Bikkuri Project

But first, a comment on some recently leveled criticism. I don’t tend to do a lot of reviews in terms of the quality of recently released albums and singles for a couple of reasons. First, I think I’m better at writing snarky commentary or analytical pieces than music reviews. There are other blogs out there that do it much better, so if you want to know about the quality of the music, I suggest you check one of those. Second, every time something new is released in Hello Project, tons of blogs jump on reviewing it, which isn’t a bad thing, but I feel like adding my own opinion is probably redundant. How many reviews of the same CD are people really going to read, and how much is there for me to say that hasn’t already been said? While I don’t always succeed, it is my goal for this blog to offer something fresh that you’re not reading at every other h!p blog. All that being said, maybe I’ll attempt a review of the new C-ute album when I get my hands on it, just for irony’s sake.

Okay, now on to the last group of screen caps! There’s only a couple, because it’s just the encore. Those with fluff allergies are advised to wear a mask when viewing these images.

Love it when Risa jumps.


This dance move reminds me of a peeing dog.

Now that VUDen is being disbanded, I almost don’t have the heart to wonder how they make all of their costumes, even this one, look so much like lingerie or to suspect that in this case it might be the fluffy stripper heals.

Eri wants YOU to join the Morning Musume fandom.

Happy Trails,

~Celestia~

It occurs to me that however I try to ignore it, there is a VUDen portion of this concert, so I’ve carefully screen-caped all of the important parts for you.

This is Rika Ishikawa’s ass. I did not cut anything out of the frame. By my count there were a total of 17 ass-shots in Jaja Uma Paradise alone (not including ass-focused shots. only shots where asses, but no faces were visible)

Aika is so cute! Just look at her and try not to fall in love. I dare you.

Yui attacks Aika and the other members of VUDen by knocking them down with her crotch. Kinda blurry because it’s in motion, but you should be able to see from the picture that what she’s “kicking” them with is definitely not her legs.

Gaki-san, now is not smiley time. Aw, who am I kidding. It’s always smiley time with Gaki-san.

You can never have too much Mittsi.

Shabondama is a pain in the ass to screen cap because they never stop thrashing around. Since I couldn’t get any decent close-ups, here’s a nice action shot.

My two favorite girls!

Sayumi looks so happy!

Stay tuned for next time. I got a bit carried away with “Love and Peace” so I’m devoting the entire next entry to that song.

I raiku tokyo, (oh Risa)

~Celestia~

The Japanese are known for having a deep appreciation for their four unique seasons. They express this appreciation through two time honored methods: haiku and ugly h!p costumes. You may find one of those to be an unusual method to commemorate the seasons, but you’ll just have to trust me and my extensive knowledge of Japanese culture on this one. Haiku really are supposed to have a seasonal theme.

When Autumn (aki) rolls around, things start to get a bit chilly, but that won’t stop C-ute! They don’t even let the fact that mustard yellow looks good on absolutely no one slow them down. While Maimi’s plaid short-shorts may be fashionable, they do nothing to protect her rear from the brisk breezes of fall, so she has attached a fuzzy green butt-warmer. It is practical as well as fashionable; doubling as protective padding should she slip on some fallen leaves and land on her ass. From what I hear, it was quite cheap too. She said she found it in a garbage can in a nice little neighborhood called Sesame Street. Say Maimi, next time you’re there can you ask about my friend Oscar? I haven’t heard from him for a while, and I’m starting to get worried.

Next up, Rika Ishikawa is looking festive for the holiday season, Winter (fuyu). According to a recent interview, her motto is, “if less is more, then more is even more than that, and that’s better, right?” She explained that she started with a nice beaded evening gown, but it just wasn’t enough. It needed something. It needed to be festooned with gigantic poofy bows, taffeta flounces of alternating colors, and a couple of leftover tartan kilts from her latest photobook “Alo Hello Rika Ishikawa in Scotland.” To finish off, she looked for a necklace, but they were all tangled together in a clumpy mess. “More is more” she thought, humming to herself and fastening the whole thing around her neck.

Ah Spring (haru). Here Ayaya demonstrates that nothing says ‘Spring’ quite like a gigantic butterfly perched on your head (for best results butterfly should be larger than head). How nice to see that she’s been taking fashion tips from Rika and has chosen to festoon one of the legs of her pants in floppy multicolored bows which doesn’t look ridiculous at all. It looks so not ridiculous that I almost didn’t notice that her shiny silver leather pants (there’s four words that should never appear together in a sentence) seem to have been violently sprayed with blood recently. You know, between the gore and the butterfly, the ruffly almost-vest isn’t even worth commenting on.

