July 8th, 2010
Brian

Disclaimer: If 50cent, snoop dogg and Queen Elizabeth can rap about their “niggers and hoes” i can blog about my black Naruto homie.

If I didn’t had any morale I would’ve got laid so many times at the expo. At least, according to the signs a lot of cosplayers were wearing. Where you might only find a lonely, bitter and disillusioned anarchist handing out “Free hugs” at your local tourist attraction; at the expo they played the “Free” game to a much larger extend. Many girls offered themselves for free hugs, kisses and and -cover up the ears of the young kids- free sex. Now any normal person would probably laugh and not take these guys serious but we’re talking about cosplayers here. They’d fuck anything with a hole in it and you’ll be able to find countless of evidence online. Not saying there is anything wrong with it; just saying it doesn’t float my boat.

On Thursday we actually planned on going to the expo to see if we could get stuff signed and of course meet the girls. As I was the only one with a day-pass instead of the 4-day-pass i was left feeling empty and alone, walking the “gray” mile towards a whole bunch of uneconomicals. Uneconomicals is the petname I give to weeaboo who walk around with signs that offer people free hugs, kisses and sex.

Behold… the long waiting line where those who wish to enter the expo have to line up. At one point I was convinced one out of three lines actually ended up at a gas chamber but thank god I was wrong. Well… my line didn’t end there anyway. There was only one good thing about standing between anime weeaboo and that is that I actually didn’t had any trouble playing Pokemon on my phone in public. What I did have problems with however was one kid graphicly explaining the best way to cut his wrists (i.e: down the road not across the streets) and one thing amazed me in general.

It was a black fucking Naruto. That’s right, no jokes there. Out of all the cosplays I’ve seen (and I’ve seen some bad ones) this one was the worst one of all. He could’ve dressed up as Afrosamurai, a well respected and well known animecharacter. He could’ve even dressed up as someone from the Boondocks (as far as you count that as anime) and all would’ve been fine. But this dude was just wrong on so many levels. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a racist and I despise racism: but how would you feel if you saw a white guy dressing up as Tu-pac or Martin Luther King? You’d chase him all over town telling him how wrong it is. That’s what you’d do.

One thing else that I found odd was the amount of girls dressed up as cats. Or well, trying to dress up cats really.

1. Buy cat ears at your local sex shops
2. Buy some sexy lingerie there as well
3. ????
4. YOU ARE NOW A NEKO

For fucks sake, if you go for the whole neko girl outfit make sure you wear a tail as well. *sigh* Weeaboo’s… you just have to tell them everything.

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June 26th, 2009
Brian

With Micheal out of the way, the title of king of pop became available again. An excellent oppertunity to crown Tsunku the new king of pop!

Tsunku-san omedeto!

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March 28th, 2009
Brian

Music triggers emotions. Emotions are impulses, impulses are direct. Which is the reason why I decided not to review Platinum 9 DISC (P9D from now on) untill I could honestly say that the album is shit and below my expectations. Good news: the album isn’t shit. Bad news: It’s below my expectations. I wasn’t expecting a miracle album. I didn’t even ask for a Reina solo. All I wanted was some new kick-ass songs. Although the criteria has been met; I’m still dissapointed with the album. I even dare to say that I like Cover you more than P9D.

Could this be Tsunku’s fault? He’s the one composing the songs. The same genious that wrote Tan tan ta~n was unable to deliver for the new Morning Musume album. Cover you were all covers of songs. Little composing needed; and the arrangement was great. A few months ago I said that even UFA couldn’t go wrong with “Guru Guru Jump” and “Take off is now”; and I was right! Those songs kick ass; but why is it that I only started liking the album after I listened to the 2009 Spring concert tour?

