Happy New Year!

I am posting this lovely picture of Yossy and Shige, because they are mine and my brother’s favourites, and because I really need to prove that I am not dead.

Really.
Just on a bit of haitus.

I’ve discovered fairly late that I am up for two awards at International Wota, which made me surprised and happy. Check it out  and vote you wish.

Thank you!

Please keep reading. I don’t have the internet right now, for various reasons, but I’ll be back as soon as possible.

Love to everybody and Happy New year!

EDIT: Well, looks like I didn’t win anything this year. Still, thrilled to have been nominated. Congrats to all the winners!  Be back as soon as possible.

Cheers,

Isilie

Farewell, Kusumi.

…And farewell our longest running Momusu lineup ever. It’s sad, but kind of exciting to see what the future holds. Go here for translations and full-details. From what I read it was one of the funniest, sweetest graduations ever.

Cheers, everybody.
Let’s be excited.

~Isilie

In which Isilie Reviews 2009~Favourites~

So 2009 is coming to a close, eh? I realize it’s not technically over, but there are times when I’m not very patient.

I’ve decided that being lame is ok for a moment and am therefore ready to spring this end-of-the-year post on ya. I think that 2009 was an interesting year, plus this will give me a chance to comment on things I didn’t formally write about for whatever reason. I might repeat words a lot, like ‘beautiful’, because I’m writing mostly about what I liked and that makes me excited and unable to think of more creative adjectives.

I begin with this shot of (arguably) the three most adorable of the Musumes. Mame and Mitsui should be in there too, but we can’t always get what we want, can we? Linlin has the most wonderful smile. In case you can’t tell, they are making a strawberry shortcake. In mid-air. Which is apparently hilarious.

Hey, whatever. Since when has any photo set made sense? I love this one, personally, but I’m not sure why they don’t just use a table.

Man, cute pics are distracting.

Pic Spam: Ehhh??

Sometimes you have to be grateful that fandom is so  loyal in Japan that when we get concert photos, we get photos of every possible moment – even the ones that make you cringe for the girls. Even the most gorgeous of the H!P girls have their days. I like what that says about this particular fandom. The girls are so loved that we love them just as much when they look ridiculous as when they look great.

So much of this picspam will be devoted to such moments. I always hesitate to stick to a theme, but most of these pics are those delightful moments where I just think, “Eh??”

This first photo though is merely adorable Linlin sleeping. I wish I could sleep in that position. I’m not sure I’d be half that cute though. Those three are dangerously cute, ne?

As for some of these other ones…
I honestly can’t believe some of these.

Gush~Gush~~Why I Love Yossy.

I’ve decided that I need to devote some time on this blog to mindless-yet-delightful gushing about the woman who made me love Momusu in the first place: Yoshizawa Hitomi.

Yossy. Yocchan. Yoshimi. Pimp of all. Riida. Ishikawa’s “dah-ring”. Michishige’s Prince Charming.

Mr FRIGGIN Moonlight.

I love this woman.

But that is nothing new. If you’re new to this blog, it might be. If you’ve read this blog for a bit, it’s a Legolas statement (ie. incredibly obvious… An example from The Two Towers “this forest is old…very old.”).

I think I will probably need to restrain myself from overloading you with a simple picspam, cause goodness knows there are too many good shots of her. I’ll try to actually write something coherent beneath all the inevitable keyboard-mashery that ensues when I see pics of her.

Try.
I promise nothing.

Princess is a Cowgirl?

No wonder she is confused…

I really wish I wasn’t so obsessive about listening to radio rips of new singles and then playing them over and over again until the pv has much less impact than if I’d JUST WAITED…

But such is me. And now Kimagure Princess is getting the tiniest bit old. Which is odd because it was Resonant Blue style instant-love when I heard it. Considering all the slower stuff we’re getting lately from Momusu, I didn’t think that the new single would be this bouncy.

Is bouncy the word I’m looking for?

Just a Casual fan

This pic continues to be my favourite incarnation of Goto thus far. I love that minx hair style, that odd mix of overalls with a leopard-print jacket and the fact that she is outdoors, not draped over some velvet couch covered in pearls. This strikes me as down-to-earth sophisticated, which I much prefer.

Since her mini-album has been released I decided to watch her ‘Unrecorded’ segments on youtube (see her recording ‘Fly Away’, also personally my fave episode here). She wears this coat a lot during the shows.

What I expected to like about it was seeing her in real life, being like the Goto she was in H!P. Granted, I don’t know a whole lot about who she was in H!P because I had no interest in her when she was in Momusu, or when she was a soloist. Well, some interest, but very little. I’ve always been more interested in the person Goto than the idol Gocchin. So I was delighted to see that ‘Unrecorded’ was that kind of show. I liked just seeing her do the job. She got up early, slurped down her Starbucks treats and went about her day not as if she was “super delighted” to be there, but as if this was (is) her job and so she’ll keep going, even when she inevitably got tired. I did get a sense that she enjoyed it, but she didn’t have to pretend as though she did to entertain me. My Japanese is still in its infancy, but from the bits I understood, and what I observed, she seemed fulfilled and determined. I loved seeing her that way. Seeing her scribbling down lyrics and choosing the look she wanted to present in her photoshoots (as was my limited understanding) was so different than any backstage moment H!P has ever given me.

Avex is a bit of mysterious place for me, but my impression of it in regards to people like Koda Kumi has really made me think about the person Goto Maki.

I sorta feel like we all need to get to know her all over again.

Strangely Torn

Strangely, I’m not happy about this.
I’d describe it as rather a sinking feeling.

I’ve never hated Koharu, or as I’ve dubbed her forever ‘nut-job’. I don’t hate any of the H!P girls, even Winky who annoys the living hell out of me. I’ve just never been a fan of hers. I’ve never really thought she could sing very well, if at all, and I couldn’t stand any of her solo ventures. With all the crack-tastic concert behaviour, you’d think she would have become endearing to me, but not really, no.

This picture reminds me of her early days when she was simply adorable; those were the days when she’d sit on Yossy’s knee and piss off Miki with her excited bouncy innocence. Obviously, any idol has to grow up, but I never got as attached to her Kira….rin(???) persona.

Pic Spam: Grope-y, Grope-y o_0

Alright, my frisky kittens, from what I can observe in my stats here at Itsumo Genki, a great deal of what people search for is ‘jailbait’ and other such nonsense when they happen to find this place. While that is hilarious, if not terribly sad, that is not exactly what this place is about.

But since I’m feeling indulgent and a little bit frisky myself, I’ve decided to just give in to the maniacs out there who love this stuff (cause who doesn’t, let’s be honest here) and devote an entire pic spam to the dirty, dirty moments we get from those grope-y rascals in H!P.

Starting with Bunny-Ishikawa’s tush here.

Got a good look?

…

Ok. On we go.

Gush~Gush~~ Momusu Dancing prt.3

So we’ve reached the final installment (for the singles anyway) of my dance series.

[Part One]
[Part Two]

As I’ve mentioned, capping these old pvs is a real delight. And since we’re moving backwards here, I think towards the beginning of Momusu’s career, the dancing becomes just a fun addition to an already wonderful pv. Case and point: every single song I’ll be talking about in this post. With their member change-ups the image always evolved, but once they settled on optimistic-genki the trend continued for quite awhile, giving us some of the funnest (yes, I said funnest) and most addictive songs in their history.

Admittedly, since their older pvs focused more on (gasp!) a plot or a bunch of hilarious randomness from the girls, the dances aren’t so heavily featured. So if this reads more like pv reviews, you’ll have to excuse me. As with “Joshi…”, really any cap is gold.

So on we go.