Was Haromoni@ Ever Worth Watching? 

Heavens, there are a lot of big changes going on in the J-Pop world lately.  Like me, is anyone going through Haromoni@ withdrawals this weekend?  This is the first Sunday in a long time without a weekly Hello! Project television program.  So in honor of that here are the thoughts of my personal favorite Haromoni@ reviewer…

Broomhead theorizes how the final episode was a metaphor for the entire series.  Like most GakiKame segments, it included lots and lots of failures before any success.  Additionally he goes through each member and how the show didn’t work for their personalities.  The funny thing is as much as Broom bashed this show, it was his posts that got me into Haromoni@ in the first place.  He gives the ultimate answer to the question he has been asking us for the last 7 months.  But as much as he says the show is a travesty, failure and contributor to the regression of Morning Musume, I think deep down there is a little soft spot in Broom’s heart that will miss the show.

As sad as I am about it’s end, obviously Haromoni@ was NOT working.  Otherwise it wouldn’t have been cancelled.  I would love to see H!P come out with a new weekly series.  But for that to be a success they will really need to think about what it takes to attract people to the show, and make them care about the people in the group.

Haromoni@Review and Preview (The Bigaku!Palace)
Haromoni@ 14 September 2008 (Morningtime)

Haromoni’s days are numbered; but even as the days wind down, there are still bloggers blogging about it.

At The Bigaku!Palace, it is nice to see sauder back. In fact, not only has sauder returned to blogging, but the style of Haromoni recaps remained the same. That means lots of screen caps from the episode. I counted 96, which is probably off. Either way, sauder also does a good job with recaping what happens.

Morningtime has been keeping up with Haromoni all along and this week is no different. Morningtime’s recap went the “short and sweet” route this time and I think that is suited for a show like Haromoni, where there really isn’t much to talk about anyways.

..::Tortured by the Book::..
..::Fell for Her::..

amyrulez watches his first Haromoni@ episode and shares his thoughts on it. I think he picked a great episode to start off with (or maybe it was just random luck), for this is the episode where Eri tries to throw a book over her shoulder into a its resting place between books already lined up. Even I’VE watched this episode, and I don’t watch HM@ that often. XD

Up next, he lets us know that recently, he has become smitten with C-ute’s Maimi. Really now, can anyone blame him? Maimi’s pretty awesome! So, to commemorate the occasion, he shares a load of Maimi eyecandy. Enjoy!

It’s Only A TV Show, Don’t Panic.

CJ puts into perspective the coming end of Haromoni@ for the fans of the show.  Including me, that must be three or four of us, right?  CJ figures there will most likely be a new television outlet for Morning Musume, since their sales are still decent and have recently been increasing.    And it is more the show itself that was failing, rather than the group.  It’s a reassuring post for anyone who sees the cancelling of the show as shapes of things to come.

And this post couldn’t come at a better time, as I am sure Broomhead has his belt wrapped around the shower rod as we speak.  It’s a given that no one will miss Haromoni@ more than him.

Haromoni@ 10 August 2008

Haromoni@ 17 August 2008

Morningtime provides plenty of screencaps from the last two episodes of Morning Musume’s “lame duck” television program.  The first episode has the girls in traditional Chinese attire.  We get two guessing games, first we get fun with Mittsi and sushi, then Jun Jun and a memorization challenge.  Is it me, or do they seem to eat a lot of canned meals in Japan?

The second episode was some sort of a top ten of skipped bits.  The funniest screenshots on this episode seem to all feature the Pandas or Cabbage Man.  Maybe TV Tokyo is planning a Cabbage Man program to replace this one? 

With Haromoni@ seemingly on it’s way out, enjoy the screencaps while they last.

Haromoni@ Cancelled

Hello!Online reports that Haromoni@ will be ending soon. The show received unsatisfactory ratings and not many are surprised at its end. While I was not a fan of Haromoni@, I fear this might be a blow to Morning Musume and other H!P units sales. Haromoni@ was used to perform new singles and promote the girls. If they don’t get a new show to replace it, who knows what could happen to Hello! Project? Oh, who am I kidding, only wotas that would already buy any H!P single would watch that show.

Cinderella the Picspam

Morningtime postpones his weekly Haromoni@ review to wait for the subtitled version. In the meantime, he tantalizes us with behind the scenes shots from the Cinderella musical. He ogles his favorites, giving special attention to Man-Risa before offering the screenshots. I am most amused by the shot of LinLin about to grab Koharu’s rear.

Haromoni@ 3 August 2008

Morningtime calls this episode’s theme a “summery one”.  I don’t know about that.  I thought the theme was “beating a dead horse”.  Morningtime found this episode to be quite lame, but marches through a full review of the show anyway.  What a trooper!  The first segment was our weekly dose of GakiKame tedium.  Followed by the new Chinese news segment with plenty of weird camera angle shots of LinLin.  And finally (surprise surprise) a food guessing game.  Hey, at least we get screencaps!

I know I have personally said that I am a big fan of this show.  But it makes it really tough to like when it fails on such a regular basis.  And (IMO) they have ruined the GakiKame segments, which I used to really enjoy.  Apparently Morningtime agrees, ending the post with this classic quote…

“For a programme that likes to include food in it’s programmes so much you’d think they would find something a bit meatier for the girls to sink their teeth into.”

Haromoni 22 June 2008 (Morningtime)
Haromoni@ (08/06/22) (Hello!Musume)
Haromoni@ Review and Preview (The Bigaku!Palace)

Every week, these brave souls watch - and enjoy… - Haromoni. Morningtime has a short review this week, Hello!Musume shares it so you can watch it and the Bigaku!Palace has a detailed recap and screenshots.