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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