20090517

Berryz Koubou's Seishun Bus Guide... Damn right!


The full PV for Berryz Koubou's newest single Seishun Bus Guide is now available on DohhhUp! And I'm loving it.

The song itself is pretty decent, fast paced with lots of energy. It's a song you can dance to. And after a couple of listens it will stick in your head. I've heard people saying that the song isn't as good as previous ones like Yuke Yuke Monkey Dance or Dakishimete Dakishimete and I am inclinded to agree with them, but I'm pretty sure that opinion will change with a couple more listens and I'll be quoting RadicalPatriot with a "This is the best song ever written" kind of attitude. Just you wait, it'll make it's way into your psyche too and then you'll be loving it too. PUFFY sang Your Love is a Drug, but this song is better than love and the withdrawal symptoms all that much worse... See? I'm starting to think like Rad already, heh.

But the best part of this single isn't the song itself, no, it's the PV that goes with it.




First we open with a shot of the Berryz girls sitting on a bus in, wait, those aren't regular school uniforms... They are MALE school uniforms. Well, okay, that's unusual. Other than that the first thing I notice is Momoko's face, which cracks me up no matter how many times I watch the start of this video. Then the Bus Guide speaks, with a shot of her eyes and then her lips, leaving us desperate to know what her face looks like. But first, the director thought we'd like to see what Miyabi's face looks like in a great close-up which then turns into the dance shot. In this dance shot they appear to be standing in some sort of starship bridge, with some floating displays behind them showing a planet and satelite (perhaps the Earth and Moon) orbiting it.

...And then there's the costumes. I dunno how to describe those. They are like Space Age stewerdess uniforms... In hot pants. I like the future already.

Anyway, we get to see the Bus Guide's face and then the whole schoolboy outfit thing becomes clear. The bus scenes seem to be what the story in this PV is. The girls (or boys?) are all struck by the beauty of this random tour bus guide and spend the rest of the PV oggling her. This kinda reminds me of when my P.E class a couple years ago (note that for whatever reason girls and boys were normally segregated into different classes for P.E so it was a class of guys) got a pretty young (and hot) female teacher, we all acted in this way - I'm sure she abused this fact to make us work extra hard, damn that's an evil thing to do because it bloody worked. This PV is totally believable. Well, if you forget about the strange starship clips and the sexy space cadet uniforms.

But I started to notice one peculiar thing about the bus scenes. And that is how adorable the girls all look (particularly Maasa and Momoko) in those school uniforms. That shouldn't happen. They are supposed to be guys, why do I find them so attractive? And come to think about it, I used to say the same thing about Mr Moonlight. Hmm... It would appear that I am not quite so secure in my own sexuality as I'd previously thought.

So about 2:30 into the video, something really strange happens. The bus, er starship, goes to warp. The bus flys through the solar system in seconds and they pretty much treat it as if it were normal. If buses in Japan can do that, no wonder they pride themselves on a public transport system that is always on time. And it's here that something hits me...

Can you imagine a Berryz Koubou parody of Star Trek? Saki sitting on the bridge in her gold shirt, she says to Maasa, "Lieutenant, take us out, warp 6." Maasa would then respond, "Aye, Captain." And follow the orders. Why hasn't this been realised before? I hope this wasn't an idea they had to capitalise on the media attention that Star Trek XI has gotten. I'd never forgive them for such a thing. Okay, it's Berryz, so I probably would forgive them eventually, but my point still stands!

Well, I already bought my copy of this. I hadn't even heard it yet, but trusted my faith in Berryz to release something great. It was the same for MADAYADE and Monkey Dance, I bought both of those without ever hearing the songs, sometimes I don't even listen to a song until it arrives in the package. I've never been dissapointed yet by that tactic.

So, I definately reccomend that you buy this one if you haven't already. It's been great so far, and this is only one half of the single. It's a Double A-side, so it's gonna be good. I can't wait for my next YesAsia shipment to arrive.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh that was such a funny entry! I loved it xD

And I agree, Seishun Bus Guide is fuckin' awesome. Te PV is GREAT <3! Rival is great too, really cuuuute <3 So this single is an epic win for me. Still don't know why nobody liked SBG though :(

Nice blog, keep posting <3 !

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