MORNING MUSUME IN AMERICA: So Far, So Good… Now What?
In a few weeks, Morning Musume are going to make their American debut at Anime Expo in Los Angeles. As of the schedule I saw this weekend, it seems odd that what should be capping off the festival – their debut US concert performance – is actually occurring at 2:30 in the afternoon on the second day of the convention.
OK, what next?
Almost a year and a half after I wrote my first column on getting Morning Musume to America, one reader recently relocated the column and commented on how much “fun” it was to re-read the article now, given the present circumstances.
So far we have:
- Morning Musume performing in Los Angeles.
- The first Morning Musume titles to see physical release in America – Platinum 9 Disc and the follow-up single “Shouganai Yuma Oibito”.
- Up-Front Works and their present American licensee, JapanFiles.com, working on tie-ins to the appearance and Anime Expo in general, including an OPV contest.
- An official MySpace page (Given how many “unofficial” MoMusu MySpace pages have come and gone over the years, what took UFA so goddamned long with that?!?)
And with those, come the caveats:
- So far, the physical CD releases have only been available from JapanFiles.com’s own retail site. A search of Amazon.com and CDUniverse.com only turns up import editions of everything.
- No other appearances have been scheduled in this country for the band – but it’s still early in the game here. (Yes, Virginia, even my caveats have caveats.)
- What was previously available on US iTunes up until JapanFiles.com got the American rights to much of the Hello! Project back catalog is not presently there, save for All Singles Complete. Platinum 9 Disc and more recent singles have turned up there the same time as in Japan and on JapanFiles.com since then, though.
So, Morning Musume comes here, plays their hearts out, has a successful show, and goes back to Japan Sunday night or Monday morning. What next?
