H!P 2010 calendars

The cover's for H!P's 2012 calendars have been released. And let's just say not all calendars are created equally.

Morning Musume's calendar.

I know Morning Musume has been styled this way 1,000 times, but I love the cover. Everyone one just looks gorgeous. Especially Koharu, she has the best hairstyle hands down. My eyes were immediately drawn to her because she's the only one doing an interesting pose. Everyone else looks kind of flat pose wise. I also think Aika looks amazing with that hair. They should always style her hair like that. Half of the time her hair is just straight or ugly. I would have liked to see them do something with LinLin's hair, it just looks boring. I loved her curly hair from Naichau Kamo. In my opinion it should be curled. But, I think Sayumi looks great with just her straight hair. She's one of the few people who look better with it down.
And for a random observation, why are Sayumi's shoes different? Ai, Reina, and Koharu are all wearing the same shoes, but Sayumi is wearing a differen and uglier shoe. I thought Aika was the one who supposed to wear different shoes.

Berryz Koubou's calendar.

I have to admit I am a fan of the tux/bartender outfits. I don't usually like when H!P members where suits, with an exception to Buono and Risa. But overall I think they look really cute. And surprisingly my eyes were drawn to Risako, Chinami, and Yurina. Well I was drawn to Yurina for obvious reasons. Chinami is the only one smiling on the cover who actually looks believable. Everyone else's looks forced. Especially Miyabi's, it kind of looks like she's in pain. As for Risako, I'm not exactly sure why I keep looking at her. She looks about the same as she always does.
I think the background for this is a little simple looking. It looks like something I could makes on photoshop. Which is saying a lot with my limited skills. Simple or not, it does look cute. It brings a nice splash of color to it. Without the rainbows I think everyone would have ended up looking washed out.

C-ute's calendar.

It's C-ute's bus tour 2010! ._. I can't be the only one out there who think these outfits look similar to C-ute's bus tour outfits. I know this one is stripped and the other one was houndstooth, but the color scheme makes them look very similar.
There's not really much going on that I like. This calendar looks bare. Losing 2 members doesn't really sink in until you see a picture like this. The calendar and group looks empty now. I miss Kanna's cuteness to make it look more lively. Well Airi looks cute, that's about the only thing this calendar has going for it. The only thing C-ute has.

ManoEri's calendar.

It's yet another picture of Erina in a school girl uniform. Yeah I understand she's kind of cute, and she looks cuter in her school girl outfit. But should that really be the only thing she ever wears? This cover looks exactly like the cover of her first major single. I'm not going to even pretend I know the name of it. XD
I'm pretty sure it's the same exact outfit. Boring! Next! I wish there was a next.

Yurina's semi-sweet solo commercial

Exciting news for Yurina fans like myself, Berryz Koubou member Kumai Yurina was in her first solo commercial. It was a CM for BaseBallBear's new album, or new single, (What is the) Love & Pop? The title distracts me a little bit. Mostly because isn't not even a horribly failed English attempt they just need to get rid of one word. I don't know it just urkes me.

Anyway back on subject. I think Yurina looks gorgeous in this CM. She's wearing a school girls uniform, which is just instant win for me. Her hair is softly blowing, she just looks awesome.

Though I do kind of hate how she looks in the beginning.

She looks like a deer caught in headlights. I know she's supposed to

because of the theme of the commercial, but it just looks awkward.

Though she makes up for it with this look.

It's half creepy and half alluring. I'll take that.

I wasn't really expecting blood to shoot out of her lemon, it caught me off guard.

It reminded me of Koishite Akuma XD. I had to laugh a little at it

though, just because it's not believable looking. Japanese blood

never looks real. Just like in the Suicide Club. Love the movie

hate the blood's appearance.

This picture makes me think Yurina would be perfect for a horror movie.

Where her movie about fighting zombie ghost things?

New blog!

I haven't been making updates on this blog the last few days, because I've been busy working on my new blog, Tokyo Shinjuu.

