Because I have so checked out for the night in terms of school work and because the picboard at HelloOnline is so delightful, I bring you yet another edition of the pic spam. Thanks to whomever is responsible for these. They are, as per the title: delights.
Don’t laugh now…don’t laugh…
What a surprise...all from Momusu
Thanks Hello!Blog. This poll seems like a lot of fun.
I don’t think I have time to explain my reasoning behind all these choices. The first two should be obvious to anyone who has ever read any post in this place. With the rest, I think the girls speak for themselves, Yaguchi being my hero, Yuuko being generally bad-ass (and classy as all hell) and Niigaki being Nacchi-the-Second.
Yossy pwns all. Always. She will always be my favourite…if I could be half that cool…
Abe’s the only soloist in H!P whose albums I would happily buy. All of them. I love her voice. And I love that she’s motherly and sweet, but just a little scary.
Although, Takahashi and Kamei were a surprise even to me. As I was choosing I realized how much I really like them both. Takahashi seems extremely modest even though she’s basically a powerhouse and has one of my favourite voices in all of H!P. Kamei is getting more and more gorgeous, both in her appearance and dancing, but also in her singing. Her solo on the new album is wonderfully soothing. Also, she just seems very weird and down-to-earth. She’s the kind of person I’d want to go have tea with to relax.
Kemeko, Rika and Konno. Need I say more?
Choosing wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be.
I pretty much knew it would all be from Momusu.
What can I say?
~Isilie
Episode One: Introduction
I’m getting ambitious, aren’t I? My first “series” was about the insane things Tsunku has done, [hence the name Tsunku's Insanity], or rather the things that I’m blaming him for…because I’m silly and terrible like that. I don’t really take it that seriously, to be honest. But this attempt at a series I will do my best with. I love the fifth generation of Morning Musume. Love them.
For those who don’t know, these members would be (from top to bottom, left to right in picture) Konno Asami, Ogawa Makoto, Niigaki Risa (Mame!!) and Takahashi Ai. They were added in 2001, right after Nakazawa Yuuko, the group’s first leader, graduated. When they were added, Ai was the oldest at 14, Konno and Ogawa were 14 and Mame was the youngest at 13.
Continue reading ‘Gokkie Series: Overanalyzing the Fifth Gen of Morning Musume’
So, it’s finished. The Elder Club is gone.
Ok, I hate that sentence. Saying it like that makes it sound like they’re all suddenly gone from the face of the planet. This is silly. Even though to me most of these women are the face of Hello Project (are, not were), it doesn’t mean that unless they are working for that company they no longer exist. Even if most of them gracefully bow out of the spotlight, they will still exist.
It sounds melodramatic I know, but the mind of a fan can be like that. You can forget that people exist outside the place you’ve put them in your head. And H!P fandom is odd in that it can work in reverse. It has for me.
What I mean is, instead of being into what H!P is now, you’ve probably seen something that is at least four years old that sucked you in and little do you realize that four years ago is ancient history in H!P years. At least for me, so much changes from year to year, it’s difficult not to hang on to the past. That’s the only thing that stays consistent; you got into H!P because of Matsuura’s ‘Love Namida Iro’, that’s what you’ll probably always associate with “when H!P was good”.
That’s why we all keep complaining that such-and-such a song was not as good as this-song-from-this-past-lineup. That’s why we convieniently forget that Momusu has always had a line-distribution problem and why lots of us 
can only describe their current songs as attempts to be their older “better” material. I’m sorry, ‘Resonant Blue’ and ‘Summer Night Town’ are nothing alike. At all.
I digress, but my point is (and I can of course only speak for myself) that the Elder Club members are H!P and they’ve now proceeded to move on, even though it feels like only a year ago when Yuuko was graduating from Momosu or when Matsuura was dancing with her puppet pals. It all feels like it’s happening now when you watch it. I forget so easily that the Hello Morning episodes I watch are all at least four years old. I forget that songs I adore like ‘Night of Tokyo City’ are a decade old. The song that got me into H!P is half a decade old.
I love H!P still. I doubt that will change. But we’ve definitely lost something.