Anyhoo: one song-by-song review coming up:

1. Songs

The song starts with a dramatic piano intro quickly followed by some hollow-sounding-fruity-loops-generated trumpets. It was only normal for this song to be the opening. The trumpets reminded me of the Bon Kyu Bon Kyu BOMB intro of 2007. (Wow time flies). The song itself is some sort of Koda Kumi-esque song, except for the fact that this is Morning Musume. The computer morphed voices are pretty cool, and Reina her morphed solo-line gives me goosebumps-s-s-s. (imagine that with the pitch going down).

Score: 8 out of 10 Reina’s

2. Resonant Blue

Please listen to my song; alright go ahead. The ever-so-epic intro line of Resonant Blue is present on P9D. Together with the song itself which should make sense. I was happy with the song back then. And I still am. CRY CRY DONO KURAI I’d rather have a new song though. Sadly enough it’s an unchangable fact that RB is on the album rather than some cool new song so I’ll just have to live with it. Not that that’s a bad thing.

Score: 8 out of 10 Reina’s

3.  Ame no Furanai we-all-know-how-long-this-title-is-going-to-be

Ame No Furanai, what a lovely song. The sweet piano tunes combined with the cheap sound pack the arranger has been using gives it a nice Morning Musume feeling. The song feels kind of hollow, but playing around with your equalizer a bit gives moar body to the song. As far as I can hear different group of girls sing different parts. I’d rather have them singing in unison or one at the time. The sound of the Grande Finale is coming way too soon. Before LinJun their solo starts the strings announcing the chorus sound different; indicating something awesome that is about to happen. This should be at the end god damnit!

Score: 7 out of 10 Reina’s

4. Take off is now

Someone on Hello! Online decided to get honest with his fellow forum members and decided that the current Morning Musume is slutting it up in here. If he’s right than Take off is now is the shining evidence to back-up is statement. In my optics he’s anything but right; but I’ll save that for a later time. The song is being sung by the awesome MM trio Reina, Gakisan en Aichan. 3 Girls with more then enough vocal power. The song is awesome; the title is COOL ENGLISH, and the girls singing it are SEKUSHII beyond recognition. It’s a nice change! A welcome change for some; the sign to call Morning Musume sluts for others. I’m glad to say I am not part of the latter group. Nor will I never be.

SHAKE SHAKE BABY KEEP ON MOVING.

Score: 10 out of 10 Reina’s

5. Naichau Kamo

I should rate this song quite high, quite high, quite high. The song itself is good, and I cannot help but be biased because of the PV. Crying (Asian) girls standing in the rain just can get away with everything. It’s a melodramaticaly sad song, with some heavy syntersizing going on during the bridge. Even if you can’t understand Japanese you’ll understand what this song is about. Nice job Tsunku!

Score: 7 out of 10 Reina’s

6. Watashi No Miryoku and-what-else-not

It’s a Mitsui solo. End of story. The song lends itself great for Wotagei’ing. But Tsunku made a horrible decision by making this a solo for Aika. It should have been a group song. Aika does not have the vocal abilities to carry this song by herself.

Score: 5 out of 10 Reina’s

7. Guru Guru Jump

Ooooooh jump! I never took any happy-times inducing pills in my life; but I can only imagine that if you end up in a good trip the things you will hear will fall in line with Guru Guru jump. This is the genki song I’ve been longing for! Unlike the previous song on the album; Tsunku made a good decision by giving Jun, Lin and Koharu this song. It just seems to fit them. The song lets you hear the girl that never stops smiling; Koharu. It contains sounds you’d associate with the dorky girl named Lin. And Tsunku even managed to fit in some room for Jun; the girl who’s personality I haven’t quite found a name for.

Score: 9 out of 10 Reina’s

8. Mikan

On a bright morning you’ll get a chance. Oh yeah! You get a chance! It’s Mikan! One of my favourite albums. I once promised someone that this song would be my theme for everything. Having sex, dying, my funeral, My marriage (lolwut), Taking a shower, going to work: Mikan would be played. And although I haven’t quite sticked to my promise I still have a deep love for Mikan. It’s an inspiring song that contains more truth than statements released by the Chinese government regarding Tibet. Life is one time!

