Monday 8 October 2007

Morning Musume Bunkasai in Yokohama


I went to the Morning Musume Bunkasai in Yokohama yesterday. It was great to finally see these girls for real.


I watched most of one set of the Hello Stage. It consisted of an Eco quiz followed by a Tomoiki segment , the tomoiki wotas being the most enthusiastic and coordinated to my eyes. This was followed by a couple of the kids in a segment about the sea, that I didn’t pay much attention too. Then the current anime related projects. This was the most exciting in my opinion. Buono performed first, they were pretty cute. Then Risas’ new group. This was great and I believe the first time its been performed anywhere. The girls were really cute and the dance was very well done. I was particularly impressed with Aika who kept up perfectly and looked really cute. She really suits yellow. Risa didn’t do as much as the other girls since she hurt her leg I guess. Finally it was Kirari’s turn with Chance! Koharu was great although she lip-synced. The girl has got so much energy despite it being about the third performance of the day. It was hilarious watching her telling a room full of mostly grown men to watch her anime for little girls and hearing them shout back in agreement. She stayed in character for the next eco classroom segment and really stole the show with her high pitched questions and enthusiasm. Then a singer whose name I’m not sure about and who isn’t part of Hello! Project performed a song. Some of the wota even tried to dance along to this which was one of the most surreal things I’ve ever seen. Finally Morning Musume and EcoMoni gave us different things we can do to help the environment. Junjun and Linlin did this part very well. I’m impressed with how much Japanese they’ve learned. It all ended with the EcoMoni song. Again Junjun stood out for me, her one line sounded really good. I’m definitely a bigger fan of her now.


After the set had finished I wondered around for a bit, looking at the market place and museum section . The costumes seemed a lot more gaudy close up. Feeling the need for souvenirs but not wanting to brave the merchandise section, I got two photo holders from the gatchapon machines. I got Koharu from the MM 10th anniversary one (yay!) and Satoda Mai from the Gatas one (at least it was somebody who I recognised). As for the wota it wasn’t as bad as I had expected once I saw that less then half were the crazy dancing type. Like I said the Tomoiki were the worst for some reason. There were quite a few women there though I was the only foreigner I think. And lots of children, including these cute little boys with MM fans and their mum and the Gatchapon machines. Future wotas? I would have taken more photos but it was forbidden in the stage area and the wotas mostly seemed to be taking photos of photos for some reason so I felt a bit awkward.


Overall it was a great little introduction to Hello!Project events and I’m so happy to have seen them live. I really want to go to more concerts now. Perhaps I’ll catch the current MM tour towards the last dates in November.

Saturday 22 September 2007

My first CD purchases in Japan. From a HMV on the 12th floor of a department store in Shinjuku. They mostly just had very recent CDs though and mostly CD+DVD versions though so I probably won't go there again but it was an interesting experience.


v-u-den's Suiteroom Number 1, because I felt the need to buy something Hello Project.

Shimatani Hitomi's Shinku/Ai no Uta, been wanting this one for a while

Utada Hikaru's Beautiful World/Kiss and Cry, an impulse buy after listening to the first track at a listening station

Tackey and Tsubasa's Crazy Rainbow Paradise and Samurai, I've been wondering whether to experiment with a Johnnies groups for a while and these guys seemed like the best place to start. Because there are only two of them and there names are in the title so I can tell them apart.

Thursday 6 September 2007

First Post!

I've created this blog to talk about and record my experience with and opinions on Japanese pop culture while I'm in Japan and then beyond. Mainly anime, manga and Jpop but whatever else takes my fancy as well. I'm not sure how often I'll be writing here. Perhaps just when I've seen a new show or have a CD to comment on, but I'd like to try writing some more in depth piece if I can. especially since I'm considering doing my dissertation on idol culture.

The title was just taken from a random Hitomi Shimatani (My favourite singer) song because I couldn't thing of anything else. It means lets go to market.

My blog for other matters is located at http://saita-hana.blogspot.com/