Bikkuri Project

Overall, I feel that concerts in the Saitama Super Arena have a bit more spark on the recording (probably it’s the other way around if you’re actually there), but I still really enjoyed this DVD. This concert is full of highly energetic songs, and you can tell how hard they’re working by how…er..damp they are by the end of it. It was wonderful really get to see China-tachi in action, and I love them even more now. PLEASE someone give them more lines in the next concert. LinLin is a great performer. She looks like she’s been doing this for years. JunJun is a bit unpolished, but she’s all the more adorable for it, and she looks so very joyful when she’s performing. Mittsi looks more confident than she did in the Sexy8Beat concert, and she’s more in-tune, though she still needs to learn to breathe right while singing and dancing at the same time. Also, her new haircut is great. Koharu was…Koharu, but not a particularly annoying version I guess. Reina and Eri have both had to step up and take a lot of Miki’s old lines, and they prove here that they’re plenty capable of handling that. Sayumi is still growing prettier by the day, and I’m still jealous of her beautiful hair. As always, Risa is a wonderful little ball of energy at concerts, and of course Ai-chan is there to hold down the fort with the challenging vocal lines. What I really like is that throughout the concert you can get a sense of the girl’s close friendship by watching how much they interact. It’s been said that the current lineup gets along better as a whole than MM has for years, and I think that’s probably true.

Just for fun, I’m going to declare a ‘winner’ or standout performer for each song in my reviews. Oh, and I’m only writing about the MM parts of the concert, because I’m not into VUDen.

BonkyuBonkyu Bomb Girl- I like this one on stage because the “yeah yeah” parts are really cute. Actually, the whole song was much cuter than I expected it to be. Ai-chan sounds squeaky and little-kid like on her spoken parts, and I’m not entirely convinced that it was really her voice coming out of her mouth. Maybe Momoko was hiding backstage with a microphone? They also definitely should have started off the concert with better costumes. Winner: Aika, for her line sounding far better here than it does on the recorded version

Mikan- Singing was fine. The more I hear this song though, the more I feel that it’s lacking something. The girls are trying to put a lot of energy in it, but it comes off a bit empty every time. I don’t think it’s their fault. It’s just something about the song. Hmmm. One thing I noticed is that you can really hear LinLin’s voice in the 3-person parts with her, and she sounds very good. Winner: LinLin, for the previously stated reason

Handmade City- Meh. This isn’t my favorite performance because I think a lot of the song is a bit too low for them. Risa sounds good in that register and Eri does an admirable job of handling Miki’s old part, but Ai-chan is sounding a bit manly. Oh, and did they get the towel waving idea from Erika or what? At least they lost the ugly dresses. Winner: Risa, sounds great, looks sexy and confident

Please!Jiyuu no Tobira- Love these costumes. I especially enjoyed all the lines sung in pairs. Risa and Aika were super cute together. Winner: Ai-chan for her great-sounding “Watashi” line, lovely emoting at the very end, and because she looks smokin’ hot in the costume.

Kanashimi Twilight- I love this song, especially live, and this performance is no exception. Even better, Aika sang her solo line live, and while it wasn’t as strong as it could have been, she didn’t go horribly out of tune! That’s proof of progress right there. Eri once again nailed her Miki hand me down line, and Ai-chan was excellent on Yossie’s solo. Performances like this give me more confidence that Morning Musume can still kick ass without Yossie and Miki. Winner: Reina for sexily owning the opening lines and surprising us all with her alto singing

Chance- Forgive me, but I am opting out of reviewing this. It would have gotten ugly.

Suki na Sempai- As expected, JunLin are absolutely adorable. I’ve heard better performances, singing-wise, in some of the fan-made concert recordings, but that’s not to say they sang badly, just a bit shaky at points. Given their extremely limited number of solo lines in other songs, I’m really really glad that they got to do this duet. Winner: JunJun for overwhelming cuteness

Shianimuni Paradise- Interesting. They are wearing headmics, but they’re not lipsyncing. You can hear them get a bit out of breath at the end. Time to drink, I guess (see drinking game post). I enjoyed this a lot, because instead Miki looking like “Oh gawd. Do I really have to do this lame dance move?” we have Eri who executes them with flair. It’s a much more joyful performance than we got with injured Ai-chan and ‘too cool for this’ Miki. The singing might not be quite as good, but it’s way more fun. Also watch for the funny facial expressions from Reina. I have a feeling that we’re going to see this song performed at h!p concerts for years to come. Winner: Eri, because she’s the only one who had to learn the song from scratch for the concert, and because she looks so weirdly cute doing that corny dance. I almost wish she’s been the one in the song from the beginning, but then we would have missed out on her duet with Aika, and that would have been a real shame.

