It’s amazing to see how much Ai and Risa have changed over their 8 years in Morning Musume. When they were chosen, they were awkward, insecure little girls. Aichan was a few weeks shy of turning 15, and Risa was around 2 months from turning 13. They were
BABIES back then!! I love how from the 4 of them, Risa is the only one who smiles (before she breaks down into tears) when her name is called. The others look absolutely shell-shocked. As I watch these old audition results, I’m always so amused at how different the reactions are from the reactions you see when someone wins something like American Idol.

When they first joined, I was very against 5th generation. I was a new Morning Musume fan, but I got started on Morning musume stuff pre-5th gen (obviously). I filled myself with TV appearances of 4th generation Morning Musume, watched Yuko’s graduation concert and Green Live… And seeing these 4 newbs (even though I was a H!P newbie myself) irked me ’cause I felt like it would take time away from my favourites.

It took me a while to warm up to 5th gen, though as I mentioned in my Anime Expo posts, I fell in love with Ai with the release of Souda! We’re Alive, just 6 months after 5th generation. Makoto caught my attention through her roles in Hello! Morning skits, and I enjoyed Risa and Asami’s personalities after watching the Okajo Dumbest Member test (LOL at Risa naming China’s capital “Chan pon chan”).

Ai’s been in my top 5 of Morning Musume since 2002, Risa made her way up there by 2004, and I can confidently say that these two have been top two Morning Musume members since my previous #1 Musume graduated on May 7, 2005, the one and only Ishikawa Rika. That’s a good 4+ years with these two girls at #1 and 1 (I really can’t pick between the two…) for me.

I think today, the anniversary of the start of their official journey as Morning Musume and Hello! Project members is a great day to celebrate the awesomeness that they have brought to the Hello! Project collective, and the awesomeness that is their friendship.

Who would have thought that two of those little girls in the first video of this post would eventually become the leader and sub-leader of Morning Musume, and that Ai-chan would become the leader of Hello! Project? When Elder Club graduated earlier this year, there was a lot of talk about how Ai-chan would handle all the responsibility that would be passed on to her with the graduation of Nakazawa Yuko. I think it will be interesting to watch the summer Hello! Project concert, for this will be the first one under Ai-chan’s leadership. I do have to say that the graduation of Elder Club hasn’t decreased my interesting Hello! Project in the slightest… If anything, Morning Musume’s recent visit to LA at Anime Expo has skyrocketed my love for Morning Musume, which had previously been fading. And this renewal of affection for the group is mainly attributed to the two girls I’ve been going on about in this post.

These two really seem to be leading the group well, as evidenced by one of Morning Musume’s latest DVD magazines (Vol 23). Each of the girls sat down and described each other in “one” (lol, yeah right. XD) word… Let’s see what was said about subleader:

I have to say that I aboslutely love JunJun’s answer. “Papa.” With her and Ai-chan saying that she is very dependable (and Reina saying she’s a clock), you can see she’s a very stable support for Ai-chan as her subleader. She looks out for the others and you can feel the warmth the other girls feel for her (as shown by LinLin and Eri’s answers). Sayumi is the only odd one out… She’s not very considerate towards her subleader. XD

In the Hello! Project blogosphere, Ai-chan has been scrutinized by fans from the moment she became leader. When she took over the position, many bloggers expressed their lack of faith in her ability to lead. However, as you can see from the answers of the girls, Aichan is highly respected and she truly leads by example. They all obviously admire her and aspire to reach the level she reaches when she performs… Except Reina who just talks about Ai-chan’s choice in clothing, which I found quite amusing… And JunJun. “Mama”. XD I love how Leader and Subleader are “Mama” and “Papa” to JunJun. It’s so cute.

As for Ai-chan and Risa’s answers for each other, it gives you a glimpse into their close relationship. They’ve been together for 8 years now… They’re obviously close friends. Risa is Ai’s pillar of support in the group, which makes a lot of sense as the main responsibility of Morning Musume falls to Ai, and I’m sure she needs someone to fall back on when it gets to be too much.

Risa’s answer regarding Ai makes me think of their Futarigoto – A close friend (actually, Ai’s response makes me think of that Futarigoto as well). She calls her stubborn, but she says it in such a lighthearted way, that you know it’s something that likely annoys her to no end at times, but is also one of Ai’s most endearing traits.

