Bikkuri Project

I went to the city’s annual festival tonight, and I found some rather interesting cotton candy bags. Look!

Would have bought the Milky Way one, but I kind of hate cotton candy.

~Celestia~

Praise the Lord, I have internet again!!!!!!! After calling number after number trying to get assistance from the internet company, I finally got someone to come to my apartment and take a look at it today. Turns out that I wasn’t just failing at reading the Japanese instruction manual. There was actually something wrong with my modem, but it’s been replaced, and all is well now.

In order to celebrate, a small slew (is there such a thing?) of animated gifs from Morning Musume’s latest concert DVD (Haru Single Daizenshuu). I think that with gif files, less is more on a page, so I’m going to break this up into a bunch of entries with just 4 .gifs each. I’m hoping this will prevent anyone from having seizures while watching all of them do their thing at once.

Maniacal Koharu. Please keep away from animals and small children.

Gaki-san is fierce

yessss

Where does the loop start and end? I’m not telling.

Back in action,

~Celestia~

When Morning Musume’s Bonkyu concert was going on I wrote THIS, and I’d like to do something similar here for Haru Single Daizenshuu. The focus is on the sets where every girl is wearing something similar but different, because, inevitably, some girls are going to end up with something a lot nicer than others. So, who has pissed off the costume designers today? I’ll get to that in a minute. First, a quick review of the costumes that are too much the same to declare a winner and loser. Oh, and just so there isn’t any confusion, this entry is not meant to be part of the hall of shame series. In fact, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that I’m not a heartless bitch who hates every costume ever. Plus, it’s a good excuse to post a whole bunch of Momusu eye-candy.

These are pretty!! Since they’re being used for a flamenco-ish song (Iroppoi Jirettai), I don’t even mind all the ruffles.

I’m very “meh” about the warrior princess costumes.

These are probably my least favorite from this concert. I think they all might be a little different, but it just looks like a big zebra-like mesh of fake flowers and breeches to me (breeches not shown in this picture, but who really wants to look at breeches anyway?), so I’m not going to try to discern which ones are the best.

Oh yes. Sayu the smexy school-girl. My one gripe is that Ai-chan looks kind of ridiculous in this. She’s really too old to be dressed as a schoolgirl anymore.

Technically these are different for each girl because the sash is in each girl’s designated color, but other than that they are the same. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that rainbow fabric somewhere before…(hint: purple feathers). If you don’t remember their colors: Ai-chan=yellow, Risa=green, Eri=orange, Sayu=pink, Reina=light blue, Koha=red, Mittsi=purple, JunJun=dark blue, and LinLin=turquoise. This becomes important later.

Peace! Peace!

Encore costumes are blue or pink t-shirts with their names on them, denim bottoms, and…feathery bustles. This is another example of a costume that was so close to being cute. I should “hall of shame” them for the bustle infraction, but I’m in a good mood today, so I’ll let it slide this time.

And now for the fun part! These dresses aren’t all that different, so we’ll start with this set. First, the “also rans”

They’re cute, right? The only problem is that I couldn’t find a picture of Koha’s. Sorry about that.

And now! The worst costume in this set is……

It’s not horrible, but she’s the only one with sleeves, and I just don’t think it works with the dress. I don’t know why, but I’m somehow reminded of Star Trek.

That means the winner is….

The horizontal stripes with the chevron shape are flattering. I also like the see-through collar.

Now for the “Mr. Moonlight” set. The girls are all wearing “their” color again. See? I told you it would become important later.

“Also rans!”

And this time the costume designers hate….

JunJun! Is it just me, or does she not match the others very well? They’ve all got patterned fabric and lace and frills everywhere, so her costume looks downright plain and (were the skirt longer) school marm-ish. The high collar in particular is almost severe. To be fair, Reina’s almost took this spot for going too far in the opposite direction.

Who slipped those designers a crisp $100 bill?

Gaki-san is wearing a costume that I would be happy to wear in public as a dress. That might be a Morning Musume first! Just look at how cute this is!

For the last set, I’d like to do something a little bit different. The current poll has been up for a long while, so I think it’s time for a change! This time, you can play the fashion police and help determine the winners and losers of this set! Here are the costumes:

So, is Sayu’s baby-doll dress the cutest of the bunch? Does Reina’s pirate-wench costume float your boat? Vote for best dressed in the handy poll on the left side!

L8r,

~Celestia~

PS. The winner of the “favorite egg” poll was Arisa Noto with Yuu Kikkawa in second and Sayaka Kitihara in third. The most surprising thing for me was that Minami Sengoku did not get a single vote. I thought she had some fans out there somewhere? *scratches head*

PPS. When is Morning Musume going to get a new single? Berrysz and C-ute are both on their third for the year plus an album, and MM has only had one single and no albums!! The one single they had has easily out-sold anything either of the kids groups has ever done, so why are the kids groups getting so many more releases? It’s injustice!! Injustice I tell you!!