Ikimasshoi- I like the Hawaiian outfits and the bouncing on the trampoline, but it was lipsynced, and therefore 100x less interesting. The song doesn’t even have a good dance to make up for it. What’s with the slow shuffling around while swinging their arms like chimps? Also, why was Reina blinking so much (not winking, but rapidly blinking in a concerned sort of way) Next. Winner: Koharu because her hyper/craziness matches the song

Otoko Tomodachi-Kyaaaa! Aika is sooooo cute!!! She’s almost cute enough to distract me from how dumb the heavy black boots look with that dress. I’m surprised and a bit perplexed by her getting to perform a solo so early on in her career though. Perhaps it’s to put her on more even footing with Koharu? It’s also interesting to see VUDen doing the backup dancing, since usually it’s the younger members doing that part for one of the more experienced members. Anyway, her singing is okay, but not near as good as she’s capable of. She gets tired at the end, but again, improvement since Sexy8Beat is shown, and she’s sooo cute and so likeable that I am a bit more forgiving of her live singing skills. If the goal of this performance was to make me love Mittsi even more, it has succeeded.

Gyutto Dakishimete- Well, you know. It’s Ai-chan. It’s a ballad. It’s a formula for a lovely performance, if nothing particularly memorable.

How do you like Japan- Love this song in live performances. I preferred the Rainbow7 concert version to this one, but it was still very good. Yay for JunLin finally getting solo lines in a group song (first time in the concert so far). I also loved how Sayumi spat out her lines. It’s so fun to see her acting all tough once in a while. Risa owns them all when it comes to this song though. Winner: Risa all around. The song is made for her, from the Engrish introduction to the final chorus.

Shabondama- An excellent performance, one of the best I’ve seen of Shabondama not done by its original lineup! Reina, as usual, sings better in this song than she does in any other. Why oh why can’t she sing like that all the time? Sayumi sounds unusually distressed. I like it! LinLin showcases her “oi!”ing talent previously seen in the Special Generation performance at the newcomer’s concert. Eri sings the ‘Whoa whoa whoa’ part better than Aibon did and maybe even does the monologue better than Rika did. Is it sacrilege to say that? ‘How do you like Japan’ was sort of the warm-up to get everyone pumped for this one, I think. Winner: Reina. Reina cannot lose at Shabondama. There’s just no contest.

Nature is Good- The whole ‘nature is good’ line makes it hard for me to like the song much because it’s so very cheesy. If they ever redo “Captain Planet” (and they should because that show was awesome!) this could be the theme song. Captain Planet was full of horribly cheesy lines. I also don’t like the song much because the dance looks like they’re directing traffic. Anyway, it was pretty much a Reina/Risa duet. I guess it makes sense since neither of them got a real solo or duet performance. Since it’s not really a group song, I’m not going to pick a winner. Also, remember kids: The power is yours!

Ambitious- Oh no, two songs that I don’t really care for in a row. Oh, but they’ve changed to those blue and white costumes that I love, so it can’t be that bad! Uh… I hate what this song does to Reina’s singing, and having just witnessed Shabondama as proof that she can sing well when she wants to, I can only assume she’s doing it on purpose. Another problem is that Ai-chan’s voice again turns manly in the lower registers. I do like the Jun/Eri combo lines. Their voices sound really nice together. Winner: Sayumi. Every time she does that former line of KonKon’s, she sounds a bit stronger. Good for her.

Go Girl Koi no Victory- Not the most energetic performance of this I’ve ever seen. It feels a little flat, but they’re near the end of a rather long set, so I guess it’s understandable. LinLin still looks energetic at least. How to pick a winner in a song without solo lines? I guess I’ll just have to go with whoever looks the cutest. Winner: LinLin. The dance suits her, and she looked the least like she was about to collapse

Love and Peace- Miraculously, the girls are revived by the madness that is Love and Peace! Everyone seems to be having fun here, which also makes it more fun from an audience perspective. Due to the nature of the song, it’s full of cute/tender/funny moments. Reina’s over-the-top cutseyness is right at home here, Risa’s manhandling of Sayumi is quite funny, and I especially enjoyed all the faces Koharu pulled. She would have won if it hadn’t been for… Winner: JunJun, for her surprise kiss attack on Ai-chan and how very pleased with herself she looked after she did it

Hello to You- Encore time! Bring on the the eyesmartingly awful costumes! Looking at all of them on stage at once is painful. Really, it’s bad. As for the song, I’ve heard some mixed reviews, but I rather like it. I think it’s a good anthem for h!p, and their old one was starting to sound a bit dated. Does anyone have any idea what the wota are shouting between lines? I can’t make it out, and it’s bugging me. Winner: Ai-chan. She has the only part of note, and she sings it well.

