Beat Laments The World

A metal-infused take on Asian music & other stuff

Tsunku has a knack for writing very nice, moving songs, that are often most effectively put to use in graduation concerts. Indeed, the full impact of most of these songs’ nostalgia and their touching quality reveals itself only after you see them being sung as someone is graduating. There’s just something about watching performances where everyone is busy crying their eyes out to the extent that they can barely even sing the song, let alone breathe. Delicious, sweet girly tears, guys. They will make any song better.

5th: Morning Musume – Never Forget:

This song really is quite touching. It’s sung practically solo by Asuka Fukuda who was leaving Morning Musume at that point, and later also covered by Kemeko. I always thought Fukuda was a great vocalist back then. It’s amazing she was only 13 at the time Ai no Tane was released and she was just as good of a singer as the rest of the 1st generation, probably even better than Kaori and definitely better (at that point) than any of the 2nd generation girls. Just imagine how her vocals might sound today if she had been a member of Momusu all these years!

With that said, something about Asuka always irritated me… namely the fact that she never showed basically any interest to be in Morning Musume. She was always the odd one out. Even at her graduation concert as they were singing this and everyone else was crying their eyes out, Asuka was smiling there all “awww, you guys…”, just happy she was finally getting the hell out of that group. Even if I’m not a huge fan of all girls who were in Morning Musume, I’ve never wished for anyone to leave since they obviously all wanted to be there as they were having fun and giving it their all. The exception is Asuka. She never seemed enthusiastic about anything. That never stood well with me to be honest.

Now, I realize that could be partly due to her age. Like I said, she WAS 13 at the time she joined Momusu. Goto was too and she got along just fine, but kids can be different. It might’ve just been too much for Asuka at the time. However, that still doesn’t explain the fact that she never, not even ONCE to my knowledge, showed even the slightest hint of childish satisfaction or whatever for being in a pop music group.

Still, even with all that said, it is a touching song. Even my distaste for Asuka’s… disinterest can’t change that!

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A reminder of Kemeko‘s awesomeness.

Also, I put up a new poll. It’s shamefully perverted this time around. Hope you like it. By the way, Saki here refers to Berryz Saki. All questions regarding my choices will be happily ignored.

Here are the results from the previous poll.

Nice. Good to see my vote winning. Funny thing is though that her single got pushed back to December. Fuckers. Anyway, go and vote in the poll.

Before I give you the second batch of H!P gifs as promised, I have a fun story.

Last week I was at this Loviisa peace event thing and among other people, Rieko Seto was there. Rieko is a Japanese artist and also a 2nd generation Hiroshima survivor (her mother was a victim). I had a brief chat with her. Fun thing is, she had this idea for an art piece she was doing and she asked people to draw the outlines of their hands on paper and then write a short message of sorts. Well, I drew my hand, wrote something cheesy like “Peace from Finland! -Henkka.” But then I looked at what other people were writing and I noticed some of it was rather questionable, so I said fuck it, went to Rieko to ask if I could make an addition and wrote “Nihon no onnanoko wa kawaii!” (“Japanese girls are cute!”) When Rieko saw what I had written, she laughed and agreed, but also said that Finnish men aren’t too bad either. And yes, I did remember to apologize for not doing it in kanji, don’t worry.

Now the fun part is that this piece of artwork will actually be put up in a real art exhibition. So hey, if you happen to visit Hiroshima in October, go to Rieko’s exhibition and find my hand! I think that’s a pretty cool thought, my hand and wacky message in Hiroshima. Cool stuff. I wonder if anyone there will read my message.

In any case, now for the main event. Like last time, some of them are good, some not so good, and some are pure awesome if I may say so myself. Hope you like ‘em. Firstly, here’s ones made from the Chokkan PV close-up edition. These took ages to make. I think Reina’s is probably the most interesting to look at.

Chokkan – Miki

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Uta Doki!, the TV show mostly featuring H!P artists singing (mostly) classic songs from the 60′s through the 90′s. This show is finally drawing to a close since airing its first episode on October 2, 2006 and I feel that now as it’s mostly done (the remaining 10 episodes will not feature anything new) it’s time for what I like best: mindless ranking, baby. While I am looking forward to seeing what Berikyuu! has to offer, I don’t think it’s going to top the awesomeness of Uta Doki. As I have watched all episodes so far, this show introduced me to many classics of Japanese music that I’d never heard before, and even a few artists I decided to check out further. But most importantly, it was filled with fun and memorable performances.

So hey, if you never got into watching Uta Doki!, here’s the perfect chance to check out all the best ones. Expect something much more laidback from me than usual because Uta Doki was all about fun and so I won’t do this too seriously either.

Starting with a top 3 of honorary mentions:

3rd: 116 2007-03-21 Sayumi Michishige, Erika Miyoshi & Yui Okada – Jaa ne (originally by Onyanko Club): I greatly prefer this over the original by Onyanko Club for it has more clarity. Very cute performance! It’s not very often that I actually like the sound of Sayu‘s voice. :) [watch here]
2nd: 059 2006-12-21 Melon Kinenbi – Wedding Bell (originally by Sugar): Good stuff here, somewhat odd song and solid vocals. Check it out. [watch here]
1st: 094 2007-02-19 Mai Satoda – TRAIN-TRAIN (originally by The Blue Hearts): Too bad this couldn’t make the top 15. Mai is in top form here and really gets into it! [watch here]

(Geez, the last few lines look like a rainbow)

And then the actual top 15:

15th: 039 2006-11-23 Ai Takahashi (with Taisei) – CHA-CHA-CHA (originally by Ishii Akemi)

Let’s face it, Taisei is fucking awesome. Anything with Taisei in it will instantly make it much better and this one is no exception. Pure 80′s, cheesy goodness and a catchy song that sung by Takitty will be stuck in your head for ages. “I wanna dance, do you like CHA-CHA-CHA / A virgin kibun CHA-CHA“. This will not be the last of Taisei in this list; in fact, he has the most appearances in all of these, along with one other girl.

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