So, I just wanted to announce that it launches today. You can click on the link in this post or on my blog roll to check it out.

Tokyo Shinjuu will be exclusively a Jrock blog. So if you like Jrock or just want to see my opinions on Jrock, you should read it. :] I've wanted to write about Jrock for a while, so this is pretty exciting to me.

As of right not the blog is pretty empty. I still have a few more codes I want to put in, make a few more headers, and write an actual post. Watch out for that stuff on my new blog. I also want to do the same thing for this blog to, so look forward to that too. :]

EVERYDAY Zekkouchou preview

C-ute's 10th single, EVERYDAY Zekkouchou!, is being released September 13th. The entire song preview was released a few days ago.

I was actually a little hesitant to listen to this song, because it's the first single with Kanna officially gone. Without Kanna, C-ute might as well not exist to me. But I decided to listen to it anyway since it's Erika's last song.

For those of you, myself included, who were expecting an overdose of Erika in this song prepare to be disappointed. Does Erika even get a solo line in this song? If she does it was so brief I missed it. Leave to H!P to worry about money so much that a graduation member can't even get a decent solo. The one single that will forever be synonymous with remembering Erika in C-ute, and you can't even hear her! Poor girl, she could never get a break.

Everday Kekkouchou as a whole is bland. It really does have that random album song feel. There is nothing special about it. The music has a mellow b-side feel, and the singing isn't even energetic. And of course it has the standard C-ute line distribution. Airi and Maimi featuring C-ute. I can't find anything I like about it.

C-ute seems to be lacking things lately. And it actually has nothing to do with Kanna. C-ute's recent songs seem to be pretty much misses all around lately. Forever Love was their last single I liked. It's almost like H!P doesn't put any effort into them anymore. Which is really sad. It looks like Erika picked the perfect time to leave C-ute.

A graduation I don't care about

I stopped blogging the past couple days to fidget with some HTML on my blog. I needed to add a contact section to my blog, and voilà I did. Since I'm terrible at HTML it ended up being very plain looking. I'll try to find a code to make it look snazzier at a later time, because believe it or not that code took me like 2 hours to do. I fail at life. XD This pointless blog update was just to tell you this post, and my next few ones are late news. But better late that never!

Hello!Project Eggs/Ongaku Gatas members Noto Arisa and Sawada Yuri will be graduating from Hello!Project Eggs to join Up-Front Eggs. However Noto Arisa will continue to be a member of Ongaku Gatas.

I guess Yuri and Arisa realized they were never going to be put in a group that's massively popular and gives them a chance to shine, so they decided to focus on being talents. Which doesn't really effect me in anyway. This is probably the first H!P graduation I don't care about what so ever. I don't even know who these girls are. I remember Arisa from the Gatas PVs, but I can't remember Yuri at all. Mostly because I don't really follow Ongaku Gatas. I like the group because KonKon's in it, and that's it. Here's seriously how Ongaku Gatas looks to me: KONKON!, Yossie, Risa, Hitomi, other girls who get the privilege to sing with KonKon. Which basically means, I could care less about the other members.

I wasn't really sad that Erika left, and yet I still hope for the best in her career. But Arisa and Yuri, not so much.

Happy Birthday Yuto~!

It's August 10th, so that means it's Hey! Say! JUMP member Nakajima Yuto's birthday! He turns 16 years old today, which makes me feel less creepy for thinking he's hot. I'm only 17, and yet when he was 15 I felt weird. ._.

Any way Yuto is the hottest my favorite JUMP member. So that calls for major Yuto spamage. I hardly ever cover JE stuff, mostly because I don't think people who read my blog for H!P will care. But Yuto spam anyway.

And Yuto video spam!

Yuto eating lemons on Showa Heisei. His reaction is adorable. But Ryosuke's is still better. XD

Yuto dancing to Meccha Holiday with an Aya Matsuura impersonator. It's amazing how they sound exactly like Aya.

