Welcome to Wota Wonderings! We are a group of english-speaking Japanese music bloggers brought together once a month to answer questions posed by johpan. We strive to be creative and entertaining, and we may even shed a bit of new light on interesting musical and cultural topics. Any questions about how we work should be directed to johpan. Don’t forget to check out the other posts from this month at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

It’s time for another installation of Wota Wonderings. Volume 4 was delayed by a month due to my brother being swamped with finals for school, but it’s better late than never, right?

The question posed this month is:

Hoping we’re not all shallow wotas, imagine your favourite idol (or musical personality) switched bodies with someone you don’t find “visually pleasing”, would it affect your love for that idol in any way/shape/form?

I think the best way to look at this question would be to look at my top 4 girls of Hello! Project at the moment.

From left to right: Natsuyaki Miyabi, Takahashi Ai, Niigaki Risa, Yajima Maimi

First let’s take a look at the remaining 5th generation of Morning Musume. When these two first joined Morning Musume, I was just getting in to Hello! Project. I hadn’t watched the 5th gen auditions at this point, so my first viewing of them was when Mr. Moonlight was released. Unlike 6th gen (particularly Reina) who got solo lines in their first single with Morning Musume, 5th gen had practically nothing (with the exception of Risa’s opening line, which rotated between the other girls at other performances some times). So, what were my first thoughts on these two girls?

For Aichan, I was not particularly fond of her, for I found her very awkward looking. Was it the hairstyle? The ears? I’m not sure, but I have to admit that I didn’t find her very attractive and that threw me off from liking her initially. But come the next single they were involved in, I heard Aichan sing her “hontou no kimochi wa kitto tsutawaru hazu” line at a live performance and I immediately fell in love with her. She still looked awkward as heck to me, and it wasn’t until much later when she truly blossomed into the beauty that she is now, but with that one line, she immediately moved up to near the top of my Morning Musume ranking.

I have to say that for Risa, while I thought she was a cutie, she stayed in the bottom half of my Morning Musume ranking for some time. This had nothing to do with her look, but rather her voice was quite painful to listen to in her early days. In the same performance where I fell in love with Aichan, I cringed with Risa’s follow up “We’re Alive” line. It wasn’t until I heard Risa sing her solo version of “Furusato” (in 2003?) when my opinion changed for her. I think I was kind of amazed that she wasn’t yelling for once. Now, I find her voice absolutely soothing, and it’s one of those voices for me that can calm me down anytime I need calming (she’s on a short of people who include Miyabi, Matsuura Aya, Taylor Hanson, Lea Salonga and Angela Aki).

In regards to Miyabi, I fell in love with her voice first, from listening to her in Munasawagi Scarlet. I knew she was in Aa!, but I didn’t follow the Kids until October 2007, after re-discovering Miya. It really was Miya’s voice that pulled me in, for I wasn’t too fond of her hairstyle in the Munasawagi Scarlet PV. Though, I did watch VERY BEAUTY soon after that, and she was quite pretty in that one. I think a lot of H!P fans just started to acknowledge Miya’s hotness fairly recently – with the release of Buono!’s “Gachinko de Ikou!” if I’m recalling correctly.

Finally we get to Maimi, and unlike the three previous girls I’ve spoken about, I did not start liking Maimi because of her voice. Back in her days of ZYX, she looked really awkward. Nothing near the stunning beauty she is today. I wasn’t hugely fond of ZYX in the first place ’cause back then, because Shimizu Saki and Tsugunaga Momoko of Berryz Koubou annoyed the heck out of me in that group. So, I really started paying attention Maimi after watching C-ute’s Tokkaiko Junjou video, and I have to admit that she was already quite beautiful at that time. Airi was initially my favourite C-ute member, but Maimi slowly worked her way past Airi and Chisato to make it to my top C-ute spot. I think the trigger for me was a mix of watching her spacey, absent-mindedness in video and the photoshoot photos of her 1st UTB feature.

So, in most cases, my favourites have come about due to their vocal abilities. It’s not my fault that these girls have grown to be stunning young women. If they switched bodies with someone less attractive, they’d still be my favourite girls simply because I love their voices. Though, I think Maimi would drop a bit in my list, or at least drop back to the #3 spot in C-ute, for if she wasn’t as gorgeous as she is, Chisato and Airi would definitely hold an edge over her with their voices.

Also, I think I should mention my current favourite J-music artist outside of the UFA umbrella, Angela Aki. She’s probably the least glamourous pop-singer ever. Sure, some of her album or single covers have her in slightly dressy outfits, but have you seen her live? She’s in jeans and a jersey or hoodie. The first live I watched of her was on youtube of the Final Fantasy Voices concert where Angela’s in jeans, a t-shirt and a zip up hoodie. She sits at her piano and has a full orchestra in formal attire behind her, and I was just amazed. I’ve talked with my brother about this and his response to me is always, “With a voice like hers, she can wear whatever she wants.” And I have to agree with him on that.

Though, while she obviously doesn’t dress to impress (unlike the H!P girls who are almost always [minus monkey suits] glammed up), I think she’s quite pretty. But I think it’s quite obvious that on the Angela Aki front, her looks have very little to do with my love for her and her music.

All right, so the title of this post was a little more dramatic than the actual post was, but that’s okay. Here are some other Wota Wondering answers for this month:

Wota Wonderings 4 – Are You a Shallow Wota (Solo Space)
WW04 – Are Looks Everything? (Tsuyoki de Yukoze!)
Wota Wonderings: On looks versus abilities… (boylikesmusic)
Wota Wonderings 004:Looks Or Talent? you decide (take off is now!)
[Wota Wonderings 04] It’s what’s outside that counts. (Renai Revolution 21)
Wota Wonderings 004 – Are You In The Shallow End Of The Pool? (Selective Hearing)