These two have grown up together, have made each other better and have worked hard to make Morning Musume into a unifed group ever since they began their tenure as leader and subleader over 2 years ago. I say they have made Momusu into the unified group they are today, for they’re the ones who really dealt with incorporating JunJun and LinLin into the group, and I’m sure that was a new challenge for them as the two girls are from a completely different culture.

Watching these two grow up and growing up with them has been a joy and I look forward to watching, hopefully, at least a few more years of them with Morning Musume. When these two eventually graduate, it will be the saddest graduation concert in my history of being a Hello! Project fan. Elder Club’s graduation was sad, but I think the mass departure made the concert less emotional for me. The more intimate 1 or 2 member graduations have always hit closer to home, and having the one on one messages from each member (BAAAWWWW Mako-chan & KonKon graduation). If I thought the first half of 5th gen graduating was sad, I haven’t seen anything yet… And I have to say, these two girls just HAVE to graduate together, ’cause I can’t see see them being in Morning Musume without each other.

I guess to end this off, I just have to say HAPPY 8th ANNIVERSARY AS MORNING MUSUME MEMBERS AI AND RISA!!!! <3 All of your hard work has definitely brought a smile to this fan for 8 years and I look forward to supporting the two as they continue forward! ... And just because, here's a final moment of Ai and Risa awesomeness from a recent appearance on Music Fighter (for Naichau Kamo).

The edges are a bit cut off, though you can see all the girls autographs clearly, except the diamond in the corner of Risa’s photo (which I have noticed most other Gaki autographs don’t have… o_O I have a special Risa autograph!! <3). Just to refresh your memory (and to show the entire diamond (I have become fixated on this thing... XD), this is what they looked like pre-frame:

And now it’s up on my wall with my Berryz Koubou calendar… I can’t wait for 2010 when I’m going to get a Morning Musume calendar to match the frame. ^_^

So, to commemorate post #100 on fields, I recorded fomab podcast #4. The total running time is 1h 4min and I talk about Anime Expo, video games, anime, ebay and other randomness. It’s just a fun little thing of me rambling. I do have one serious point within the podcast which mentions a member of the JPHiP forum passed away a little while after AX, and I just felt that I had to give a salute out to him (Jabronisaur) even though I didn’t really know him (I met him very briefly at the Hello! Party sign-in/welcome table), and to his friends and family who continue to grieve his loss.

So, the tracklist for this podcast is Morning Musume filled (surprise surprise):

1. Shouganai Yume Oibito (39th single)
2. Honki de Atsui Theme Song (4th Ikimasshoi!)
3. Koe (Ai no Dai 6kan)
4. Jounetsu no Kiss wo Hitotsu (Platinum 9 Disc)

The podcast can be found here. Hope you enjoy! ^_^

Seeing as there was nothing pressing for the day, johpan and I slept in. I woke up to the sounds of Roger Federer and Andy Roddick battling it out for the Wimbledon title. (And I just have to say, YAY FEDERER!! CONGRATS ON YOU 15 GRAND SLAMS!! ^_^)

After the match ended, my cousin and her husband took johpan and I to Royal/T Cafe because they know we like Japanese things, so they figured we’d like to go to a maid cafe for brunch. The food was quite tasty. Their miso soup was awesome – it had huge chunks of tofu and edamame in it! This was the first time I’d had miso soup with edamame. It made it super nommable. I also had a miso chicken sandwich. My cousin ordered a kobe beef burger which looked delicious too. I think they next time I’m back in the area I’ll have to stop by there again and get the kobe beef burger.

After that, johpan and I took a bus down to Little Tokyo to meet up with CFB, CK and OpsMonkey. We stopped by Kinokunia, where I was hoping to pick up the latest UTB (seeing as C-ute’s leader, Yajima Maimi, is this month’s cover girl). Unfortunately, they were sold out of UTB except for the October 2008 issue (which I didn’t want – only Mano Erina from H!P was in that issue). Instead, I got the final issue of Fruits Basket (Vol. 23 – I have the entire series now!!), and a learning kanji text book and work book.

We wandered a little bit around Little Tokyo before an “emergency” came up which resulted in CK leaving us a littler earlier than planned to pick up CFB’s roomates who had gotten lost in LA.

