Idol Collections

It's a strange topic. Kurisu from Mexican idol blog Hello!Wota once said that "Americans are not wota. Americans are collectors." Is that true? I'm not here to debate the distinction or the true nature of being a wota. At least not now. I've done that in the past, and I'm sure it'll crop up time and time again, but today I'm focusing on the "collector". After all, short of seeing them in concert, nothing makes you feel closer to your Idol than when that knock at the door comes and the courier delivers your H!P goods, right?  And why shouldn't it? That drive we have to buy our Idol's merchandise is, after all, the thing that enables them to continue releasing more of it. But that's not really the end of the story, is it? I've...

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Berryz to attend AnimeNEXT

Seriously? I can't believe it. Mere hours after I wrote "I'm still holding out for Berryz to get invited to Japan Expo" in my previous entry about Buono's concert in Paris this February, news broke that they have been invited to a tiny convention on the US' east coast by the name of AnimeNEXT. My dreams for this year are shattered. But maybe I can still put them back together. While I wasn't too keen on the idea initially (and didn't even consider going to their Sakuracon performance for the same reason), I may find a way to attend. America has generally been in the realm of the darkest, most cob-webbed corners - and filed with a do not want sticker - of the "countries to visit" list that I'm sure everyone compiles at some point...

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Buono! Concert in Europe... again!

It has been 2 years now since Buono! announced their ill-fated trip to Stockholm to perform at the Japan Expo. Now, in early 2012, they're planning to make a second attempt at performing in Europe. Back then I was pretty excited. It was to be the first time that any Hello! Project group was to perform outside of Asia. That was big news. Morning Musume were set to appear a few months later at Anime Expo, but the first would be Buono! And in Europe! I was determined to go. Despite my parents insisting that I couldn't actually afford to go, I managed to convince them otherwise, and everything was booked. Flights, accomodation, Expo tickets. As time drew nearer, and our excitement grew exponentially with it, we were utterly distraught...

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Expanding horizons?

This week the Daily Yomiuri featured an article about the potential for overseas expansion of Japanese pop culture, including a few comments from Takahashi Ai.  I felt I wanted to weigh in with my own perspective. The main focus of the article seemed to be an the apparent boom of popularity enjoyed by South Korean artists at the moment. While a decade ago it was cool to like Morning Musume, it certainly appears that schoolgirls all over Asia are managing to prop up this titan of an industry. It's suddenly trendy. We could could several Japanese public figures, including current and former Hello! Project members who have also bought into the Korean wave. But why? I'm not fooling anyone by claiming that I'm an expert on Korean...

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Is S/mileage Doomed?

In the aftermath of the Yuuka graduation announcement, this is something that many blogs (even International Wota - though was perhaps said with more irony than truth) said. Yuuka graduating = death of S/mileage. Is it the case? I really don't think so. That isn't how this industry works. If a graduation, even of a popular member, signalled the end of the group, then I'm afraid to say Hello! Project would have died very early on. Instead we find that our favourite groups are still going strong. The truth is that, while the Yuuka and Saki leaving H!P is a great loss for S/mileage, it's not the end of the world for the group. Those fans who don't find a new favourite member will vanish, sure, but that's not so much a loss for S/mileage...

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More Graduations? Yuuka to leave Hello! Project?

A story published in one morning newspaper in Japan has just caused a frenzy online. It reports that 1st Generation S/mileage member, Maeda Yuuka, is set to graduate on the 31st of December this year. Apparently she commented that the wants to leave her duties in Hello! Project in order to focus on her schooling, so that she can get into a good university. It wouldn't be the first time a member has graduated to go to university. Konno Asami being a pretty well-known example. In fact, schooling is a pretty standard excuse. More often than not it's the one given out by talent agencies when they'd rather not go into too much detail. It hasn't been confirmed as yet. So it will be interesting to see just whether or not it turns...

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Michishige Sayumi - Sayuminglandoll Previews

By now, we've had quite a few previews released of Sayu's upcoming photobook, as release bears down on us from less than a week away. The PB certainly takes a unique approach, when compared with other photobooks of Sayu's, or H!P photobooks in general. Interestingly, the PB seems to be quite heavily influenced by 60s media, photography and fashion, and such. Even the excessive use of bright girlish colours like pink and yellow. Though, in those last two pictures, we can see that the colour isn't maintained the whole way through. For W Saki, Nakajima came up with the idea of having a black book and a white book, and the theme and colours gradually change through the PB from one to the other. Perhaps Sayumi liked the idea? Sayu...

