Kamei Eri – Kataomoi no Owari ni Preview

Just put up, here is the preview for Kamei Eri’s solo song on Platinum 9 DISC, Kataomoi no Owari ni. It is a radio rip so expect to hear a lot of talking through the song, but at least we can get an idea of how it’s going to sound. It is extremely cute and I think that they are finally going to show each members talents and try to keep Morning Musume stable because of the Elder Club graduation, so I expect to hear more member solo’s.

The song is a ballad, from the seconds I heard, so it’s good to see them make a ballad that doesn’t suck (Matsuura Aya’s last ballad single for example). Not much I can say about the song, I will wait for a higher quality rip to make a review, because I think Kamei deserves better, she is actually my third favorite member, and the reason why this blog isn’t named GakiKame is because I don’t want to copy Haromoni@.

Anyway, here is the preview, if it is down please tell me so that I can place a link to another rip, I’ll update with a higher quality rip once it is released. And thanks to Helloprojectgirls at wordpress for uploading the video, I can’t make videos with radio rips for some reason, so I rely on other Youtube H!P fans for help on these type of videos, thanks you guys!

New Morning Musume Collaboration Play

(Only pic I could find of Takahashi and the Rokkies)

Ojigi de Shape-Up! (おじぎでシェイプアップ!), that is the title of the play some members of the Morning Musume will be acting in, by some I mean Takahashi Ai, Kamei Eri, Michishige Sayumi, and Tanaka Reina….wait no Niigaki? Hope it doesn’t mean the G-word…

I was going to put the translation, but the only one available is a Google Translation, and I didn’t understand anything, so I’ll update later with an understandable translation. There are apparently some Hello! Pro Egg’s in the play too, but I don’t understand the translation so I can’t really name them.

The play is going to be in Ginza Theatre and will run sometime in early June, so if you like watching (part of) Morning Musume act then you will be glad, but if the absence of Niigaki means something then you’ll probably be sad….hope they omitted her because of her sub-par talent skills, well they are not bad, but Takahashi and the Rokkies have a somewhat higher level…purely opinion…

Anyway, half of the TakaGaki pair, and the Rokkies will be acting in a play sometime in June, more specifically Ojigi de Shape-Up!, so please look forward to it.

Shimizu And Yajima Going To South Korea To Announce Auditions

Long title huh? I have a girl in a class that looks like Shimizu….

Anyway according to JPHIP:

“Shimuzu Saki and Yajima Maimi will visit South Korea on March 9 to officially announce the “Hello! Project South Korea Audition”.
The audition is organized by Korean music entertainment enterprise Mnet Media and Up Front Works.
The South Korean member(s) selected in this audition will have thorough Japanese style training as a member of Hello! Project, and will be given the chance to debut in Japan.”

Source : tiny @ JPHIP

So Shimizu Saki and Yajima Maimi will go to South Korea and just announce the auditions which were silently revealed through various forums, and on here. This isn’t that big of a news, the only thing that will get on Hello! Online’s new’s page is when the winner(s) are announced, so don’t expect to see it on H!O that soon. But it is good that they will actually go to Korea for members, because H!P has only had one member, who left H!P to “continue her studies” (got tired of not getting picked on any popular groups and wanted to return home, not true but that is the fan interpretation).

This is a great thing and a bad thing, great because H!P will expand slightly more (Tsunku’s Asian Domination) and bad because most H!P fans will start crying over her being Korean and H!P being Japanese, remember the “discussion” JunJun and LinLin created? Some H!P fans are not that considerate of people being put into H!P from other places, so I hope this helps them keep quiet and understand that H!P is expanding and they are not going to stay the same forever.

Anyway’s enough ranting, by the way expect the Alo-Hello! 3 review sometime on saturday and sunday, it is going to be in majority pictures so basically I’ll make it so that non-H!P people can understand it, I will probably have to put another section for reviews. Shimizu and Yajima good luck in South Korea!

Arihara Kanna On Indefinite Hiatus

“NEWS: The Hello!Project official site announced to fans, in a statement today, that C-ute’s Arihara Kanna is out indefinitely with hallax vulgis, or bunions. The common foot deformity has become too painful for Kanna, who now requires treatment over the coming months. Because of this, Kanna will be absent from C-ute for an indefinite amount of time, until she is ready to return.

The statement from H!P says that they expect her to be out of the upcoming C-ute concert tour and promotional activities for C-ute’s single Bye, Bye, Bye!” (Source: Musume-Central)

For those of us not that knowledgeable bunions are “a structural deformity of the bones and the joint between the foot and big toe”, and it is not something new, she has had this for some time, but they deteriorated and need treatment. So basically C-ute is down to 6 members for the next couple of months, hopefully not too many months.