As we waiting for CK to deliver CFB’s roommates, we (CFB, johpan, OpsMonkey and I) headed back to CFB’s hotel and just chatted. OpsMonkey had to leave shortly after we arrived to spend time with some relatives. The goodbyes were heading into full swing.

johpan and I spent the rest of our time until our cousin came to pick us up at CFB’s hotel room, where his roommates eventually got back safely, and Paul of Hello! Blog eventually came to hang out as well with 2 of his friends.

My cousin eventually came to get johpan and I at around 7 pm, and that was the end of our epic wota-weekend.

Overall thoughts on the weekend

I am so glad that I decided to attend Anime Expo this year. Back in late February or early March, my car’s transmission died and I had to shell out >$2500 to replace it, so at that point in time I figured that I’d have to skip out on Anime Expo. It was only about a month prior to the convention that I finally decided that there was no way I could miss this momentous event. Luckily, I had tentatively booked the time off of work already, so when I finalized my trip, there weren’t any problems work-wise.

Being able to meet people that I have been chatting with online for over a year was also amazing. Hello! Party in general was just pure awesomeness, for I had never been in contact with most of the people I met there, the buzz and energy of just being in the same room with so many fellow Hello! Project fans was great. I definitely don’t get that at home.

There isn’t much I can say about the convention as a whole, seeing as I only attended Hello! Project events (with the Exception of the Power Rangers panel), and those all seemed to be exceptional cases seeing as there was no photographs, video or anything of the sort allowed. People complained about the line ups for everything Morning Musume related, but really you can’t really avoice them. I think the first day of autographs was little misleading as they sent us into a room thinking we were up next, only for us to find out that we were being put into a second line… But other than that, things were quite reasonable from my standpoint.

But seeing Morning Musume in person… Everything surrounding that was just absolutely mind blowing. I was getting excited as we kept getting closer to seeing them in person, but I never would have imagined the reaction I would have when I finally saw them. In the moment when I realized the Koharu cosplayer was ACTUALLY Kusumi Koharu, I thought my heart would burst out of my chest.

The only fandom that I’ve held on to longer than my Hello! Project fandom is Hanson, and I think the fact that I was able to see Hanson live so soon after I started liking them made it less of a shock to my system when I first went to a concert of theirs (I was 13 when I first saw Hanson live – I’ve seen them in concert 6 or 7 times since then, I think), and it was also not quite as daunting when I got their autographs.

For Morning Musume, it was a long 8 year wait before this first glance, and it seems that those 8 years really gave me the time to get psyched up, and for my system to kick me in the face when I finally saw them. XD

This entire experience has completely revived my love for Morning Musume. When I got back into Hello! Project in 2007 after a nearly 2 year break (not that I dropped H!P all together, but I wasn’t following the releases and tv appearances very closely – or the scandals and news very closely for that matter), it was the kids (with Miyabi at the forefront) that had caught my attention. I couldn’t get into the 8th generation, and Koharu had not been a favourite of mine from the moment she joined (for the last Morning Musume song I had really been into before my break was Koharu’s debut, “Iroppoi Jirettai”).

Now, seeing these girls live has given me a greater appreciation for what they do. They all learned a bit of English for this trip, and it was adorable listening to them greet the crowd in English at the concert. Since coming home, I have listened to nothing but Morning Musume voluntarily. I also ordered my custom frame for the autographs… That should be ready in about 2-3 weeks, so I’ll be sure to post the final product once I get a hold of it. My wall is getting impatient. XD

I have to give a big thank you to Anime Expo for getting Morning Musume as a guest of honour and allow us international fans this opportunity to see them outside of Asia. And of course, a huge thank you to Tsunku, HANGRY and Morning Musume for coming out to LA for the weekend and giving us an awesome experience, and UFA for letting it all happen. This was seriously an experience of a lifetime for me and one that I will never forget.

For those of you who stuck through me through my long winded and detailed experiences, thanks! I would have posted these entries (which are basically journal entries) on my person livejournal, but my friends on there don’t care too much for my Hello! Project love, so I thought it would be better to give the recount here, so fans who attended could get the experience from another point of view, and for those who couldn’t attend they could get a tasteof how it was for a long time Hello! Project fan.