Onna ni Sachi Are- Eri nails her solo part. She seriously kicked that solo’s ass. Chinatachi also sang well. Definitely a good performance and a strong finish to the concert. Winner: Eri

Most Improved: Aika. She lost a lot of my affection with her poor showing at the Sexy8Beat concert, and it took quite a while for her to gradually earn it back. Since that time, she has blossomed into a high-caliber idol. Aika came into MM full of so much raw potential, and it’s been wonderful to watch her grow. She still has many things to work on, but with her strong work ethic, great figure (already at such a young age), and natural charm, she could be one of MM’s main attractions someday.

Best Overall: Eri. I think of Eri as the girl most likely to blend in with the crowd, neither standing out as particularly weak nor particularly strong. In this concert, however, she did stand out, and in a good way. She has shouldered a lot more singing responsibility in this new Morning Musume lineup, and she’s handling it beautifully all while looking equally beautiful. Eri is known to be a bit inconsistent in lives, but I hardly heard her hit a single bad note in this concert. Congratulations to Eri for proving that she deserves my attention.

Favorite Performances: Shianimuni Paradise, Shabondama, Love and Peace

I am in the process of making a bunch of screen-caps of the concert, but I’m going to save those for the next post. I think this one is long enough as it is.

Goodnight All,

~Celestia~

Does the title sound like the start of a good story? Because it’s really not. I just feel like I haven’t updated in a while. This is because not much has been happening in the H!P world lately. I know there is going to be a massive wave of releases soon, but for now, I’ll just have to tide myself over with the recently released Athena & co PV. Here’s a link!

http://www.dohhhup.com/movie/vdDB5SXNb96jjSW9HUVdaPA26bpZ4aLs/view.php

It’s nothing too spectacular, but I wasn’t expecting anything too spectacular, and it was much more interesting than their first PV since they had props and multiple scenes this time. They did some cute things with the props like Saki feeding something to her hot-dog octopus, Chisato attempting to flip the (burgers? pancakes?), and the last shot of Gaki-san playing with the little anime character things was precious. The Minimoni feel is stronger than ever in the PV. Four girls? check. Plaid uniforms? check One girl wears a costume that really stands out? check Cute cartoonish house set with cooking/playing with food (see minimoni movie) check Cute childish song? check check checkaroo.

As for the individual girls, Risa really sparkled in this one. I can’t think of a better word for it. She was just plain sparkly. Her smile could melt formica. Aika was adorable as always, and the two C-ute girls seemed to work the camera a bit more than they did in the last PV. I was especially impressed with Saki for looking very very pretty (not just cute, pretty), and appearing quite lively and interesting. I still love Chisa’s voice, but she still looks a bit more awkward in front of the camera than the others.

For the personal update part, I got presents from Japan! I regularly correspond with the host family I stayed with four years ago, and today I received a big box of gifts from them for New Years! Yay!

Here is the promised review of C-ute’s latest concert tour “Aki Houkago no Essence”. If it seems like I’m focusing on some parts more than others, it’s because I am.

The concert opens with a nice performance of “Tokaikko Junjou”, though I have yet to see a bad performance of that song. Kanna mouthing “are you ready” at the beginning is the best part, but what I’m more inclined to pay attention to are their awesome costumes. Seriously, they’re wearing some of the best costumes I’ve seen from Hello Project in years! I especially like Nakki’s. Speaking of Saki, she gets the award for “most enthusiastic” this concert. I love watching that girl dance, because even if Maimi is technically better, Saki always looks like she’s having a blast out there.

http://img232.imageshack.us/my.php?image=1193989294qa4.jpg

I question the wisdom of putting “Meguru Koi no Kisetsu” next, because that’s putting two very demanding dances back to back, and you can tell they’re out of breath. Next is “Sakura Chirari”. All 3 of their major singles in a row in reverse order?? Anyway, C-ute’s first single bores me, and it probably always will. Shuffling in place on stage does NOT count as a dance.

