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.