With Morning Musume’s 40th single on the way, I’ll get back to the regularly scheudled progamming on my blog. Hope you all enjoyed my Anime Expo 2009 (featuring Morning Musume) series! ^_^

1. 1: Tsunku panel.
2. 2: Morning Musume autographs.
3. 3: Hang out with friends/bloggers as much as possible.

Overall summary of the day:

1. 1. Task completed.
2. 2. TASK FREAKIN’ COMPLETED
3. 3. Task Completed.

Having task 2 completed pretty much made my life… Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration, but it was insanely awesome… Read on to learn more on the day.

johpan and I arrived at the lacc just a little bit before 9am. We headed straight to the place we lined up for autographs on Thursday and got our place holders. At 9 am we got spots #152 and #153. It seems some people had been there since 3:30 am, having headed over to the LACC without sleeping after Hello! Party. johpan stayed in line while I went to the Tsunku panel at Petree Hall. Tsunku’s panel was quite interesting and all his answers were very detailed, unlike the answers from Morning Musume’s panel. Check out the transcript for Tsunku’s Q&A panel at International Wota.

After the panel, I went back to the autograph line to wait it out. Luckily the autograph session started right on time. As mentioned from day 1, 500 tickets were handed out after the panel, but seeing as only 152 fans got autographs the first day, it was up in the air as to whether we’d get through the line today. I was actually supremely worried that the line would stop at johpan (since he had #152) and I’d miss out on the autographs. That would have made me cry… (I’d be disappointed of course, but mainly it would make me cry due to sibling rivalry).

At around 12:10 (the session was ending at 12:30), we were 1 line away from the front. At 12:20, I was 3rd in line and just hoping and praying that they wouldn’t close the door on us. And then the AX volunteer said “All right! Next 4 people!” and my heart started to race.

We were moved into another room with a short line.. And at the front of that line sat the girls, signing away. It was amazing to see the girls up close like that without having your view blocked by their constant entourage. I was getting a photoset signed and I had it set out in the order the girls were sitting in.

After joh finished with Aichan, I was up next. I walked up to her and she greeted me with a big smile.

Ai: Hi!
Me: Konnichi wa! Takahashi-San wa daisuki desu!
Ai: (looking up from signing) Arigato!!
Me: said something that I absolutely cannot remember. XD 2001nen hajimete kikimasu Morning Musume. (LOL I know that was a terribly incorrect sentence in Japanese – there weren’t even any particles in that sentence, but WTF!! Aichan was right in front of me! I couldn’t think straight.)
Aichan: Arigato!

She handed her photo back to me and I was about to move on to Risa, but then she gave me this cute expectant look and stuck out her hands. So I went back and shook them with a very enthusiastic “Arigato!”

Now when I say “shook hands” I don’t mean her right hand clasped my right hand and we shook hands. This was a double handed hand shake (meaning I put down my photos for a second) full of awesomeness.

Up next was Risa. I handed her her photocard with shaky hands and she greeted me with an enthusiastic “Hello!”

Me: Niigaki-san wa daisuki desu. (yes, I cringed on the inside when I said that seeing as I just said it to Aichan, but I love them both!! XD) Gokki memba wa daisuki desu.
Risa: Ah! Thank you!! ^_^

She then handed my card carefully back to me and shook my hands (yes, another double handed handshake… All the girls were double handed hand shakes^_^).

The rest of the girls were in their usual order or Eri, Sayu, Reina, Koharu, Aika, JunJun and LinLin. To the rest of them, I just said “Konnichi wa” and “Arigato gozaimasu!” with a handshake to each girl as well. Some of the girls said “Konnichi wa!” while others said “Hello!”, but I can’t remember who said which exactly… It’s kind of a blur. XD

However, I do remember that Reina took the longest to sign her autograph. She was still signing, and my brother was done with Koha. I looked up at Koha who smiled at me, then the lady standing behind her prompted me to give Koharu her photo to sign. My hands were shaking (as they were through this entire experience) and so the woman took Koha’s photo which was on the top of my pile (in my left hand, the signed photos were in my right) and handed it to Koharu. At this point, Koharu gave this confused, bewildered look, like “why didn’t she hand me the photo? 8S” I’m pretty sure I gave her a bewildered look back ’cause I felt like I should say hi to her, but I was still at Reina in the line… XD So, there was an awkward pause, but then she started signing. Reina finished her with long (but cute) signature, said thank you or arigato to me and shook my hand. I then moved on to Koharu and finally said “Konnichi wa” to her. It was quite an amusing experience. I got an up-close, live view of Koha eyes and it was awesome! 8D