On a hot Summer (natsu) day, there’s nothing better than a nice dip in the pool. How very clever of Maki to wear what is clearly a bikini directly over her old T-shirt. Throw on a few belts and some red streamers and the whole audience is fooled into thinking that she’s wearing a concert costume. The protruding fringe of her bloomers making it look like she’s one of those little kids who wears a diaper under her swimsuit is a small price to pay to be able to hit the pool immediately after the concert. Sure, most people in this situation would wear the swimsuit under their clothes, but Maki is being a non-conformist, and you’ve got to respect her for that.

I’ll end with my own haiku.

Is Rika crazy?

I think she wants to eat me

I’m afraid. Send help!

Man, I’m in a good mood today. I just got back from renting a cabin at the mountain for the weekend with my boyfriend and another couple, and it was just the sort of break from school that I needed. There was lots of snow! When I got back, I watched Buono’s new PV, and it really made me smile. I was impressed by how good all three girls looked. Finally, I realized that I am almost done with making my top lists of h!p songs by groups, so soon I will be able to compose the list of my favorites out of all of h!p, which is something I’ve been working up to for a while. Today I’m going to finish off my ‘by groups’ lists with the Morning Musume ‘gumi’ groups, Maki Goto, and VUDen.

Maki Goto- You might be surprised that she only is on a top 1-2 list instead of a top 5 or even 10 given all the solo material she has produced. The reason really comes down to my personal preference for groups over soloists. I like seeing the group interactions and how their personalities and voices come together. Also, more effort and planning seems to go into h!p’s groups than their soloists. H!P solo work (with the notable exception of early Matsuura Aya) doesn’t tend to interest me much.

2. Suppin no Namida- It’s a theme song for a drama, and it certainly sounds like it. With ballads either they really get to me or, more often, I get bored before I’m halfway through the song . There’s really no in between. This happens to be one of the ones that gets to me. You can tell that there’s a story behind it, and it shows in the emotion that she puts into her voice.

1. Sukisugite Baka Mitai (Goto version)- Oh that’s where this song ended up! Yeah, it’s a great song, but I picked the Maki version over the original for one important reason… Rika Ishikawa. It’s not that I don’t like Rika, she has her place, but that place is not alongside three of the strongest singers in h!p. Her voice sticks out like a sore thumb, and quite frankly, ruins the song for me. Of the individual versions, I like Maki’s the best because she can portray the attitude of the song a bit better than Aya or Nacchi. See what I mean about solo songs? My favorite song of Maki’s is technically a group song anyway.

Otome/Sakura Gumi- I actually really like all of the Gumi songs, but I’m only allowing myself to pick my top 2.

2. Sakura Mankai- This song might just have my favorite PV out of all of Hello Project. It’s just so pretty! The song is also very pretty, and it’s one of the few h!p songs that incorporates the traditional Japanese feel without sounding forced and annoying me. I love it when they whip out their fans.

1. Ai no Sono~ Touch my Heart!~ Originally I was a bit turned off by the strange English (hey every time I’m so proud of you?) but I quickly got over that and now happily perform the hand motions every time that part plays. Now this is the right use for a Rika Ishikawa. Her “bye bye” lines are quite nice. This song is really a lot of fun.

VUDen- So they broke up huh? I swear, every time I leave something happens. I go to Florida for Spring Break and they add Chinese members to Morning Musume. I visit my brother in college and Maki quits. I go up to the mountain and VUDen disbands. For my two cents on the matter… meh… another wrong use of a Rika. She was never meant to front a group. I’m surprised they lasted as long as they did.

2. Koi no Nukegara- Uh… this song only makes the list because I really like the music at the beginning. Their voices are whiny and annoying… I just really like that intro, okay?!?

1. Koi suru Angel Heart- This one is a really cute song. The girls aren’t trying to be overly sexy, and it’s got a nice catchy melody. I think another group probably could have sung it better though since Rika’s voice goes pretty thin on the high notes, but at least they put a lot of spirit into it I guess.