Yuto confessing his love to Leah Dizon.

And an awesome Yuto performance.

Kono Mune no Tokimeki wo preview

ManoEri's new single, Kono Mune no Tokimeki wo, is being released August 30th. So today we have the full song preview.

Since I loved her last 2 singles that were upbeat and happy, I was expecting the same thing from this song. However, I was actually pleasantly surprised. The song was a lot softer and mellow, like most of Erina's songs. But unlike Mano Piano this is a slow song I don't absolutely hate. And another plus is her voice in this song doesn't make my ears bleed. It's actually a lot more polished sounding, showing just how far she's come from Ongaku Gatas.

I'm not really a fan of ballad type song, but this one is undeniably sweet. Her voice actually compliments the music nicely. While this song isn't my favorite song by ManoEri, it's not my least favorite either. I like the song. Which I blame on becoming a ManoEri fan no matter how hard I try to fight it.
There is one weird element to the song. The random sleigh bells in the background. The seem really random and out of place.

Kinyoubi is just Super Cargo 2.0

The cover for Kago Ai's new photobook, Kinyoubi, is out and I gotta say I'm a little disappointed

The first photobook I could forgive and overlook, because it seemed like this was something Aibon needed to do for herself. To show everyone she was growing up and was no longer H!P's puppet. But this photobook I can't even explain. Kinyoubi looks exactly like Super Cargo. The cover is bad taste and is cheap looking. Kago is better than that, or at least she used to be.

After reading the translation to Kago's last photobook, I felt a bit of Aibon closure. We got to hear her side of the story. She sounded very mature, like she was ready to move on with her life and career. And yet she made the same stupid mistakes when she was an unhappy teenager. She was in another scandal with an older man, and she releases this new photobook. It doesn't seem like Kago has grown up or changed at all.

I understand that Kago is finally making discussions for herself, but that's not really an excuse for her making bad ones. On one hand Kago seems to be leading the career she wants. She wrote and sang her own music with No Hesitation. The song and PV were a bit average, but that seemed to fit the new lifestyle she was leading.

But on the other hand she releases another almost gravure photobook. Her music and photobooks are drastically different. And I can't help but wonder if this is something Kago wants, or something she feels she has to do. She lost a lot of fans because of scandals, maybe she feels this is the only way to get new ones. But even Leah Dizon stopped being a gravure model when her singing career came along.

I'm a little sad by this photobook, I was just expecting more. Especially since the photobook is called Friday. But would a photobook of her without slutty pictures really sell that bad?
I'm just ranting now, I'll have to wait for more scans to from my definite opinion.

Berryz Koubou and C-ute's inevitable fate?

With C-ute members Kanna and Erika leaving/gone it made me really wonder the fate of not just C-ute, but of Berryz Koubou as well.

C-ute has lost two members in the past month. Bringing their well put together and stable seven member group down to just five. Now I thought C-ute looked lacking when Kanna was absent from their last two singles. But I can't even imagine seeing C-ute with Erika gone too. I can't imagine how C-ute is going to come back from this. Kanna and Erika weren't exactly vocal powerhouses, but they were still good singers. As C-ute is now with just five members, they aren't strong enough vocally.

Mai and Chisato are mediocre singers, but Saki is borderline terrible. In my opinion of course. Airi and Maimi will be forced to carry the group even more then they are now. Let's take C-ute's single Bye Bye Bye. It basically shows C-ute's currently line up because Erika only got one solo line anyway. New C-ute will focus on Airi, Maimi, and Mai, with Chisato and Saki as backup. Just like in Bye Bye Bye. However I think this song is really lacking, and I'm also not looking forward to hearing more Saki. They can't distort her voice forever.

I seriously think they should add a few more members to C-ute. It would be the smart thing to do. Kanna was an Egg and everything turned out fine for her. Sure she faded to the background, but if they choose one of the most popular Eggs it could increase C-ute's sales. With C-ute as it is they will fall even further behind the shadow of Berryz Koubou.