After all the girls signed the photos, johpan and I left the signing room and immediately set our stuff down outside of the room to let them dry off. My hands were shaking so strongly as I set the photos down. XD I really should have gotten something ready to say to each of the girls, but alas what’s done is done. But still, even with my lack of conversation with the girls it was still an amazing experience. Handshakes FTW!!

After the autograph session, we went to West Hall in front of the AX ticketing booth to meet up with some wotachatters to take a group photo. As we were waiting for Bryan of Hello! Ranking to show up, we met up with Sacred Cultivator of Hello! Fansubs which was pretty awesome. (see group photo at top of post)

After the group photo, we took a shot of the International Wota staff in attendance.

The rest of the day after that was pretty lax. CatchFiveBats, CK and Amy went off to get their things signed at the afternoon autograph session. johpan, Rocky and mp went upstairs to the arcade while I went to the Power Rangers panel for a bit. It was cool to see the Power Rangers telling stories about some of their favourite experiences during filming.

The actress who played Rita Repulsa was there and someone asked her to do the “After 10,000 years I’m free!!! It’s time to conquer earth!!” in her Rita voice. XD It was pretty awesome.

I eventually met up with johpan and Rocky at the arcade, and after johpan and I played a few rounds of ParaParaParadise, we left for South Hall to meet up with the others as they all got their autographs already.

It seems the 2nd autograph session was insanely rushed. There are multiple reports that the girls didn’t seem to enjoy it much because they weren’t allowed to really interact with the girls. It definitely wasn’t an autograph session/handshake event like what the morning session (and Thursday’s session) was. It seems fans were told “No contact with the girls. No small talk.” I just have to say I am so glad that I got to go to the morning session. I waited a total of 5 hours for their autographs, but it was absolutely worth it.

People were obviously upset in the afternoon session, but really there wasn’t much they could do. 300 autographs in 2 hours? That’s absolutely insane! Seeing as in the 1.5 hour morning session, they only got through 160 fans, they obviously couldn’t double the amount of autographs with only an additional 30 minutes if they continued to handshake and chat with the fans. The girls were signing for a total of 3 hours and 30 minutes on Day 3. As upsetting it was for the afternoon fans, it was awesome of the girls to do so and I can’t be anything but thankful for everything they did while they were at AX.

We met up with the others at around 4pm, and Rocky and Amy were getting picked up soon. The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging around with CatchFiveBats, CK, KirarinSnow and Paul Thomas of Hello! Blog until our cousin came to pick us up.

It was sad to say bye to the siblings, but it was awesome to meet them. johpan and I also said our goodbyes to KirarinSnow, CK and CatchFiveBats, though we ended up meeting up with CK and CFB again the next day. Day 3 was the end of my Anime Expo and Morning Musume experience, seeing as Morning Musume left LA the next day and didn’t attend the AX closing ceremonies.

But this was seriously one of the (if not THE MOST) amazing weekends of my life, and I definitely will never forget it. It has revived my love for Morning Musume. It’s funny, but now when I look at pictures or watch one of their PVs, and I get this warm bubbly feeling within and I just get so excited. It was ridiculously amazing, and I’m so glad that I decided to make the trip out to see them. It was definitely worth every penny!

One more Expo post to go, which will detail day 4 (though I didn’t actually attend any AX events) as well as overall thoughts of the weekend.

And… a final addition to this post, for it was just linked on Hello! Online’s twitter. Here is a video taken from the opening ceremonies (I know it’s in the wrong day, but I want people to see this, and it will get lost for people who read the blog through a feed reader) when Morikawa (the voice of Sephiroth) came up and Ai-chan completely fangirl-ed. This clip is AWESOME and I favourited it right away. Ai-chan looks about ready to faint when he says his Sephiroth line. I LOVE it. ^_^

Pretty soon after we arrived, johpan got a tweet from CFB saying that he had found the siblings and was at pre-registration. So, johpan and I made our way there. We were about to mee fellow International Wota staffer Amy of Merry Go Round and her brother Rocky of DO THE ROCK.