Woo! I’m done! I’m going to try to compose my master list now. I can’t wait to find out which songs I like best. I’ve always wondered about that. Lol. Not sure how this post ended up so Rika focused though. Even Maki’s section was full of Rika, huh?

the other reason I’m in a good mood is that the new KT pv is out, and it’s so freaking hot… Jin’s little smirk at the end..*dies*

Since more and more bad costumes seem to keep piling up (and I swear, I’m trying to be lenient), The Costume Hall of Shame has left me with many questions. Mostly, they are along the lines of “Why??” and “Are they blind??” (the answers to which are “see the answer to question 2″ and “yes”), but I often find myself left with questions that are more difficult to answer than these two. Perhaps you will have more luck with them than I have.

What the hell is on Maki’s face?

What the hell is on Rika’s head? Is the costume a homage to the famous Princess Leia/gold bikini scene from Star Wars? Is Rika a fan of Star Wars or is she just hoping to appeal to Star Wars geeks in the audience?

Is Ayaya trying to appeal to Renaissance fair geeks in the audience, or is she actually on her way to slay a dragon?

If you have to take a second look to make sure a girl is wearing an actual costume underneath her boas, is she wearing too many boas? Is there such a thing as too many boas in the h!p world?

How about too many plaids? Is that why Yossie is so angry here?

Did Sayu just realize she forgot to pull her napkin out of her shirt-front after her lunch break? Does she think it’s okay to leave it that way because her napkin happened to match her bloomers? Why is she even wearing bloomers? Is that why Yossie is so angry?

Where will Maki’s crazy crochet-happy grandmother strike next!?!? (just try to tell me that this costume didn’t start out life as an afghan or table cloth made by an insane octogenarian)

The year is not over yet, so some might say that it’s too soon for “best____ of the year” features, but to them I say pish posh. I’m doing one anyway.

For your viewing pleasure, my favorite h!p photos of the year (so far). Most of them are from photobooks, but there are a few exceptions.

10.Out of all the recently released h!p kids photobooks, I think that Maimi’s really stood out. A lot of her pictures still have a somewhat awkward “it’s my first time doing this” look to them, but some of them, such as this shot (the cover) look wonderfully natural. I really love her expression in this. It’s kind of enigmatic, I think.

9.Good lord Sayumi is beautiful. That’s all I can say about this.

8. Ahaha Rika. I love it when photobooks have silly goofy shots like this. The shot where she’s trying to pull off the sock is especially cute.

7. To me, this shot of Aika from the recent concert just says “I have arrived”. Adjusting to being a Musume is no doubt a difficult and stressful process, but it seems that Aika is finally feeling confident and really starting to enjoy herself now. I think that this photo of her singing a solo while looking oh so happy and adorable shows that progress.

6.I love Reina’s “girl” photobook so much that it was difficult for me to not put too many pictures from it in this list. This one made the cut because it shows a side of Reina that we don’t get to see very often. It’s not “kirakira” and it’s not “yankii” either. It’s not even gothic princess. She’s looking incredibly chic and refined, almost European, and proving that yes, she can pull off this style as well. I also really love her expression in this photo. It’s a little bit innocent and a little bit cocky and totally Reina.

5.Morning Cofee cover! I’m sure you’ve seen this photo before, but I can’t help but include it. The girls all are wearing wonderful smiles, and, whether or not it’s true, this cover makes it look like they have a great group bond. Of course, I can’t ignore what a clever way this is of tying together Morning Musume’s past, present, and future.

4.I’m not a huge Eri fan, but something about this photo pulls me in. Maybe it’s her lip color. I don’t really know why, but I love this picture.

3. Risa has such a lovely genuine smile. It’s one of my favorite things about her. This photo combines a great example of that smile with perfect lighting; careless looking curls which frame her face in a very flattering way, and a casual and relaxed look and pose. Even though it’s a posed professional photo, something about is seems real and approachable.

2. This photo of Sayu is just so very pretty. The field of pretty flowers and a beautiful girl throwing her head back as though to sigh in happiness. Ah. Even in the cold of winter, this picture makes me feel refreshed and summery.

1. My very favorite photo is another of Reina. Again, it’s really her expression that gets me here. She looks thoughtful, vulnerable, and maybe a bit sad. The way she’s perched on the railing is kind of child-like, but her look and styling is mature. There are cute photos of girls prancing in bikinis (which can be great in their own right), but then there’s photography as art. I think that this photo belongs to the latter category.