 5 idol performances that make me cry. There are only 5 of them because I don’t cry from watching things very easily. Feel sad, sure, but rarely do I actually cry. These five performances are the exception to that rule. Why do people enjoy watching things that make us cry? Maybe because it’s kind of cathartic? I know that any music or video that really makes me feel something, good or bad, is an instant winner with me. Anyway, if you are in a crying sort of mood, then this is the post for you!

5. Jin, Care, TV performance

For the first half of the song I’m fine, but after he pushes up his sunglasses and you can see his eyes, he just looks so sad, and desperate, and really really beautiful. I think I’m overly sensitive to Jin looking sad, with his eyes all glistenly like that. Don’t be sad JinJin!!!! His singing also becomes more and more emotional as he goes, from almost flat affect to seriously struggling to keep it together. I know this song (which he has named as his favorite song to sing because it’s his song) means a lot to him.

4. Morning Musume, Dekkai Uchuu ni Ai ga Aru, 24 hour Terebi

If you’re not familiar with the story, that guy’s daughter (the one in the pictures in the background) died in a traffic accident, and Dekkai Uchuu was her favorite song. The contrast between the happy, hopeful song and the crying father with all the cute pictures really tugs at the old heartstrings, even though the sadness isn’t focused on Morning Musume themselves. I don’t know how they stayed so composed while singing this.

3. 5^th gen, Sukina Sempai, Konno’s Graduation Concert

I already posted this one as my #1 most sad Morning Musume moment a while ago, so I’m not going to write a whole lot about it, but what do you know, it’s still really sad. It’s 5^th gen and it’s their song, they’re singing it together for the last time, and we all know that 5^th gen is full of cry babies anyway.

2. ByeBye Mata ne, Berryz, Maiha’s Graduation

Reminds me of every friend I’ve ever parted ways with. The Berryz suddenly stop looking like idols to me and start looking like exactly what they are, really sad, crying little girls who are saying goodbye to someone that they love. I want to hug all of them, give them cookies, and tell them it’ll all be okay.

1. Nino, Konseki, Iza Now tour

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Now this is damn sad, not to mention some of the best singing I’ve ever heard from dear Nino. I love it, but I kind of hate it at the same time, because I can’t stand to see Nino looking so pained. The translation can be found in the description of the youtube clip I embedded here, and I’ve retyped it up below. I’d highly recommend reading it because knowing what the lyrics mean makes it at least ten times more tear inducing. Combine pathetically touching lyrics with Nino’s fabulous emoting/acting skills, and I’m practically sobbing. He wrote it himself, and you can see lots of tears in his eyes when the song ends. It’s an unusual thing because Nino is not one of the crybabies of Arashi *coughaibacough*. Isn’t this just beautiful?

Lingering, Lingering

After the early summer rain, the undried remains of tears

Unerasable, Unerasable

My beloved’s shadow floats in the dark night

Walking along the banks at sunset with you together

We lead each other along with our smiles

What shall we have for dinner today?

Such a small and humble happiness

Though you have died, you live within my heart

I could love someone else, but there is no one but you

No matter how many seasons I struggle through

I’m afraid of letting go, of letting it dissapear

I gaze at violets

What a pretty flower

But I know that someday they will wilt

It is evening

If I think of the crimson waters, there remains the two of us on the liquid’s surface

Shadows heap on top of each other

I’m afraid of being alone

Realizing too late that there is only one person on the liquid’s surface

The seed planted in my heart that day

Buds sprouted after

In appearance and form it is different

But my love is unchanged, the gentle light

Sniffle,

~Celestia~

Back by popular demand, it’s the costume hall of shame, tackling yet another of the serious issues plaguing the h!p wardrobe department, an preponderance of misplaced ruffles. I’m not going to suggest banning all ruffles from h!p costumes. They are idols after all, so a certain amount of rufflage is expect, maybe even required. However, that’s no excuse to start flinging the ruffles around willy-nilly.

This is totally Kanna’s bitch face, and it’s easy to see why she’s making it right now. Ignoring for a moment the awful color-combination, look at the placement of the ruffles. I hope I’m not dating myself by bringing up the infamous ‘puffy shirt’ episode of Seinfeld, but this reminds me a lot of that. Poofy-sleeved swashbuckling, a little neckruffly clownyness, and a big ugly chunk of ruffle hanging down her thigh like some sort of tail.

“So C-ute thinks they can beat Berryz when it comes to tiered, boxy, figure swallowing, unflatteringly colored, ruffly dresses reminiscent of jellyfish?” Risako thinks to herself. (I’m not sure if this is her bitch face or not. It may just be her normal face)

“Well suck on this you ‘lalalala’-spouting harlots!!!”

Umm…so Morning Musume, Little Bo Peep called….

Here’s a costume that’s perfectly fine from the waist up, but awful from the waist down. I ask you, is there any occasion, any occasion at all, where it is a good idea to wear long pants on one of your legs and not the other? Half of them have strapped one of those unflattering tiered dresses to one leg (presumably these can be removed and used as costumes by one of the kids groups later) while some kind of awful yellow sheath made to look almost plaid by the clumsy application of various ruffly ribbons adorns one of the legs of the other half. Just take a moment with me now and imagine how much nicer this would have looked without the half-pants. For God’s sake, it looks like they’re trying to hide the fact that they’re all missing one leg!