We spotted them on their way out of pre-registration and I ran over and just threw my arm over Rocky’s shoulder. He looked at me with a surprised look… Then stepped away cautiously… XD Lovely first impression, don’t you think? XD

The group of us then headed over to the AX ticketing booth so that Rocky and Amy can pick up their concert tickets. As we’re heading over, CK of CK’s H!P Blog” and Chuo Dori found us and sneaked up on us. The attending staff of IW were finally gathered together! It was a momentous occasion! (sorta… except not XD)

We were all quite excited for the concert, but as we still had over an hour, we decided to head up to the tabletop gaming room to meet up with a fellow wotachatter, mp122984 (the guy who set up the live feed of Hello! Party, for those of you who watched that).

It seems that right next door to the tabletop gaming room was an arcade which had 2 of my favourite arcade games – DrumMania and ParaParaParadise. Unfortunately the line for PPP was a little long, but I did get a game of DM in. However, I found the red tom a little bit unresponsive. But still, I didn’t fail any of my songs, so it was all good.

After a little bit of playing at the arcade, johpan, CFB, CK and I headed over to the exhibiton hall. I wanted to see if I could get the Morning Musume Platinum 9 Disco Tour Visual Book… Unfortunately they were sold out.

So, after a short look at the Morning Musume/H&A merchandise we decided to head over to the concert hall and line up.

The concert started promptly at 2:30pm, even though some people were still streaming into the room. The lights dimmed and the opening video started and the wota got into it right away. Of course, I cheered especially loud when Risa and Ai-chan came up on the big screen…

And when Morning Musume finally got on stage, the crowd (well the wota) went nuts. johpan and I were actually sitting next to this guy who hadn’t heard of Morning Musume before AX and we were happy to fill him in on bits and pieces of their history (and pimp IW at the same time ^_^).

Unfortunately, there were 3 tall guys in front of me (why the heck am I so short?), so my view of the stage was obscured. However, I had a perfect view of the big screen.

Note: Every concert photo here can be found in better quality at International Wota.

They opened the concert with “Mikan”, and though I was never a huge fan of the song before, it really is a great song to start a concert off with. It’s happy and energetic, and so hopeful. I have this thing where when I see something performed live, even if I’m not a huge fan of the song initially, I suddenly love the song afer seeing it live (if performed well). Basically, that is what happened to me with every song performed by Morning Musume at this concert.

Though, half the setlist was older stuff that I already loved, so it was all good. And, I love “Shouganai Yume Oibito” as well as the c/w “3, 2, 1 Breakin’ Out!” (the official AX theme song).

Following “Mikan” was “3, 2, 1 Breakin’ Out!” and that was another energetic number. Not to say that the crowd didn’t get into “Mikan” but the “Oh yeah! Oh yeah!”s in 3, 2, 1 are just so much fun. The glowsticks were out and forming the O and Y’s together.

I have to say that glowsticking is freaking tiring. After the first 2 songs, my arms were already so sore. I had 4 orange (lol, would you have guessed?) glowsticks – 2 per hand.

The intros were cute. Each girl said a little something in English, and I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of hearing them speak English. We need more English lessons to watch!

After the intros, we head into “Shouganai Yume Oibito”, and I don’t think I can stress how much I love this song. Just check out my review on it… Hearing it live just made me love it more.

The song was immediately followed by “How Do You Like Japan?” In Tsunku’s Q&A panel the next day, he mentioned that he saw people leaving the concert just as this song began, thinking they knew exactly the kind of songs Morning Musume would be singing at this concert, but when they heard it, they turned back. You gotta love the variety of styles and genres that Morning Musume sing. I can’t remember which concert it was where I first saw the girls perform this live, but I love this song. I also love Risa’s intro to it… Give me a little bit of Risa spotlight and I’m a happy camper.