Score: 8 out of 10 Reina’s

9. Jounetsu no Kiss wo Hitotsu

The song itself reminds me of a Mini Moni song. (The post-Takahashi Mini Moni) It’s not a sad song, it’s not a happy song either. It doesn’t make my Morning Musume senses tingle. I’m sorry Tsunku, I’m sorry Morning Musume: I don’t like this song. It has nothing that makes it Morning Musume-esque. It has some awesome Aichan screaming in it though. But sadly enough this only shows quite well during live performances.

Score: 4 out of 10 Reina’s

10. It’s you

Again the synthesizers. Together with Sayumi her poor english. One might guess it’s a recipe for pure win. Well it’s not. I once woke up with a pillow with blood stains on it. Turns out I fell asleep with this song on repeat. Sorry Sayu! You’re cute and you have some vocal capabilities; they just don’t show very well in this song. Poor arranging and they picked a wrong girl for this song. I can’t say who’d be able to pull off this song properly. But Jun would have done it quite nicely. Kudos for the 10 second bee-bop bridge though.

Score: 5 out of 10 Reina’s

11. Onna Ni Sache Are

This song is probably on the album because the suits at UFW found that the song this song replaced was totally shit. At least they did a good job at picking a replacement song. Everyone should be familair with this song, so a review would be silly.

Score: 8 out of 10 Reina’s

12. Kataomoi no Owari Ni

A nice song with a Morning Musume feeling to it. Unlike It’s You, Tsunku made a good decision by giving this song to Eri. It suits her somehow. The song itself is the least noteworthy on the whole album. Pretty much how Eri always seem to be standing in the background. Even I -a devotee to Reina- enjoys the song.

Score: 7 out of 10 Reina’s

13. Kanashimi Twilight

I don’t get why they put this song on the album. It has Mikitty in it and Yossie. This song has NO right at all to be on there! *Waves fist in anger*. I like the song; but album-wise it is shit. The 4 Reina’s (album wise) are given because I like Miki.

Score: 4 out of 10 Reina’s

In conclusion

The album itself shows a new Morning Musume, an older Morning Musume, a SEKUSHII Morning Musume, and shows that Tsunku failed to deliver win with some songs. Despite the awesomeness of some songs I still can’t say I like the complete album.

Final score:

7 out of 10 Reina’s

In the beginning of this post I said I liked Cover You more then P9D. I still do. Cover You would get a solid 8.5 Reina’s. Where Sexy 8 Beat would get 9 out of 10 Reina’s. I reckon Sexy 8 Beat marks where “The New” Morning Musume style begins. So rating albums before that just wouldn’t work.

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March 14th, 2009
Brian

I told you it could get more perculiar! It just did! Japan Times decided it was up to Robert Micheal Poole to interview Morning Musume… and their manager! As far as I recall this is the first time a manager of Morning Musume spoke in public. And with that a lot of interesting quotes appear; giving me more fuel for my ever so humble opinions!

Read the full article here, but for your and my sake I will only quote the things that are most interesting.

“We get winter, summer and New Year holidays for five days each, though it depends on the situation,” explains Niigaki.

Interesting fact! Morning Musume gets 15 days off… if they’re lucky. 7 days less than me. And 15 days more than North-Korean people.

…the all-controlling Tsunku. “He decides everything, Usually an artist is controlled by their management, but this group is formed by the producer. It is a rare case.” Nishikata admits, “I think that the group could never survive without him. Tsunku really produces the songs, concepts, costumes, makeup, live shows, CD-sleeve designs — you name it!

Now this is where it gets interesting. According to the manager of Morning Musume, Tsunku is responsible for everything that is related to Hello! Project. Which means that the decline in sales (we’ll get back to that), the dropping poplarity of Morning Musume in Japan, and the horrible cover that is gracing Platinum 9 Disc is all the responsibility by no-one other than Tsunku. On every forum Tsunku is praised for his skills as a producer, but it seems that Tsunku is becoming less and less good at marketing these girls. Step aside Tsunku. The world has changed in 12 years and it looks as if you could use a refreshment course!