The transition to “Endless Love” is nice. Fortunately, this song does have an enjoyable dance, and I am impressed by how Mai handled her lines, though I remain confused by her having so many of them in a song this mature-sounding. I kind of dislike the song itself though, since it’s recycled T&C Bomber material. Good thing C-ute’s getting a new album so they can have more songs of their own to perform.

The next number, “Time Capsule” is a Maimi/Saki duet. Bring on the only song in C-ute’s arsenal that bores me more than “Sakura Chirari”! It doesn’t help that Miss Saki is not sounding her best here. So, overall, this section is not my favorite part of the concert, but don’t worry; it gets better.

It’s Buono time! <3 Momoko and her speaking voice. I'm quite tickled by the thought of Berryz leads as guests at a C-ute concert. I do like Berryz, but I think C-ute deserves a bit of revenge for playing 2^nd string to the Berryz for so long. It broke my heart a little bit when C-ute was being interviewed, and they talked about how they all attended Berryz Kobou’s first concert and cried the whole time. I doubt Momoko and Miyabi are humiliated or anything, but I do wonder if it stings a little for them to be dancing backup for C-ute during the encore.

Coincidentally, shortly before I watched this I had viewed another C-ute concert DVD. It was their first full concert DVD in fact: Hajimette yo Cutie Show. I couldn’t help but compare the C-ute of today to the C-ute of about one year ago and marvel at how far some of them have come both in stage presence and vocal ability. I can see noticeable improvement in everyone except maybe Airi, and she was already ahead of most of the others anyway, so it’s more like they’ve caught up to her a bit than that she’s fallen behind. I’m going to go ahead and give the “Most Improved” award to Kanna, with Erika in a close second. In their first concert, Kanna can be easily picked out as the worst singer in the bunch and the least confident on stage, but in the more recent show she’s finally holding her own with the other girls. She still looks bit..worried…sometimes, but she’s definitely doing better. Erika has also shown noticeable improvement in vocals. I imagine she’s been working pretty hard on improving her voice. Let’s look at the perfect example from this concert, Erika and Kanna’s duet of “Tsuugaku Vector”. Yeah, Airi did it better, but I’m still going to give these two kudos for doing as well as they did.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h0xZqFSPeU

Next is “Everyday Yeah Kataomoi”. Aren’t they a little old to be singing this song anymore? Oh well. Just goes to show that you can’t totally take the cute out of C-ute. I like that everyone is wearing a costume of “their” color. It helps you to figure out who is cheering for who when you look out at the glowsticks in the audience. Lots o’ green out there…

Following that, it’s a full group rendition of “Disco Queen”. Awesome! Talk about a song that’s really grown on me. It seems a bit strange to have everyone out there singing what was originally a duet, but I like the look of everyone doing the dance together, so I’m going to give this one a thumbs up.

Bishoujo Shinri is an awesome song, and a nice followup to “Disco Queen”. It’s like they took the dance style and kicked it up a notch. I like how everyone gets lines in the verses, and they all do very well with them. C-ute really is the group with no weak link. They’re not all spectacular, but none of them are bad singers. Airi, of course, does most of the work here vocally, handling all of the difficult chorus lines. Surprisingly, she struggles a little on her first section, though she does seem to get it together by the end, it looks like she’s working really hard to hit those notes. I almost feel sorry for her. Couldn’t they give someone else a line of the chorus to give Airi a chance to catch her breath?

“Massara Blue Jeans” is one of my favorite performances of the concert. The energy goes up another notch from Bishoujo Shinri. I love it when sets build on themselves like this. Maimi stood out the most to me in this number, as she seemed to have energy to spare despite having every right to be exhausted. From watching her, I get the feeling that she really enjoys performing this song. I was rather impressed with her vocals as well, but then it was brought to my attention that she may well be lip-syncing her way though this concert due to having a sore throat. Hmm. Her voice sounded fine while she was talking, but come to think of it, she really should sound more out of breath than she does. It’s kind of sad if she is lip-syncing. I hope she doesn’t have any kind of chronic condition.

Can’t seem to find Massara by itself, so here it is with Bishoujo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Y5pgyw5eIk&feature=related

After shedding a layer of costume, Mai and Chisato emerge to sing “Futari wa NS” with Chisato taking Koharu’s lines. This might just be the best thing ever. Attention to whoever makes the setlists for concerts: LET OTHER PEOPLE SING MORE OF KOHARU’S SONGS. I can’t believe how much more I like the song with Chisa singing it instead of “Kirari”. It makes me wonder how many of Koharu’s songs really are good, but I can’t appreciate them with her grating voice smeared all over the music. It makes this performance all the cuter that Chisato and Mai are friends in real life. Wait a minute… is Mai taller than Chisa now?