Aika picspam! Go!!!

Goofy Aika

Cute Aika

Sexy Aika?!

Why Hello Thar Mittsi,

~Celestia~

Gaki-saaaaaaaaaaaan!!! My favorite Momusu has a new photobook. Many thanks to gordiehowe at the hello online forums for putting scans up for download. I still can’t get over how she has transformed from an awkward pig-tailed kid into such a lovely young woman. She’s kept the same beautiful smile throughout though. Here are my favorite pictures of our little duckling turned swan.

Allow me to indulge myself with a bit of personal news at the end here. I finished my last ever class as an undergraduate about an hour ago. There’s still finals, of course, but no more classes. I feel…weird. I’m happy, but I also kind of feel like crying. I’m proud to have (almost) earned my degree, and I’m looking forward to going to Japan, but I hate it when things end, and today was the first time it started sinking in that a major chapter of my life is almost over. Even more than when I finished high school, everything in my life is about to change all at once. I don’t even know what to feel right now, and as graduation approaches, I know it’s just going to get more confusing.

Tomorrow is another day,

~Celestia~

Yesterday, I took it upon myself to learn how to make animated .gifs, and now I’m kind of addicted to it. I made a bunch for my other blog, and then spent far too long just staring at them. Watching them go around and around and around and around and…anyway, for my first, but certainly not last batch of h!p .gifs, I’ve just used the Resonant Blue “Another Version” pv since I already had it on my computer.

Feel free to take these, but as always, comments are highly appreciated.

Round and round and…

~Celestia~ 

Not much of an entry, but I came across this picture, and I was so amused that I just had to share it.

Hehehehe, that cat wishes Nacchi dead!

Which caused me to casually scan through my files and some websites for other hilarious photos to come from official photobooks. Here are a few that I found. May they amuse you on this fine Friday.

More Nacchi torturing that poor kitty. You can clearly see the terror in its eyes.

I couldn’t not include something from the Aibon/Nono photobook, could I? This is just so utterly random.

I think there’s something unintentionally hilarious about Ai Takahashi double fisting gas pumps. Am I just weird?

I’m okay with the tiara and the princess dress and the fuzzy slippers, but the teddy bear??

Reina’s side job: chasing ducks out of empty swimming pools

Sorry there aren’t many, but I’m too busy with tests and papers to do a more thorough search.
C-ya,

~Celestia~

With the h!p Eggs suddenly getting a whole lot of attention lately, perhaps it’s time to devote another post to them. H!P has released new pictures of them for their upcoming 3rd concert, and I must say, they’re quite nice. It’s further evidence that they’re investing more in their eggs that they bothered to get them dolled up in fashionable clothes and style their hair for pictures instead of just slapping them in matching T-shirts and pony-tails like usual.

In particular, new Milky Way member Sayaka Kitahara’s picture is striking.

I’m telling you, this girl is going places. I think Milky Way is sort of the last test of her abilities and appeal. If she passes, and I have no doubt that she will, then it’s only a matter of time before she graduates from the eggs and debuts with a real unit.

I also really like Maeda Yuuka’s picture, even though she looks like she’s about 6 years old. She’s like a sad little doll, and I just want to give her a hug.

Speaking of eggs, I recently realized that I only had seen part of the Newcomer’s concert, so I set out to remedy that. The concert bugs me a bit because I imagine that it must have been weird for the Eggs to perform with Aika, JunLin, and Kanna as equals when they know that when they next meet, those four will have the fans chanting their names while the eggs backdance for them. Even within this concert, it’s clear that the eggs are 2nd class citizens and the four debuted girls are the main attraction. It seems like that could be awkward on both sides, really. Still, it’s the best egg footage out there right now, so well worth watching. Here’s their performance of dadida dobidobidobidee or whatever that song is called. Is it just me, or does Aika seem loads better at singing in this clip than she does in MM performances? Weird. Perhaps being covered with tinsel inspired her. Kanna also seems to sing better than usual. Sayaka is one of the eggs who gets a lot of focus in this, so pay attention! She sings with Ogawa Saki right after Aika.

I just realized that I can recognize and name pretty much all of the eggs now. That’s dangerous. I didn’t want to get attached to them because I know that many of them will never debut for real, and that makes me sad. I guess I just couldn’t help it though. I do wish they’d give their other concerts DVD releases. I want to see more of what they can do.

I still don’t like Mucchi though.

Auf Wiedersehen,

~Celestia~