UFZS To Perform On “Made in BS JAPAN”

UFZS are set to appear and perform live on the show Made in BS JAPAN.

To clear things up for the fans, UFZS is the unit formed from the graduated H!P Eggs group “Up-Up Girls”, set to participate in the Superstar K3 competition of K-pop dance covers. It has been quite a long time since the last round of the competition was held but the winners haven’t been announced yet unfortunately.

This appearance will be the first for UFZS on a TV show which is really exciting for the girls since they are going to perform as UFZS and not Up-Up Girls, which should give them enough promotion under both names since the members are practically the same, and I’m happy to see that they will also be performing their latest dance cover that they have been working on since this news seems like they are officially preparing for them to debut.

Even though I’m not certain if the show is popular or not, it’s always a great opportunity for them to show off their talent and to see if they can handle the stress of live streaming, and it will be interesting to see how they will interact with the audience and with the hosts, so hopefully this appearance and performance will give them the chance to promote themselves and to proove what they’re capable of.

Hopefully this will be a successful first TV appearance for them since they really deserve the attention.

The show will air live on 8/5 at 18:00 JST.

Up-Up Girls Official Blog’s Post About Announcement

Up Front Agency Will Hold A Charity Event

Up Front recently announced that it will hold a charity event titled Ganbarou Nippon Ai wa Katsu in order to gather funds to donate to the Red Cross to help victims and those affected by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Sendai.

According to the article 98 members of Up Front and other affiliated companies will support the project, with many of them participating in a fundraising event in three locations: Yamashita Park, Motomachi Shopping Street, and Yokohama Chinatown from 11:00 ~ 16:00.

Apart from the event they will also release a cover of KAN’s Ai wa Katsu for cellphones which will be sung at the event with 131 people from Up Front Group as well as associated companies with Takao Horuichi leading the song. The song will be available on Recochoku on the same day.

Here is a list of the members that will support the project but that won’t be able to participate in the event (most likely due to other planned events and concerts):

• Sugita Jirou
• Berryz Koubou
• Mizawa Sachika
• Kagawa Akira
• Nakazawa Yuko
• Yui Kaori
• Hatake
• Abe Natsumi
• Temiyan
• Omata Masako
• Satoda Mai
• Yasu Megumi
• Hirayama Miki
• Tanaka Yoshitake
• Matsui Erina
• Morning Musume。
• Tokkii

A full list of members participating in the event is after the break at the bottom of the post since there are quite a lot of members (about 60).

I’m glad to see that UFA is planning a charity event since many other companies have already planned out events, and while H!P had a few donation boxes at some of their recent events it seems like this event will be the most effective way to help.

It seems that it will be about 5 hours long, which means that it is quite a long show for all of the groups and artists that will attend the event, but it’s great news since that means that there is plenty of time and help to gather donations.

I encourage fans who can go to event to do so, and if they can to donate as well, since it is a great way to support those who were affected by the tragedy.

Hopefully we get to see some pictures from the event since it seems like this will be a pretty memorable event for fans of any UFA member.

Nikkan Sports Article

Official H!P Announcement About Event

UFZS Members Introduction Video Released

A video was released featuring UFZS members introducing themselves where we get to see them dance-practice.

In the video, we get to see each girl’s name appear on screen while all of them are dancing energically and in a total coordination, probably practicing for the first K-pop dance cover they will be doing within the new project, and I have to say that I’m pleased to see that they are getting more exposure and promotion.

Through the video, we also get to see the girls talking about the dance lesson and what they feel about this new project one after the other, and even though I don’t understand much, it seems that they are excited about this. In the end of the video, we get to see a little bit more of the girls dancing.

Overall, I’m really pleased to see them get many more web exposure and promotion since it will definitly help them become more popular and known by the public.

Hopefully everyone can watch it to see the dance and the girls.

UFZS Starring A New H!P Show Titled “Up-Front Girls”

The recent group formed by H!P Egg members called UFZS have been announced to be starring in a new H!P show called Up-Front Girls.