I’ve already mentioned Maimi’s solo, but to recap: Maimi= too hot to be only 15.

Everyone’s back on stage for the last set. The costumes look suspiciously like they have feathery bustles, but I’m going to let this one go since they aren’t large enough to make the girls resemble exotic fowl. “That’s the Power” is usually a song that I’m fond of, but Erika decided to spice things up a bit by yelling something about towels all the time. I’m not sure if it’s some kind of Japanese cultural thing that I don’t understand, but I found it to be really annoying.

“As One” was good. I had never noticed before, but Maimi and Erika are harmonizing with Airi while she sings the lead chorus part. Is it sad that it’s a novelty for an h!p group to do their own harmonizing on stage? It does seem that some of them are capable, and it really does add something to the show. I don’t see why they don’t do it more often. Also, LoL at Airi always singing “as wow” instead of “as one”.

“Yes Shiawase” is also recycled T&C Bomber fare, so meh. The galloping across the stage is cute I guess. Oh, and Chisato grabbed and kissed Maimi when they were supposed to only be pretending to kiss in a move that will go down in both C-ute history and a plethora of animated GIFs.

I was deeply disappointed that they gave Chisato’s opening lines in “Bokura no Kagayaki” to Airi. The girl has so few lines as it is! Why oh why did you give away some the best lines that do belong to her!?! It’s not that Airi sang them badly, but I was so angry that it ruined the whole song for me.

By the time they get to “Jump” the girls are clearly tired, so it’s not the best performance of the song I’ve ever seen. It really is mean to put a song that requires you to jump up and down at the end of a long set. They give it their all though. I believe that Saki was jumping the highest (which is why she’s the “most enthusiastic”)

Encore! First is “Ookina Ai de Motenashite” with the aforementioned Berryz leads as background dancers. Of course, being “Ookina Ai de Motenashite” it’s adorable, and the addition of Momoko makes it even more so. It’s a Momo kind of song.The final number was “Wakkanai Z”. Not much to say about that one. It’s a good closer.

Whew. That was tiring. Don’t expect any more entries from me for a few days. I need a vacation after this.

http://www.dohhhup.com/movie/W4isxf8V2Dn1znHyjYZLI7r4YTbSn9xX/view.php

Ack. I promise the next entry will be a positive one, but I just can’t let this pass without comment. The PV for Berryz new single, “Tsukiatteru no ni kataomoi” has been released(link is above), and I hate to say it, but Berryz has officially been shafted in favor of Cute.

The main problem with the PV is that it doesn’t match the song at all. I know Berryz has been doing more slow/serious songs lately, but this isn’t one of them, so what’s with the somber formal traditional japanese setting? It looks like it might have been a good setup for a ballad, but not an upbeat song like this! Then there are the costumes, which are in a different direction all together. They’re pretty, but they don’t go with the peppy song or the traditional Japanese set.

The dance is just awful. I have now seen enough knee-flapping (which reminds me of chickens) to last me a lifetime. At least the dance is peppy to match the song, I guess.

If you look at the aesthetics of the PV it gets even more confusing. During the chorus there’s an annoying strobe light/camera flash effect that should come with a “WARNING: May induce seizures” label. The floaty white fabric continues the theme of “doesn’t match the song at all”, and is actually a bit creepy, especially the part where some floats down from the heavens and drapes itself on Risako. It’s like attack of the fabric part 2! At the end, the creepiness is pumped up a notch, when the magical fabric flies the girls to the moon (i’m not making this up). With the fabric floating behind them and their white dresses they bear more than a passing resemblance to ghosts. Actually, if I muted the PV and cut out the dance scenes I would probably think it’s about some kind of female ghosts haunting an ancient temple and mourning their lost love.

I’ll end with the positives. I think that everyone gets at least one solo line, Risako looks especially mature and lovely, the set’s nice (but not for this song), the song has some catchy hooks, and I love Momoko’s solo lines. I always love her voice, but in an anime-sounding song, her anime-sounding voice works especially well.

Sorry Berryz. It’s clear who Tsunku and UFA’s current favorite h!p kids group is, and it’s not you.