“Resonant Blue” came on next, and I have to admit I’ve never been a huge fan of the song. I think the feature of just 3 girls, Koharu being one of them irked me. However, watching it live is another thing entirely, so I like it a lot more now… Then again, seeing all the girls live is an amazing experience, and now I can’t even find myself getting irked with Koharu and Sayumi…. We’ll see how long that lasts. XD

Up next was a short MC to introduce the next set of songs, which just so happened to be a medley of oldies but goodies. As the intro to “I WISH” came on, I was extremely excited. It was amazing that my favourite Morning Musume song of all time (excluding the Gumi’s) was performed at this concert, even if it wasn’t the full version. “Happy Summer Wedding” came next and man, this was just a dream come true for me. “Happy Summer Wedding” is actually the first Morning Musume song that I memorized the lyrics to, so you can imagine how obsessed I was with this song at one point in time. This was also 4th generation’s first single, so it holds a special place in my heart.

Following that was “Koi no Dance Site” and what’s so great about this song is the punching.. “Oooh! Aaah!!” I just can never get enough of that. It’s easy for new listeners to pick up and it really gets the fans excited. They also switched costumes at the beginning of the song (aka. shedded their top layer of costume).

Time for a costume change.

Now we come to what was the best part of this entire concert for me. The next song they sang in this medley was “Souda! We’re Alive”, and just before they switched into the next song, they chose to sing the bridge (is it the bridge?) with the line that made me fall in love with Ai-chan in the first place. Here’s the performance that began my Ai-chan adoration (and began my short lived Risa un-adoration XD).

Looking back on it now, it really was the obvious choice for which bridge they’d sing, seeing as Ai-chan and Risa had the closing lines. But being there live, and having Ai-chan sing the lines that made me first notice her was absolutely mind-blowing for me.

Leader and sub-leader going strong.

The two songs that closed out the medley were “The Peace!” and “Renai Revolution 21″, which were the first two Morning Musume PVs I had ever watched. Every song in this medley (with the exception of “Koi no Dance Site”) has played a big part in my Morning Musume fandom (and “Koi no Dance Site” is just awesome, so that doesn’t matter XD) and it was just an absolute dream come true to see all these songs live.

We got another MC, where Risa and Eri pumped up the crowd. Then, Ai-chan introduced Morning Musume’s best hit in Japan, “Love Machine”. This one’s another fun song live because of the “woo woo”s and the “fu fu”s. It isn’t one of my favourite Morning Musume songs, but you can’t deny the fun factor live.

“Sono Bamen de BiBiCha Ikenaijan!”, “Resonant Blue”’s c/w followed “Love Machine” and I have to admit, I didn’t know what this song was. As I mentioned above, I never really got into “Resonant Blue”, so I never really listened to its c/w either. However, I have a new song to add to my like list. This is a really energetic and happy song.

We got another MC, this time with Ai-chan talking about the issue of global warming and how it affects the world. It’s obviously a problem that won’t be solved in the short term, but one thing they can do is sing, so Ai-chan dedicated the next song to wish happiness to everyone in the world. It was a very cute speech (fully in English) by Ai-chan. This sent us into the last song before the OPV contest winners were announced, “Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Sasenai Darou?”. This is such a beautiful song, and I have to say the highlight here (as it always is) was JunJun and LinLin’s solo lines. The girls did a fabulous job, and it really made the crowd go wild.

After this song, Morning Musume’s handler (after a cute intro from Michishige Sayumi, who had a momentary lapse in memory and stumbled over her MC ^_^) came out to start the segment regarding the OPV contest. She then called a surprise guest onto the stage… Can anyone guess who? …. HANGRY! And then she called up a second special guest: Tsunku!

There were 3 categories for OPV contest winners. 1st up was the Morning Musume award, which was of course chosen by Morning Musume. Up next was the Tsunku award, chosen by Tsunku. And 3rd was an the grand prize, an OPV chosen by Morning Musume, Tsunku and high level staff of UFA. Here are the winning entries:

Morning Musume award winning OPV.
Tsunku award winning OPV
Grand Prize winning OPV

Rather than watching the winning OPVs (though I did glance at them a bit), I watched the girls on stage as the videos were being played. It was amusing to see that the girls on the left side of the stage were clapping and dancing (Risa was dancing the most and it was absolutely adorable) while the girls on the right side of the stage were watching the videos intently.