I never put attention to her so I can’t say I will miss her, but I am sure that most of her fans will be dissapointed because of the Kanna-less concert tour, she may return toward the end of the concerts and surprise everyone, but it is highly unlikely. Hope you recover Kanna!

LINK (To official Hello! Project announcement, in Japanese)

Kirarin Revolution To End In March

I couldn’t post these news yesterday because of lack of internet, anyway according to Strawberrie:

“Kirarin Revolution will be ending on March 27. The show has been on on air since April 2006 (Manga since March 2004) and it has finally come to an end. And Hello! Project has a Kirarin Revolution Final Event with SHIPS, MilkyWay, and of course Tsukishima Kirari in the works.”

I’m not sure who SHIPS is, but apparently it is Kirarin related. Koharu must be extremely dissapointed because this is basically all of her solo career, this is what made her popular among shrieking 8-12 year old girls, and it is kind of a shame that they ended it, but I bet they will resurrect Koharu’s solo career and try to push her into the limelight.

I’ll post if she is given another anime, or if she goes back to something similar. I just hope they can make her sing right and not do the “cat giving birth” voice she does, she has the potential, but I guess they wanted her to seem like an annoying anime character. They might just forget about it and have her in Morning Musume, but I bet they won’t let Koharu fade into the darkness.

Yaguchi Mari – Seishun Boku Live Performance

It seems that we have a live perfomance of a upcoming single before the audio leak, so this was surprising when I saw it. She performed it on the Quiz Hexagon show and from what I’ve read it was a highly emotional experience for her because it was her first time singing (after the elder club graduation concert of course).

According to some sources she apparently said that she was nervous at the end of the performance and thought she sung bad. I’ll provide the link to the video because as of now, only Hello! Online has the video, so congratulations Hello! Online, you’re getting the small number of traffic that comes from this blog.

Ok, impression time~! The song is somehow Jrock and it is kind of not Yaguchi’s style, that is clearly evident as she tries to hit the high notes and produces a Koharu-like sound,l and everytime she has to sing “loud” her voice kind of cut off. She can sing, but I’m guessing she was nervous because of the live performance, and that made her choke up, which led to more nervousness, which led to more choking up, etc…

The song is good, not what I would expect from Yaguchi, but it is good nonetheless, I expected a cute poppy song, with a mature feel to it, but at least they didn’t give her a ballad. One thing I don’t understand is why they put a Chihuahua dog with her name underneath, I think it’s a reference to her height (she has to stand one step up when she goes to the announcers after the song). Great, now everytime I see her I’m going to think of a Yaguchi Chihuahua… The song, I predict, is going to sell well, considering that they are promoting it through a TV show that doesn’t start late at night, or that lasts only 5 min (Yorosen reference)

LINK

Yajima Maimi 3rd PB To Be Released In April UPDATE

Yajima Maimi (C-ute) is set to release her 3rd PB sometime in April, no official date has been announced. She is definitely one of the talented one’s in C-ute, and I can see why they focus on her more, but I would like to see an Umeda Erika PB or maybe a Suzuki Airi PB (not sure if she has released one, probably). I didn’t like her voice when she started singing in C-ute for the first few months or years, her voice kind of reminded me of an asthmatic trying to sing a long note, good to see that she has improved incredibly well, now she is one of the best voices among the Hello! Pro Kids (not really kids anymore, maybe Hagiwara Mai).

I’ll update with a cover and release date as they are released but meanwhile enjoy the one lonesome pic of her, she looks incredibly good by the way. Oh yeah, if you look at the right and wonder why I don’t put the other members of Morning Musume, C-ute, Berryz Koubou, etc, under the categories, its because I’m waiting for solo news of them to post a story and put them in the category, so don’t think I’m lazy (somewhat) I’ll put them when they get a solo news story, or if I get time later.

UPDATE (3/23): The release date of the PB has been advanced to 4/20 according to the Wani Books site. People who order through the Wani shop get a limited book cover and a bonus photo with the PB. The title is “17” following in the long line of number-titled releases, which for some reason is an easy and predictable way of finding out what a PB will be called. Link to the page (In Japanese) to buy the PB is down below, I’ll update with english sites to buy from when they become available.

LINK

SWEET BLACK ft Goto Maki – Lady-Rise PV Released

Just released the PV for Lady-Rise which is Goto Maki’s new “single”, not technically a physical single, but it’s still something from her. The PV can be described in one word, sexy, and some others I prefer not to put. Why? Goto dances in short shorts and then “takes a shower” behind a screen, where we “see” her “take her clothes off” (too many quotation marks)….just watch the PV it is classic AVEX.

