Jan 22 2009
Morning Musume PV Ranking
Finding myself one evening with too much time and too little to do, and remembering that I had set out to rank H!p PVs at some point, I decided to turn to ranking all 38 of Morning Musume PVs. Three days later, I’m finished. Here’s the whole list, with commentary only on the top 10 and bottom 5, or it might take you three days to read this. For Resonant Blue and The Manpower, I’m using the “another version” since I kind of consider those to be the real PVs. Also, I haven’t included Chokkan 2 because everyone knows that the PV was just thrown together on the fly since the song changed at the last minute, and it didn’t seem quite fair.
37. Namida Tomaranai Houkouga- Pretty much the biggest pile of fail on all levels that Morning Musume has ever produced: song, vocals, and PV. Since we’re only focusing on the PV here though, let me just say that the bubble effect is really cheap and stupid-looking, the dance is no help in pepping up the snooze-fest of a song, the whole thing is shot in front of an utterly plain grey background (get a set! or a background color! or something for God’s sake), and those horrible shiny suit things that some of the girls have to wear are a crime against idoldom.
36. Oosaka Koi no Uta- Main complaint is that you can’t see anyone during the dance shots. It could be a team of AKB48 out there doing the dance and no one would be able to tell the difference. Also, the background is nonexistent, everything is back lit in red (at least it’s not grey), drawing to mind hell-fire (something that should almost never be used in an idol PV), and I really truly hate the girls having their names swirling around them. It’s such a cheap and stupid computer effect. Makes them look like screen savers or something.
34/35. Summer Night Town/Daite Hold Me- The reason why these have the same place and part of the reason that they’re so low is that they are, for all intents and purposes, the same PV. Sure, Daite has more red and SNT has more blue, but everything else from the “lonely in the big city shots” to the camera whipping around so much that it makes me dizzy, to the languid and pathetic dance shots, to the girls staring blank-faced at the camera in various outfits is totally interchangeable between the PVs.
33. Sexy Boy- There’s only one real problem here, but it’s a big one. TOO MUCH WHITE.
32. Pepper Keibu
31. Ambitious
30. Egao Yes Nude
29. Morning Coffee
28. Manatsu no Kousen
27. Hyokkori Hontanjima
26. Koi no Dance Site
25. Onna ni Sachi Are
24. Kanashimi Twilight
23. Mikan
22. Iroppoi Jirettai
21. Furusato
20. Do It Now
19. As for One Day
18. Memory Seishun no Hikari
17. Shabondama
16. Resonant Blue (another version)
15. Ai Araba it’s all right
14. Happy Summer Wedding
13. Aruiteru
12. Souda We’re Alive
11. Renai Revolution 21
10. Naichau Kamo- A full perusal of Morning Musume’s PV library has further convinced me that this is the best PV Morning Musume has released for a long long time. For more, see the post before this.
9.Roman My Dear Boy- A lot of people would argue that it deserves higher than this because it has a “plot”, but frankly, I don’t really get the plot. Morning Musume goes to speak to the council of sucky people (who meet in a warehouse), causing them to alternately start shouting or break into raucous laughter, and eventually MM takes their places? Okay. Well, points for being entertaining and the girls looking hot when they have taken over the council, but not enough for it to be on top of the list.
8. Love Machine- I didn’t remember the CG being that bad, but in a way, it’s so bad that it’s good. There’s a lot of interesting and funny stuff going on. Kaori in a wedding dress freaking out, Mari towering over the tiny version of Morning Musume, and all of the bizarre outfits.
7. The Peace- Lol toilets.
6. The Manpower- The girls all look gorgeous in the firelight shots, and all that vegetable chomping is pure unintentional comedy gold. I especially like Rika biting into a whole pineapple. I wonder if she managed to get through the skin or not?
5. I Wish- Everyone loves a PV with a sweet story line. Such a cute and random series of scenes too, especially how in the end everyone’s problems are solved by how pretty Rika is. They really captured the “Story book” look well.
4. Go Girl Koi no Victory- Earns such a high spot purely for the utterly charming individual shots of the girls being giggly and embarrassed. That’s just about the cutest darn thing I’ve ever seen.
3. Mr. Moonlight- A jazz band, CG put to good use (sparkling smiles and magic romance dust), and the part that seals the deal, the end scene where they all descend the grand staircase. Not one of my favorite songs, but certainly one of my favorite PVs.
2. Koko ni Iruzee- The parts where they quite literally “break through” the scenery is awesome, as are the dirt smudging parts. The end is like The Peace Part 2. Morning Musume has already conquered the high seas, now on to the mighty mountains!
1. Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari- I don’t think any other Morning Musume PV is full of quite as much fun and craziness. The best part is that you can watch it 10 times and still notice new things going on.
Yay finished! A few things before I go. First, if you feel like I’ve been unfair and you simply don’t understand how PV A could possibly have ranked above PV B, leave a comment and I’ll explain my reasoning. Secondly, for those of you who complain that Reina or Ai-chan get too much screen time, have you ever watched Morning Musume’s early PVs? Even if we exclude Furusato, every PV MM did up until “Love Machine” was like “NACCHI!!! & friends”
Kthnksby,
~Celestia~
I wonder how the non-single MM PVs fit into your ranking. For me, “Ganbacchae!” is my favorite MM PV of all time, outranking all of the single PVs. The other non-single PVs were a bit lackluster, though.
That’s a good point, but Ganbacchae wasn’t really an MM pv since the kids were there too.
If I had included it, it’d probably rank pretty highly though.