Hope I wasn’t too rough on them,

~Celestia~

I have been having a bit of a dilemma lately, so I was hoping that some of you may give me your opinions. You probably already realize that there are A LOT of h!p blogs out there, and their numbers seem to be increasing exponentially. This is a very good thing, because more blogs means more people who are big enough fans to write, and it also means more attention being drawn to h!p within the English speaking world. So this is all well and good in a general sense, but on a selfish and personal level, I find myself feeling rather limited as to what I can write about. If there are 50 reviews of the Resonant Blue PV, for example, then what’s the point of my adding another one? If 50 people write up thoughtful reactions to the latest h!p scandal, is there anything the 51^st person can say that hasn’t already been written?

It brings to question who exactly it is that I’m writing for. If I’m writing for my own enjoyment, then I should just write whatever the hell I want and not worry about what others are writing. I know that I’m self indulgent on occasion, but I think that I am much more writing for you, the readers, and so I feel obligated to do my best to offer something that is unique and worth your time. I try to think about what kind of entries I would most enjoy reading and then write those. I certainly enjoy writing entries like that, but it does leave me with considerably less material to work with. Another concern with the way I’m doing things now is that anyone who comes across my blog who is not from our community will wonder what kind of crappy h!p blog doesn’t even review the new PV or bother to mention an important scandal.

Another problem is the issue of my other (Johnny’s) blog. I try to update both blogs fairly evenly because I don’t want people to get the idea that I’ve abandoned my h!p fandom in favor of Johnny’s (SO not true), but since there are far less Johnny’s blogs in this community, I have far more original material to work with and comment on there. Now, I know of many arashi and *that group I promised shall not be named here* blogs with translation, fanworks, and scans (less actual writing, but plenty of eyecandy), and as an International Wota contributor, I almost feel obligated to ask them if they would like to be included in the site. On the one hand, more Johnny’s recognition within the community, and likely more readers for me! On the other hand, more competition, less virgin territory to cover, and maybe there aren’t enough people interested anyway. Is it more selfish to contact them or to not contact them? I can’t decide.

But back to the issue at hand, this blog. I’ve posted a new poll so you can share your opinions, but I’m basically asking you to choose between two options: Only posting the updates that I feel address topics that haven’t already been covered by many blogs, meaning that updates aren’t quite as frequent, or post updates on the full spectrum of h!p goings on regardless of what the other blogs are doing, likely meaning updates on a daily basis.

Anyway, I hope I’m not offending any of the other h!p blogs or implying that my entries are somehow worth more than yours. That’s really not what I mean at all. The issue is arising more from my personal preference and reasons for blogging than anything.

Ready, set, vote!

~Celestia~

PS. 4th gen won the last poll!

Egg-watch here! I’m not going to write about the entire All H!P Winter concert (I’m too tired from doing the last review!) but I thought that this performance was worth our attention. It is the first time, to my knowledge, that h!p eggs have gotten solo lines in a song in a real h!p concert acting as h!p eggs (not as members of, say, Ongaku Gatas). With all the ‘Love Machine’ going around lately, the opening of this concert is quite unique in that respect. Also, the line thing they do at the beginning is so cool! The Eggs have definitely been sorted into a hierarchy of sorts in the last year or so. It’s pretty easy to tell who the favored eggs are by observing who gets which lines in this performance. Little Ogawa Saki leads the charge, Mori Saki does ‘the face’, ManoEri has the “disco” line, and then these three, along with Kitahara Sayaka sing the majority of the rest of the song. Sayaka is awesome, by the way, and if she doesn’t graduate from the eggs and into a permanent debuted position soon (I still say they should put her in Morning Musume) then I may have to personally hunt down Tsunku when I’m in Japan and hit him over the head with something. Just watch her sing ‘Akarui’. Awesome, no?

Other eggs who get lines (but not as many as those four) include Maeda Yuuka (2), Aoki Erina (1), and Saho Akari (1). I should note that Kikkawa Yuu wasn’t in this concert.

Personally, I’m really enjoying watching the eggs develop, especially now that I can recognize all of them. I enjoy cheering for these girls, because I know they’re all so close to being able to debut, but there’s always a good chance that they’ll never quite make it. They must want it so badly, don’t you think? Every time one of them manages to break out (Kanna or Erina for example) the rest of them must all start hoping and praying all the harder that they’ll be next. I’d say the smart money is on Yuu and Sayaka (since they’re already getting something with Milky Way and they both look and sound great in the PV) and perhaps Mori Saki too. There are a lot of notable very young eggs who have been getting a lot of attention (Maeda Yuuka, Fukada Kanon, and especially Ogawa Saki), and while I can almost guarantee you that h!p has plans for these girls, I wonder if those plans are to debut them together soon or to wait until they’re just a bit older first. I think it would be great to see them as unit aimed very specifically at little girls (no scary old men please) some time soon, but I worry that they would attract scary old men anyway, so maybe it’s better to let them stay relatively safe in their egg shells until they’re at least teenagers. On the other hand, both Ogawa and Maeda got solos in the last Egg concert, and if that’s not a sign that the management thinks they’re ready to hatch, I don’t know what is.

I’d like to note that Mittsi still got to keep the “Love Machine” ending line. I think the tradition of giving it the the youngest Musume is really cute, and that reminds me, this is sort of the one year anniversary of Mittsi’s debut concert! By that I mean, the all h!p winter concert last year was her first appearance. She’s become so much more confident since then, hasn’t she?

Go Eggs!

~Celestia~