The news was announced on SkyPerfectTV’s official website since the show will start airing on this channel, and from what I understand, the show will feauture many artists within UFA, and the main stars will be UFZS.

I’m really surprised to see that a new H!P show has been announced so soon, right after the announcement of the new group, which is always interesting since this means that UFA plans a good promotion on this new group to make it known, and this new show is always a great way to show off various different artists within the agency.

I’m really happy to see that the girls are getting exposure since it will allow us to see them in action on set as well as getting to know each one better (they were too shadewed in the Eggs) through their reactions, and get to see the connection between the members.

Overall, I’m super excited to see at least a preview of this show and some more details since it’s definitely a great news for the girls.

The show will air on SkyPerfectTV on 4/2 in various times of the day.

SkyperfectTV’s official website

Dream Morning Musume Announces Fall Concert Currently “Untitled”

Dream Morning Musume announced that they will be holding a Fall concert currently “Untitled“

The news is on their official site and the concerts will start somewhere in September 2011.

Other than that announcement nothing else is known. I’m really surprised to hear that they’ve announced another concert before the 1st one even began! Hearing about another concert I’m also excited because the Fall concert could be used to promote the album, so if there are any new songs we’ll be able to hear it performed live, which I find more better than the studio version.

Pre-sale tickets for the concert is currently available and the concert is planned for 9/2011.

Dream Morning Musume’s Official Site

Dream Morning Musume Announces Album Titled “Dream 1”

Dream Morning Musume announced at a press conference that they will be releasing their 1st album titled “Dream 1“.

There will be two versions, the limited and regular edition. The limited edition comes with a DVD while the regular comes with a postcard.

Hearing that they announced an album I’m really excited to hear what kind of songs they have on it, I’m hoping they’ll release some new songs but it’s also possible that they will be doing covers so we’ll see how that turns out.

Also originally Tsuji Nozomi had been listed as a member but after giving birth and all of course she wouldn’t have been included in the concerts but I’m wondering if she will be participating in the album. As for the recent graduates, they most likely won’t be participating in this album since Junjun and Linlin have returned to China and Kamei will probably still be recovering. But on their official site it says that the line up may change at the concert so it’s possible that they may change who participates on the album.

Overall I’m looking forward to seeing Dream Morning Musume continue their activity and I hope that their concert as well as their album is a success!

The album will be released on 4/20.

Up-Front Link (Blog)

Dream Morning Musume Official Page

Official H!P English/French Blog Opened

An official H!P/UFA blog in English and French titled UP-FRONT LINK has been opened. The blog has been verified by the official H!P site.

I’m really surprised to see that UFA decided to open up a blog with updates from UFA in English and French since I would have never guessed that they would open up a Blogger account to post about news for fans outside of Japan, but I’m glad that they did since it makes it somewhat easier for fans who don’t know Japanese that well to read updates directly from UFA.

According to the site the blog is maintained by someone called Phil who is living in Japan, and while there hasn’t been much info posted (apart from the Morning Musume 9th generation members and Takahashi graduation) I’m glad to see that he knows English and French and will be posting in both languages so that many fans around the world can understand.

For the most part we don’t know what kind of info the blog will contain, but I would guess that he will post about recent general news for the main artists from H!P in order to give fans an introduction to the wide variety of artists that they offer, although it isn’t clear if it will contain up-to-date news as they happen directly from UFA since the blog is still relatively new.

Hopefully we get to find out what kind of updates the blog will offer since it seems like an interesting and fun way for UFA to connect with English and French speaking fans, and while the design is still somewhat simple I look forward to seeing any improvements or news that the site may contain in the future.

Official Up Front Link Site (English)

Official Up Front Link Site (French)

Official H!P Site Confirmation

Official Up-Front Works Twitter Account Opened

The official Twitter account for Up Front Works has been opened. Their first tweet was:

アップフロントワークス公式アカウントです！よろしくお願いします。
Up-Front Works Koushiki Account desu! Yoroshiku Onegaishimasu.
This is the official Up-Front Works account! Please treat us well.