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Okai Chisato 2nd DVD "Imp Girl"

This week we had UP FRONT revealing previews for Okai Chisato's new DVD, titled "Imp Girl". It's been almost a year now since the release of her first solo DVD, "Chissa~". And, although it was right at the peak of H!P's dreaded Image Videos, it still proved to be a pretty good release - especially for the numerous Chisato fans out there. It was one of those releases that we, at KIDS, had decided to work on almost immediately after it was announced - in fairly spectacular fashion at that. If I remember correctly, it was announced live on her livestream show when they started running footage from the Making DVD, and blew the minds of the several thousand fans who were watching. Now, this isn't an announcement that we're also going...

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The Difficulties of Fansubbing: Brand Loyalty

In this (likely to be final part of the series) entry I'll be talking about what happens after we've finished working on a project and release it, and how predicting response is near impossible. High viewership ratings is not something we aim for. I always use the logic that, if we were, we wouldn't be subbing Hello!Pro Kids releases. We are there simply because we want to fansub. However, that doesn't mean we don't read the response to our releases, or watch those download figures go up. Why? We get some form of enjoyment out of watching them. We'll say, "Oh, look! This Nakky release is almost beating our Momo release!" And we imagine some sort of internal race amongst the projects we put out, to see who will fare better than its...

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The Reasons for Graduations

Every time a H!P graduation is announced, I suddenly find myself surrounded by the same cynicism as the previous umpteen times. What really brought the issue home recently was Ogawa Saki's sudden graduation, and with the recent departure of Takahashi Ai from Morning Musume it has managed to remain somewhat topical. What exactly is the issue? Graduations, and the motives behind them. When Sakichi's graduation was first announced, within moments the fanbase was up in arms. It's moments of huge news like this when I love to check member threads on Hello! Online. To see an otherwise sleepy thread suddenly propelled to having two or three dozen people viewing the page at any given moment. News like this has even broken H!O in the past....

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The Difficulties of Fansubbing: Of Politics and Collaborations

This is something which I never understood before becoming a fansubber and, even as I type this, I'm not sure if you guys will understand it either. That said, it has been an integral part of my experience in this, and I want to write about it. I think I may have already touched on my personal experiences of it in my previous two-part series on fansubbing, so I'll try not to repeat myself. Inter-group Politics I'm going to ignore internal politics as, for the most part, it isn't something I have come across. And what I could tell you of it I already did in the previous entry in this series. But politics between different groups seems to be more rife than one might initially believe. It's something which is very common in anime...

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The Difficulties of Fansubbing: The Process

The simple act of fansubbing can be a long, drawn out process. I've been involved in this hobby since the second half of 2009. I had dabbled a little in it before then, but only a small bit as I subbed performances under the name Berryz Kyuuden Fansubs, and then when I joined Hello!Fansubs' trainee program. But it was from joining ICU-Subs in August 2009 that I really start counting myself as a fansubber. And in this time, I've come to further appreciate just how complex the whole thing is, from the simple task of getting those translations to appear correctly on screen, to the difficulties in working with people you don't know, this is to be a short three or four part series on some of the complexities of the trade, as it were. But,...

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Berryz Koubou "Heroine ni Narou ka?" PV

Well, Berryz Koubou's new single "Heroine ni Narou ka?", to be released the first week of March, now has a PV which, it appears, has attracted very mixed reactions. I guess I'll throw my own into the fray. The PV is good. Like everyone else, I'm sure, my first reaction upon seeing it was "Holy crap, it's Lady Gaga." So let's get this out of the way first.  The whole Lady Gaga controversy (does it count as a controversy?) seems unavoidable. The parallels between those solo close up shots and Lady Gaga's own music video run so closely that one might forgive you for actually thinking they came from the same place. I'm not sure what was going through UFW's mind when they created it, but I'm sure plaigerism wasn't it. Can anyone seriously...