The song itself is kind of generic R&B, not that much impression, I stopped watching it after the first minute, why? That genre doesn’t really appeal to me, I tried to watch it but I only heard generic AVEX and saw Goto undressing herself in front of the camera, somewhat, and I started thinking, this is the girl that Taka-san (from Utaban) liked, and who acted really innocent, and then some few years later she is wearing fake eyelashes and short shorts dancing to AVEX noise and taking fake showers while “undressing”.

If you are a Goto Maki wota then you will probably nosebleed when you see this video, if you never liked her, then watch it at least and see what happens to an incredibly small percentage of girls who leave H!P (Kago Ai’s provocative PB for example), don’t take any of the remarks about Goto seriously, but seriously compare the Glass no Pumps PV to this one and you will probably think that she is two different persons.

EDIT: Apparently you can’t embed the video, so I’ll give you the link to Youtube.

LINK

Morning Musume Naichau Kamo Week Rank

What most of us Morning  Musume fans wanted to know, what is the week rank for Naichau Kamo. Well, here are the results:

Ranking: 3rd
Sales: 44,121

Top 5
1. 71,470 aiko
2. 46,981 Acid Black Cherry
3. 44,121 Morning Musume。
4. 31,900 Akimoto Junko
5. 22,755 KAT-TUN

Compared with previous singles:
Onna ni Sachi Are (2007/07/25)
Rank: 2
First week sales: 43,364

Mikan (2007/11/21)
Rank: 6
First week sales:　28,082

Resonant Blue (2008/04/16)
Rank: 3
First week sales:　48,086

Pepper Keibu (2008/09/24)
Rank: 3
First week sales:　38,596

(Source: tiny@Jphip)

They are doing well, this their third 3rd place release, and they sold more than Pepper Keibu, some 4000 copies more which is good. They outsold Onna ni Sachi Are too, but they didn’t sell as much as Resonant Blue, which is understandable because a lot of people were looking forward to Resonant Blue because of the three member lineup. At least they are improving a lot, the only bomb being Mikan, which was a good single, but lacked advertisment.

All in all they did really well, keeping up the rank for some time, they dropped in the daily rank to 7th place on Sunday, but they are improving a lot, and with the improved budget (because of the elder club graduation, maybe…) they will hopefully release some more complex singles, like Dakishimete Dakishimete by Berryz Koubou, instead of generic synthesizer produced songs.

This single brought all of the members, except Koharu and the 8th generation to the limelight, and that is a good and bad thing to some people, they have to improve from this point and include the other members, because Linlin, Junjun, and Mitsui have good voices, Koharu can sing but someone has to teach her to sing normally and tell her that this isn’t an anime release. If they change that then they can hopefully improve their popularity.

H!P Releases February 24

Long time no see, right? Extremely slow H!P news lately so you can’t really blame me, and the Alo Hello! 2 review is going badly, so expect it around this Sunday, why? I had to fill an mp3 player with all of Morning Musume, C-ute, Berryz Koubou, Biyuuden, and most H!P singles, and that ain’t easy. Also please excuse the messy layout of the covers, I don’t know how to change that. Anyway here is the list of released products…:

• Maeda Yuki – Kenchana (Single)
• Maeda Yuki – Kenchana (Other)
• Shugo Chara! Egg – Shugo! Shugo! (Regular Edition)
  
• Shugo Chara! Egg – Shugo! Shugo! (Limited Edition)
• Morning Musume – Nai Chau Kamo (Single V)
• Matsuura Aya – Chocolate Damashi (Single V)
• V/A – Kirarin Revolution Special Liv.
• Berryz Kobo – Gekidan Gekihalo Dai 5 Kai Koen Berryz Kobo vs Berryz Kobo (DVD)

The only real interesting releases are the Nai Chau Kamo (Single V) and maybe the Berry Koubou DVD (In my opinion). Maeda Yuki’s single doesn’t reallpy appeal to me (I only put one cover because the “other” is just a cassete release), and Shugo! Shugo! is just cute…not much to build on that. Matsuura Aya’s latest single was her worst selling one for those that didn’t hear, somewhere around 17th place I heard, so I bet the single V isn’t going to sell well either.

The Kirarin Revolution DVD is just another DVD to reap the benefits of Koharu’s popularity, and one thing I’ve seen some parts of the anime and I don’t understand why they say she dubs well, half the character’s mouth movements were in silence, it was like watching a badly dubbed english to spanish western movie from the 70’s, although it had it’s parts. The Berryz Koubou DVD is from some concert (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space according to Hello! Online)…and I can’t build from that either.

Pick them up through the upcoming releases page, not sure if they are there, I plan to update the list tommorrow, but look for them there, if not search through YesAsia or Amazon, but they are probably there.