And then finally, to close out the concert, the girls sang 3, 2, 1 Breakin’ Out once more, which was fitting seeing as it is the theme song for Anime Expo 2009. [sorry, I copied the entire OPV part straight from my IW post detailing Day 2 of AX (with a little bit added about watching the girls rather than the OPVs)]

The girls left the stage and the H!P fans started chanting for an encore, as you always see in H!P concert DVDs. I joined in the chant, though I wsa positive it would never happen. I know many fans were upset over that, but you can only do so much seeing as the girls are here for AX, and AX has a set schedule. The Anime Music Video contest was set for later in the day, and they obviously had to clear out the hall to get ready for that.

But seriously, even without an encore, and only about an hour of singing (the OPV contest winners MC took about 30 mintues to get throuhg), this was the most amazing concert I have ever attended. The energy in the room was just off the charts. I think many of us international fans feel disconnected at home, being the weird people who like these cute Japanese girls who sing these random pop songs. But at AX, at this concert, you could feel this connection with all the fans there. The feeling of solidarity just made the concert that much greater.

Following the concert, I headed out with johpan, CFB, Rocky and Amy to try and find a Taco Bell, for CFB and Rocky had been planning to Taco Bell it together for quite some time. Unfortunately, the directions that CFB had to the Taco Bell ended up leading us to a gas station that had a SubWay in it, but no Tacos… It was quite disappointing.

So instead, we headed to the Sheraton hotel, where there was a food court attached in an underground mall thing. We ate there before heading over to the Sheraton hotel to help set up for Hello! Party being organized by Bryan and Jen of Hello! Ranking.

Nomming at the Macy’s Plaza food court

johpan and I ended up manning the welcome/sign-in table for most of the night (with Rocky and Amy helping us for most of the time as well until they had to leave), and that was definitely an interesting and fun experience. We weren’t able to join in on the games, or even watch much of the games, but meeting all the fans as they entered was great. After a hearty hello, we asked each attendee for their favourite member so they could fill out their name tag (with name, internet handle and any forums that they go on or sites they’re affiliated with). It was funny watching peoples tortured expressions as they had to choose between the 9 members.

For me, it was a huge issue to choose between Ai-chan and Risa, but in the end I chose Risa because I heard that Ai-chan was the most requested member in the Hello! Party RSVPs. I know some people who switched from their usual favourite member because of the events of the weekend. 2 people in particular were Paul from Hello! Blog and CFB, both of whom chose LinLin for the night. Paul was especially funny because he was wearing a Sayumi T-shirt with a LinLin name tag.

I met so many people at the table, it was amazing. Hi to anyone reading this who hung out with us at the table for a little while. ^_^ We had a number of Japanese speakers come to the party, which wasn’t too bad, seeing as we could communicate how to fill out the name cards with simple words: “Koko ni namae wo kaite kudasai.” Then pointing to the other things, “Niku nemu.” “Webu saito.” (Those would look better in katakana, but I know not everyone can read katakana. So romaji it stays). However, we had a few fans who came in speaking Spanish (sorry, but johpan and I are Canadian – we took French in school XD) and Chinese.. The only thing I can say in Cantonese is “Please do not eat me.” I used to be able to say the phrase “I am a small cake. Please do not eat me.” (irrelevant story) but I forgot how the first sentence goes. Either way, that’s not very helpful when trying to direct people to fill out a name tag. XD

The final approximate count for number of Hello! Party attendees was about 350 people, which is amazing. In addition to that number, mp122984 was streaming Hello! Party live from ustream, and at some point there were about 250 people watching the party online. That’s a total of 600+ fans gathered “together” in the same place. Without any members of Hello! Project coming soon or having just left the vicinity. That’s just astounding. ^_^

johpan and I stayed at the party until about midnight when our cousin was supposed to come pick us up. Since Hello! Party was in the basement of the hotel and we couldn’t get reception on our phones, we just set a time for him to come get us. When we got upstairs, I found a voicemail on my phone, called up my cousin, and his girlfriend told us he got sick and felt like throwing up, so he went to bed and hoped we’d be okay to find a ride home. If no one was going in our direction, she had the number for a taxi ready for us… In the end, johpan and I took a $30 cab ride to our cousin’s place (a different one from the one who was driving us) in Beverly Hills.

And that ended our very full Morning Musume filled Day 2 at Anime Expo.

Coming up will be Day 3… And AUTOGRAPH STORIES!! ^_^ Stay tuned.