‘Maji Desu Ka Ska!’ (a.k.a. Idol Music Is Serious Business)
Okay, so that title might be a little misleading. After all, there are very few occasions where you can legitimately use ‘serious’ and ‘idol music’ positively in the same sentence, especially as I’m talking about Morning Musume. However, considering the title of their new song, I thought it a good opportunity to make a bad joke at the expense of some of my favourite idols, and provide some comments on the song at the same time. This isn’t a review of the single as a whole, but does discuss the promotional video, so it’s a half-review if you like. I’m sure CJ will be providing a complete review once the single is officially released.
Survey Says…
Paul at Hello!Blog has done it again with his annual desire to combine his love of Hello! Project with some mad coding skills. This time around, the survey incorporates all of Hello! Project, including the Elder Club, making for what should be some rather interesting results. Here’s the “tall” version of my survey graphic (the long version I’m going to use as the basis for a future header).
Now I get to explain myself again… Continue reading
Wota Wonderings 003: It’s All Yui Horie’s Fault (Somewhat)
Welcome to Wota Wonderings! We are a group of english-speaking Japanese music bloggers brought together once a month to answer questions posed by johpan. We strive to be creative and entertaining, and we may even shed a bit of new light on interesting musical and cultural topics. Any questions about how we work should be directed to johpan. Don’t forget to check out the other posts from this month at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!
The question this month:
The music industry has had many tie-ins with animes and doramas. Of those tie-ins, did one manage to capture your interest and get you hooked on their music? Or, did one manage to change your perspective of a musical act?
As a 2nd part, did you end up watching the anime or dorama in its entirety or give up once the musical act’s tie-in ceased?
And for you non-anime/dorama watchers, have there been any CM tie-ins that had a similar effect on you?
This is going to be somewhat brief compared to my usual ramblings. Years ago, I was regularly scouring the DVD bins for interesting anime titles, usually centering around ones that weren’t mecha-laden sci-fi. One of the titles that I got into heavily was Love Hina, based on Ken Akamatsu’s manga. Such was my interest that I started scouring the web for anything Love Hina that I could get my hands on, especially if it featured my favorite character from the series, Motoko Aoyama. Yeah, that’s where the title of my original music blog, Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama, came from.
The search inevitably led to me finding soundtrack CDs from the series (two albums of character songs sung by all the seiyuu on the series and two different soundtracks). I’d found one on eBay, and on a search for a more regular source, discovered CDJapan, ordered up the rest, and started searching out other recordings by the voice actresses on the show, particularly those by Yui Horie (whose singing career I’ve become a devoted fan of) and Yuu Asakawa (who, while putting out three fine mini-albums of music, hasn’t done any solo material since about 2003).
I lost track of what was going on in anime and manga after awhile (its only in the past couple of weeks that I’ve started to look through the latter’s racks again), but discovering CDJapan in my search for these CDs, and knowing in the process that I could find other Japanese CDs easier, led me to start using the site to fill gaps in my Whiteberry collection (specifically at the time, their first EP After School and their trilogy of cover-version singles). This in itself led to me doing a little networking through LiveJournal and elsewhere for more J-music to find, which of course led to my discovering Morning Musume and Hello! Project, and to my blogging adventures.
Funnily enough, I haven’t paid much attention to any acting or anime project involving MoMusu very much. I’ve downloaded the first couple of episodes of the current My Melody series because of Reina Tanaka’s involvement in the voice cast and my general interest in Sanrio characters (Hell, I visit the Sanrio store in Times Square and buy something every time I visit New York City – last time it was a little Kuromi beanbag stuffie and pen). On the opposite hand, even though I have all of Koharu Kusumi’s Kirarin Revolution-related solo albums and think they’re fucking brilliant, I’ve never seen a single episode of the series, although I’ve heard that it may be coming out on DVD in the States at some point. My fingers are crossed…
Wota Wonderings 003 – The Ties That Bind (Selective Hearing)
Wota Wonderings 3 – Tie-Ins (Solo Space)
Wota Wonderings: Mendol – where the guys are girls and the girls are hot. (boylikesmusic)
Wota Wonderings 003: It’s All Yui Horie’s Fault (Somewhat) (The Groove Music Life)
Wota Wonderings 03 – Anime, Dorama, Video Game Tie-Ins (fields of maize and berryz)
Wota Wonderings 003: Kirarin Revolution and Hot Guys (Merry Go Round)
How Much of a Wota Am I?
From Midori’s J-Pop Overanalizations: Let’s see how well I pass the “You Know You’re A Wota When…” test:
You can name and/or recognize half or more of the AKB48 research students or H!P Eggs. I couldn’t even name anybody in AKB48 proper, except for Megumi Ohori because of her solo single.
You own at least 10 photos of your favorite idol. Guilty as charged!