About the decline in popularity: it’s clear the management is keen to cultivate their individual abilities to reverse the slide.

The Management also known as Tsunku. And he doesn’t seem to be doing a pretty good job at it.

But nobody knows who is in Morning Musume anymore.

Thank you mister Nishikata for insulting me, and at least 50k other people who are fans.

“I’d really like to make sure each one of them continues to work after their graduation,” explains Nishikata. “We have promoted them as a group so far, but from now on, we’d like to promote them one by one, so I hope they can do more personal work after this summer.”

Now it goes from interesting to scary, and back to interesting again. The manager hopes they can do more personal work after this summer. Does that mean that after the Anime Expo in July, Morning Musume will be even less promoted? But instead UFA will focus on each girl individualy? Yet previously Nishikata said that the “the managment” is keen to cultivate the invidual abilities of each girl to reversve the decline of populariy of Morning Musume. We’re getting a bit on the contradicting side aren’t we?

But another probable reason for their recent decline can be attributed to the resurgent otaku (obsessive fans). At a recent Hello! Project show in front of around 14,000 in Yokohama Arena, barely a single woman could be spotted among the dedicated and exuberant middle-age male crowd.

Besides the fact that Robert Micheal Poole is portraying the Otaku in a negative way (Obsessive is usually seen in a negative way),he is also forgetting that Morning Musume are female Idols. And male people tend to enjoy females. And even more so when they are idols. Ho ho ho; a concept is born. Look at Hey!Say!Jump! where there are tons of female fans. Surely the male/female ratio might be more balanced. But I have seen enough women at Morning Musume concerts.

In April 2004, audio footage recorded backstage reportedly captured then-member Rika Ishikawa exclaiming: “Look at them. Grownups screaming like that! I can’t believe it. So stupid!” Although such a scandal is rare in the micromanaged Musume life, standing in front of such frenzied supporters clearly affects the girls.

The risk of being an idol. Shit happens. Good job at stating 5 year old facts. And what is up with the “standing in front of such frenzied supporters clearly affects the girls”. The interviewer goes on about how each girl is nervous. Who the fuck wouldn’t be nervous if they’d had to perform infront of 3.000 people? Male or females; anyone would be nervous. If there is any sign that wota, or frenzied supporters as Robert Micheal Poole puts it, is having a negative effect on the girls -don’t even think about mentioning Kago or Tsuji- than I’d like some solid proof. These girls are talented enough to get different jobs. They don’t have to stay in Morning Musume. They’re not using drugs. They’re not being chased down the streets. In other words: shit is being talked.

“In Europe and the U.S., there are many fans of Morning Musume and Japanese idoru (manufactured entertainers), thanks to the Internet,” says Nishikata. “(We) were invited to an event in L.A. called A.X. (Anime Expo) as a music guest this July. There are already a lot of fans of Japanese animation (in the U.S.), so it might be easy to get in through that.”

Nothing new there for. But it’s nice to get a confirmation that Morning Musume was invited to the AX, and not the other way around. But we all know how I think about Hello! Project and the advancement trough the west.

In conclusion: an alright interview with an interviewer that contradicts himself a little bit too much. Take the wota hate with a grain of salt. We know the girls appreciate our love.

right?

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March 2nd, 2009
Brian

Today my informant wearing a long trenchcoat, an indiana jones styled hat, and dark shades brought me interesting information! The e-hon website has released information regarding a new Morning Musume single!

Expected Release Date: 13th May 2009
Title: To be Determined

Could this be the year of many Morning Musume singles?! Let’s cross our fingers and hope so! (Of course… if the title is アメリカがだい好き！ there will be less partying…)

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