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Discovering Takekawa Ai

Takekawa Ai is something of a rising star in Japan. She is a singer-songwriter who has been honing her skills with, not only singing and songwriting, but piano and guitar, from a young age and is now proficient in all of them. But at the end of 2009 she got her big break and was signed by Avex with her debut single "I WILL" hitting stores that November to both critical and popular success. Her second single, "Tooi michino sakide", hit stores in March last year, and was featured as the ending theme for the continued anime Inuyasha. I, however, didn't discover her til later that year. At the end of July, trailers for the movie "Light Novel no Tanoshii Kakikata", starring Sudou Maasa, hit YouTube courtesy of BROSTATV. And it was here revealed...

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Berryz to resume blogging!

For much of November and December the girls in Berryz Koubou began blogging to varying degrees of activity, which I reported at the time on the Church of Maasa. But come the end of the festive season and, more importantly, the Autumn-Winter concert tour, the blogs suddenly ended. Though they did remain online, no new posts were made. But it's been reported that, beginning around Valentine's Day, and no doubt lasting for the length of the upcomming concert tour, the blogs will return. For the first week or so, I translated Maasa's blog as best as I could, after promising to do so for the last year or so, and reiterating that promise as recent as 3 or 4 days before the blogs were announced. But it quickly became too much for me. She typically...

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Berryz Koubou to release 7th Anniversary PB

It was revealed today on the official Hello! Project site that, to mark 7 years since Berryz Koubou first debuted, they will be releasing a celebratory Photobook titled Berryz Koubou 7 Shuunen Kinen PHOTO BOOK 「7」. The website hints at what the PB will include. It will feature pictures of each girl through the years, going back as far as their very first Photobook. A good chance to easily glance over how each member has chnaged in the past 7 years in a trip down memory lane for everyone. I have a feeling that seeing these pictures again will evoke just as many memories among us fans as it will among the girls themselves.  That said, I hope we get to see the girls' reactions upon seeing the photobook for the first time. How they react...

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Kikkawa Yuu's Solo Debut!

For the last few weeks, there have been rumours floating around that Kikkawa was about to get her debut as a Hello! Project soloist, as well as some news which hinted tentatively towards that end, but this news comes as confirmation. Our fears have indeed been realised. Kikkawa Yuu will release her first single, titled "Kikkake wa YOU!" at the end of March. The single, set to release in 4 versions (RE, and LE A, B & C) will all be different. With the Regular Edition featuring a remix of the titular track as it's c/w, while the three Limited Editions will each contain one of the three songs she performed at the Hello! Project Winter 2011 concerts.  Though I'm not a Kikkawa fan, I still herald this as good news. She is one of the more...

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Buono!'s Zassou no Uta PV

Upon the creation of Buono!'s official YouTube channel, it seemed that the first order of business was the release of their newest PV, featured below. The PV features the girls singing, dancing, and working, in a garage, surrounded by horribly "pimped" classic sportscars - complete with neon underlighting. It's a horrible mess. But at least it's pretty clear what they were trying to achieve. And, abominations against the world of automobiles aside, the PV is actually pretty decent. The decision to set it in a garage was a weird one though. I guess there's something intricately sexy about girls who understand mechanics. Despite the stigma attatched to people who work in such places. The song itself isn't the best that Buono! have ever released,...

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Buono! on YouTube

Joining the ranks of Hello!Project artists who have gained their own YouTube channel are Buono!. As with previous channels, it will no doubt become the main source of Buono! PVs on YouTube, as well as many other exclusive video bytes and promotional messages. This is definitely a good sign. It shows us that Buono! are here to stay. But more importantly, it shows us that UP FRONT aren't as far off the ball as one might think at first glance. Piracy is a major problem for the music industry, and there was a time when any music videos posted on YouTube would be removed for copyright infringment, but the industy (UFW included) are beginning to turn their heads and realise that such draconian measures never work, and the best thing to do is to...

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Miyabi gets a Solo DVD!

The news broke yesterday that Miyabi will be releasing a new Solo DVD some time next month with the title『NATURAL & COOL』.  It was only two or three days ago that I was saying in #wotachat that I predict they'll announce Miyabi's second photobook this week. Turns out that I was pretty darn close. Though I'll admit that I was mostly joking when I said it. The converstation had taken a down turn with everyone saying "after Ai-chan's announcement last week, I wonder what horrible news awaits us this week". I said, "They'll announce Miya's 2nd PB," mostly to lighten the tone of the conversation, and also because it was the potential news that I most wanted to hear. The funny part is that, upon making the prediction, the others dismissed...

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