The tracklist to C-ute’s 5th single ‘Namida no Iro’ was announced a few days ago, and I must say that I was very surprised to see that their b-side will have the same title as the b-side on Berryz Koubou’s most recent release, ‘Dschinghis Khan’.

I guess I shouldn’t have been, what with the b-side on ‘Dschinghis Khan’ labeled as ‘Berryz Koubou ver.’, but seeing as the a-side was a cover, I thought that meant that the b-side was a cover as well (though I had no idea who sung the original version of the b-side). I had actually tried figuring out who had sung the original version of ‘Darling I LOVE YOU’, but to no avail. Now I realize why.

This is an interesting development. The last time I remember seeing the same b-side released under different groups was during the time of the Gumis. On both singles by both groups, the b-sides were the same songs labeled as _____ Gumi version. However, the songs were exactly the same – only the vocalists changed. And the vocalists in the songs were all from the same group, in the end. So it wasn’t really a competitive marketing ploy by Tsunku or UFA, because Sakura Gumi and Otome Gumi were such stark contrasts musically (Sakura releasing beautiful, but slow, ballads, Otome releasing hard, fast and catchy songs), that if you were looking for one style of music, you’d choose a particular group. If you were a general Momusu fan, you’d get both, and if you had a certain favourite member, maybe you’d get that group’s single. I remember thinking at the time that it was a waste. I really wanted to hear different songs from them which demonstrated the style that each group was presenting.

Now, C-ute’s single hasn’t been released yet. There’s still some time until it’s released, so we won’t quite know if it has the exact same instrumental track that Berryz’s b-side has. But to make things more interesting, I’d like to see a different instrumental track on C-ute’s version. Unlike Berryz who have a rock/pop instrumental, C-ute should get something along the lines of Tokkaiko – some kind of funky, techno dance remix of ‘Darling I LOVE YOU’. And then, come the Berryz vs. C-ute concert tour, which will be here in a month’s time, they’ll battle these two different versions out.

I’m picturing something along the lines of America’s Best Dance Crew. Berryz will come out singing their version (since by the first concert, C-ute’s new single still will not have been released). Berryz will sing up to the end of the first chorus, get the crowd all pumped up… Then the track will back up, fizzle out, however you want to say it. Berryz will look around like “WTF?! What happened to our song?!” and then C-ute’s tencho version will come on, C-ute will come out, the crowd will go wild and C-ute will bust out their moves for the second verse and chorus. Once the instrumental break comes in, we get a dance off between the two groups which would be interesting to see. Thus far, Berryz Koubou hasn’t had any particularly intricate dances for their songs (not to say their dancing is bad. I enjoy most of their choreography, actually), and we’ve seen what C-ute can do with Tokkaiko Junjou. So Berryz would have to really step it up here (obviously, they’re dependent on the choreograhers), but (for something of this magnitude) I have faith. Both groups would be absolutely amazing, then they’d come back into the vocals. They would somehow merge the two instrumental tracks into a cool techno-rock fusion sound and Berryz and C-ute come together to show how awesome they are combined. XD …

Now, let’s wake up and think about what it will really be like. T_T I wouldn’t be surprised if C-ute actually did get the same instrumental track as Berryz. Terribly disappointed, yes. But surprised? Not really. However, I’m hoping that’s not the case. Unlike Morning Musume and the Gumi groups, Berryz Koubou and C-ute are completely separate entities. I do hope that Tsunku and UFA utilize the differences between these groups and use these different versions as a way to highlight the varying strengths of the two groups.

With that said, I’m not expecting a change in the instrumental track. This song has the most ‘battle’ potential for this concert, seeing as both groups will be releasing their own versions of the song, but I’m also expecting to be disappointed for some reason because you can’t really battle it out with the exact same song. I can see the possibility of one or two of the girls producing an exceptional performance, but that wouldn’t be Berryz blasting C-ute or vice-versa. It’d be “Wow… So-and-so was really good in that performance”. Not battle material at all.

But what is the meaning behind having the two H!P Kids groups release the same song as their b-sides on succeeding singles? Is it simply for the purpose of this upcoming concert tour? Am I reading too much into this?

Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou and C-ute are the three main groups of H!P right now (I’m not considering soloists and the anomoly that is Kusumi Koharu – take that with a grain of salt, for I am not a fan of hers – solo work or otherwise). From the most recent singles from all three groups, Berryz Koubou had the best first week sales on Oricon selling 30,667 copies of ‘Dschinghis Khan’, followed by C-ute selling 29,086 copies of ‘LA LA LA Shiawase no Uta’. Morning Musume, the flagship group, comes in last with 28,082 copies of ‘Mikan’. Seeing as ‘Dschinghis Khan’ just came out last week, I can’t fairly compare total sales of these singles. Now, we’ll see if anything changes with Morning Musume’s upcoming single ‘Resonant Blue’, but that doesn’t release until April 16th, so at the moment, they’re bringing up the rear for first week sales.

My take is that the H!P Kids are really on the rise right now, and I think that pitting the two groups against each other (such as is the general view on this concert) is a good marketing idea. It gets hardcore fans of either group to really get behind their group of choice and buy merchandise and whatnot to keep their group number 1. For the less impassioned fans, it could open their minds to the possibility of listening to the other group. I mean, if you see a group you enjoy so much blatantly being marketed against a group of similar style (and under the same label), wouldn’t that spark your interest if you hadn’t really given this other group a chance before? I’m a fan of both groups, and I’m interested to see what happens with this. If they do have the same instrumental track, will one group be able to do something to outshine the other? And if so, that may tip the scales for which group I love more (please don’t screw up Berryz, ’cause it’ll be weird to have Miya as my favourite H!P Kids member, but C-ute as my favourite H!P Kids group).

I feel that doing something like this for Morning Musume could help create interest in them again, as interest seems to be waning some. Not everyone has been impressed with the current trend of Haromoni@, if I go with some reviews I’ve read on the episodes, and the fact that viewer ratings in Japan have plummeted to the lowest ever seen in the lifetime of Hello!Morning and Haromoni@ in recent months. The only problem is who would you use to start this competitive war against Morning Musume? They are such an entity all to themselves that I don’t see anything feasible in that regard. But at the same time, the kids are showing that they might just have the cahones to fight it out with the flagship group.