Being realistic here, it's pretty safe to assume that new member won't be added to C-ute. But I would still like to know where that leaves C-ute? Is the pull of Airi and Maimi strong enough to keep the heartbroken Erika and Kanna wota?

It might seem like I'm overreacting or thinking way too much here because Morning Musume graduates members all the time. However, Morning Musume also gets fresh new members to replace them months before the actual graduation. But Berryz Koubou and C-ute depend solely on the members they have. Which is why in the entire time they were groups only one member graduated officially, Maiha. And now Erika. And even though it's years away, eventually all the members will want to graduate. Whether it's to continue their studies or find a better career path, within or without H!P.

So what happens to Berryz and C-ute? What happens when the popular members want to leave? They have nothing to fall back on because the Hello Project Kids didn't follow Momusu's design. Which was good for the time, not to be seen as a younger carbon copys of Morning Musume. It's even good for the time being while all the members are young and want to be idols. But what happens when thy get too old? Does C-ute and Berryz Koubou just disappear forever?

I always took this as the Hello Project Kids main design flaw. As it is H!P can't make it without C-ute or Berryz Koubou. Without them they would be left with just Morning Musume, short lived subunits, ManoEri, and S/mileage. Which would be a catastrophe, since Berryz Koubou, C-ute and Buono have almost been surpassing Morning Musume. With the Berryz award in Korea, C-ute in Hawaii, and Momusu's Kohaku snub. They managed to create a following almost as large as Morning Musume's. And when they leave they'll be taking a significant amount of the fanbase with them.

Now, I don't mean to rain on anyone's H!P Kid's parade, but you still have to wonder what's going to happen to them in the future. And if this really is Berryz Koubou's and C-ute inevitable fate. With the H!P Elder Club graduation a few months back, after a certain amount of time they might be forced to break up anyway. To make room for younger solo artists and groups. To keep H!P's newly fresh and young image.

C-ute loses another member

It was announced at H!P summer concert that C-ute member Umeda Erika will be graduating from C-ute on October 25th. Erika is leaving to become a fashion model. Hello!Project's official site also has some official announcement. But your Japanese is probably as good as mine.


Becoming a fashion model? Am I the only one who expected Yurina to leave for that reason? I mean, the girls got the height. I know Erika is tall too, but Yurina is a few inches taller than her. It also seems like she's not the only one who wants to bang JE boys. Since those JE boys love their models.


I really wish I could say that I was sorry that she was leaving. Heck, I'm not even upset that she's leaving. Much like Kanna Erika was shoved into the back, never really getting her chance to shine. Except for that one random solo song she got on C-ute's 3rd album. Even though Kanna was in the background, she was still engaging and entertaining. But Erika pretty much bored me to tears. I never saw anything special or amazing about her. I didn't really even like her voice. I guess I know how all the people who didn't care Kanna left feel.




I'm also concerned where this will leave C-ute. I know they didn't lose anyone that puts the group in danger of failing, like Airi or Maimi. Since C-ute's debut they have lost 3 members, making C-ute now a quintet. Does this mean C-ute will be adding new Egg members? Personally it seems like they should. Losing 2 members in 2 weeks makes C-ute a little bare, and lacking something. This would really be the perfect time to do so. They have the room, and besides Maimi, the members of C-ute haven't even hit 16 yet. If they added new members now they would be able to pick up a fan base over the years. Most likely C-ute will be a group longer than Berryz Koubou since the member a years younger then them, with the exception of Risako.


Anyway, like I did for Kanna I thought I'd post some of my favorite Erika singing moments. Except I don't really have any. So all my favorite moments are only because of other members, and she's kinda there as an after thought.



I like this for Kanna, but Erika doesn't sound that bad.


I like this performance for Yurina, but I think Erika actually sounds great during it.



I do think Erika is really pretty. I hope she does good in the modeling world. Maybe she can be a model turned actress, like so many models do. Good luck Erika!