You buy t-shirts advertising your favorite idol/idol group and wear them on a regular basis. If you’re a man 25+, you don’t feel any regret or embarrassment about this. Regrettably innocent. Japan doesn’t seem to make their shirts in American XL size, otherwise I’d have at least one Morning Musume shirt and one Reina Tanaka shirt.
You know all of your favorite idol’s stats by heart. I know Reina Tanaka’s birthday, where she’s from, and what her first single with the band was. Beyond that, fuggedaboutit.
Whenever anyone insults your favorite idol or idol group, you immediately come to their defense… even if you know you’re b.s.ing half your compliments. (i.e. “They’re good singers!” “She can dance well!” “She has more personality than [insert some famous TV personality here]” “They’re NOT ugly!”) For one thing, I don’t bullshit my compliments when it comes to J-Pop. Other than that, guilty as charged, especially where my fiancée is concerned. All that having been said, anyone in MoMusu could run circles around [name of a certain teen pop/TV star deleted as I vowed never to mention her name on this blog ever again].
You have spent more than you make a day on idol goods. Guilty!
You can recognize all of your favorite idols’ voices. Yep.
You have almost a stalkerish obsession with wanting to meet them or even just see them in person. I definitely don’t know about stalkerish obsession, but let’s be fucking blunt: Morning Musume are my favorite band along with Iggy Pop & The Stooges, and since I’ve gotten to see the Stooges play live last year in what was the best fucking concert I’ve ever seen in my life, I need to get my ass to Japan someday so that I can complete that equation! If I got to MEET them, I’d probably be extremely fucking nervous.
You hear someone say something that remotely sounds like your favorite idol’s name and you immediately assume they’re also a wota. Let’s just say that it doesn’t help that Reina is also a common name for Latin females!
You heavily anticipate any news from your idol. Guilty.
You have sent fan-mail. Honestly, I wouldn’t know where to send them fan mail.
Your favorite idol appears in your dreams more than once. Hasn’t happened with Reina Tanaka yet, but I do remember a dream where I was supposed to be going away somewhere the next day and I’m in a room with my parents and Mika Todd.
You have wondered what would happen if your idol dated you. (Mainly for guys, but if we include Johnnys here…) Actually, I haven’t wondered what a date with Reina would be like. A record-shopping trip with Reina would be quite interesting, though…
Your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/immediate family has learned to deal with your obsession long ago. Perhaps.
If your favorite idol is suspended/fired/retired/graduated/has no work with their agency/other you check more than two sources of possible info everyday and accept any rumors about his/her return to be true immediately. Um, seriously, I’m trying to put what happened with Ai Kago out of my mind, but…
You have at least 3 photobooks or DVDs of your favorite idol. To date, four photobooks and two DVDs of Reina.
You could colorcode a song sung by AKB48 O.o (I’m afraid of those who can!) I couldn’t even colorcode a song sung by MoMusu!
You do fandubs, cosplays, or fandances of your favorite idol or idol group. This would be fellow Cancerian wota Vee’s department. Personally, on a related note, I’m surprised I haven’t sat down with my guitar and figured out the chord changes to MoMusu songs!
You make birthday and worship posts on a blog/forum. Guilty in the first degree – hell, I started So Hot She Shits Fire on Reina’s 18th birthday and did birthday posts that day on MotokoAoyama.com and YODC as well.
You don’t take the cheap route and buy your idol’s songs from iTunes or another mp3 site, you spend the money to order every edition of the CD/DVD. Unfortunately, I’ve taken the impatient route and downloaded a few things from either iTunes or Hello-Online.org’s tracker when the mail service for an advance order was way too slow for my liking.
It’s Only A TV Show, Don’t Panic.
It’s kind of lame that the first thing I post about regarding Morning Musume at my new blogging home is the cancellation of their TV show HaroMoni@. However, I’m not worried.
I didn’t see any full episodes, only clips (many of those having only Reina Tanaka in them, for reasons obvious only to longtime readers of MotokoAoyama.com (both versions) and SHSSF. From what I read of descriptions of the show, it seemed to get sillier and sillier with every episode. Didn’t bother me though.
It wasn’t the talent that was the problem with the show – Morning Musume still continue to sell records, having not missed the Oricon Top 10 in their entire history. It was the situations they found themselves in. Their previous program, Hello! Morning, had the group in a bigger variety of situations both in and out of the studio. HaroMoni@ had them stuck in a TV studio being bossed around by a puppet in a crown and a diaper.
Morning Musume and Up-Front Works will, no doubt, have a new TV outlet to replace HaroMoni@. With the band still a priority for UFW, that’s pretty much a given, and I wouldn’t be surprised if UFW had a contingency plan in place once they saw the writing on the wall. I would also not be surprised if an announcement on MoMusu’s replacement program came before HaroMoni@’s last episode airs at the end of September.
The only real disadvantage I can see, from my point of view, is that the end of HaroMoni@ also means the end of eyecandy of my favorite MoMusu wearing those rather sexy cat ears.