With the recent news that Tsunku had gotten a Twitter account and with other already available official accounts from staff it was somewhat expected that we would see a Up-Front Works account soon since they are after all the main company.

For now it seems that they are following most of the accounts from staff except for Kikukawa, but most likely they will do so in the following days since they are a staff account too.

Meanwhile it seems that they have also started to promote releases through the account starting with S/mileage’s 2nd single, and while it won’t guarantee more sales it is a good sign that they will promote H!P and other releases through the account.

Hopefully more Up-Front Twitter accounts continue to be made since they are a great way to find out news about H!P and UF directly from the staff.

Official Up-Front Works Twitter

DohhhUP! To Be Replaced By The Official UFA Youtube Channel

ＤｏｈｈｈＵＰ！リニューアルのお知らせ。いつもＤｏｈｈｈＵＰ！（ドアップ）をご覧頂きありがとうございます。

２０１０年６月３０日（水）をもちましてＤｏｈｈｈＵＰ！を一旦休止し
ＹｏｕＴｕｂｅ公式チャンネル「UPーFRONT ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ」にて新たにス
タートする事になりました。

今後は「UPーFRONT ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ」にてお楽しみ下さい。
http://www.youtube.com/upfrontchannel

＊ＤｏｈｈｈＵＰ！Ｈｏｂｂｙ も新しい動画を配信すべく企画中です！
http://www.youtube.com/user/dohhhupofficial

今後とも宜しくお願い致します。

Dohhh-UP has recently released a statement that it will be discontinuing the site, and in it’s place it will be replaced by the current UFA Youtube Channel as the official site for H!P and UFA videos on June 30. An alternate Youtube channel has been opened for other Dohhh-UP videos in the Hobby genre.

Since the first day the UFA Youtube channel opened I had feeling that it would replace the Dohhh-UP site so I’m not that surprised about the news, but it was somewhat expected since the only videos uploaded after the opening of the channel are Mano radio shows as well as a few other shows about other UFA artists.

Despite that I will miss the days I used to check the Dohhh-UP site at exactly midnight in Japan time for any H!P PVs, and while I don’t completely like the new strategy for PVs that UFA has of uploading videos with the scan code on the top left of the PV (or not uploading them at all for Mano or S/mileage) I feel it was a somewhat necessary choice because of the low traffic the site received after the opening of the UFA channel.

I have no idea what will happen with the site when they stop uploading videos on it, and whether this change will be temporary or not is still a question but we will soon find out.

DohhhUP! will be discontinued on 6/30.

Dohhh-UP Site

UFA Youtube Channel

Bijou Houdan To End This Month

According to a UFA related account on Twitter, Hello! Project’s show titled Bijou Houdan will end this month. This was the message:

テレビ東京系列の「美女放談」は3月で終了いたします。新番組の情報は・・・お待ちください。3月25日放送の総集編（予定）が最終回になります。

Which roughly translated says that Bijou Houdan will end on March 25 and the final episode will apparently be a show with recaps from previous shows (from what I can tell).

The tweet also mentions to please wait for news from a new program, which is very exciting to say the least since this means we might get another chance at a great H!P TV show.

For the most part I’m not surprised at all that the show ended since from the start the show wasn’t that popular among fans, as can be evidenced by the 12 pages in the Bijou Houdan thread at H!O which covers the time from the shows announcement until today (not a good measurement of fan support but it is somewhat surprising).

The last UFA member to host the show will be Abe Natsumi since the last episode is said to be on the 25th which is a week after Abe’s 2nd show.

I wouldn’t take this news as definitive truth that the show will end but the Twitter account that posted it is listed on the official UFK (Up Front Kansai) list and also on S/mileage’s twitter, so it somewhat confirms it, although it would be a great idea to wait for an official confirmation.

Hopefully the new program that is hinted at turns out to be great and somewhat similar to Hello! Morning and to Haromoni@.

The last episode will air on 3/25.