The Finale.

Well, as always, it’s been forever.

I’m alive and in one piece.

We are still dealing with a global pandemic and everything is on hold. I haven’t written anything H!P related except for this post. This post has gone through so many revisions. I don’t know how to say any of it, so I’m just going to wing it.

(This is mostly about me and in the interest of time, there may be few if any photos)

I still remember a rainy day, back in university, when I got a package in the mail from my brother. It was a cd copy of the album 4th Ikimasshoi by Morning Musume. Inside the case was a note in his terrible hen-scratch: ‘I think this is their best album. It’s yours.’ It was the album that made me fall in love with Momusu. It encapsulates the golden-era in a way that no other album does. Listening to it for the first time is a beautiful memory for me.

It was also the fact that my brother had ordered it online, from Japan, and sent it to me. He could have just waited till I visited and let me listen to it then, but he didn’t.

I still remember taking the bus trip to New York with him and standing for nine hours straight to watch Morning Musume 14’ perform. I remember how nervous we were, waiting to shake their hands. I remember we stood outside the venue when the show was over, exhilarated and totally satisfied. It wasn’t just that the concert and hand-shake were amazing once-in-a-lifetime experiences, but that we’d made a plan to at least try to see them and we’d actually achieved it.

We went through a dark time in our teens and my brother barely spoke to me unless he was talking about Japan. I gave anime a chance, just to be able to talk to him again. He showed me Momusu, knowing I’d probably love them and it let us have something in common again. We could meet in spite of the awkwardness and sadness and enjoy something together. I can’t articulate how much that meant to me, or how much Jpop came to mean on its own. The music, that lead to the place, the language, and the culture has been a gift.

I still remember the first time I posted something that was more serious than a pic spam on this blog. I over-analyzed a pv for the first time and I was so nervous about my brother reading it. I hadn’t really shared my writing with him. I didn’t know if he would laugh at me, or if he’d even find it interesting. He told me it was the best thing I’d ever posted (so far).

My brother, the man who introduced me to H!P all those years ago, and my first, most voracious reader, is dead.

He died in January, unexpectedly, a month before he was to be married to the love of his life. It was an undiagnosed heart condition. I’ve had to settle his affairs and grieve with his widow (my sister-in-law forever). Before his death, he had pretty much stopped following H!P, and was more invested in his increasingly happy life.

For my part, I’d also been drifting away. Life just got busy for us. It was happy and wonderful, but too busy to dedicate the same amount of time to Momusu. Saying we “outgrew” it isn’t accurate. Maybe you could say we finally discovered a world outside of it.

But from 2005 to maybe 2017, we followed Morning Musume. My brother and I would watch concerts, laugh at variety shows, and watch all the doramas and plays we could find. He’d find anything and everything so that we could follow the group through their debut, to the Golden Era, to the Platinum Era, all the way to Robo-Musume. Along the way, we got into H!P also, which opened up a million other wonderful things to analyze and enjoy.

Bro was an artist and he must have sketched Yossy a hundred times for me. He gave me a sketch (pencil and ink) as a gift on almost every birthday or holiday. There was even a wall in the apartment dedicated to sketches of the great Yoshizawa Hitomi, because she had always been my favourite.

He subbed several H!P plays so that we could watch together and encouraged me over and over to post about them. After every new pv viewing he’d pronounce it, “pretty good” (he was, what I’ll call, concise) and then ask, “Are you gonna post about it?” Then he’d cap it for me, and present me with 100,000 pics to sort through so I’d get the best shots.

Every time we discussed anything about Momusu, he’d ask me, “are you gonna post?” He laughed at my stupid running jokes and rambling rants. He would encourage me often and would read every post, some times more than once.

And that is all gone.

He was my big brother, so obviously there’s a world of memories, but when it comes to H!P, almost everything either reminds me of him or reminds me that we will never enjoy any of that, ever again. I feel like the only person who ever really cared about my writing is gone; the only person who ever understood why I loved H!P is gone.

I could reach out to the online community, I know, and I don’t mean to disregard it, but it wouldn’t be the same. I feel like my ‘fandom’ has already dried up. It was peacefully passing, and then it just blew away in the wind, the day we buried my brother.

It’s not like I hate H!P now. I still love a lot of the songs and I’m still rooting for them, but it’s not the same. Ever since Tsunku has stepped down things have been dwindling for me.

I don’t know anything about the new members of Momusu, their new songs don’t make me feel anything, and all the changes to the other groups just seem superfluous at this point. Nothing is ever subbed, and even if it is, Bro was my resource. Sure, I could probably figure out how to find them, but who would I watch them with?

I was so excited for things, like seeing Riho performing with Momusu again, or the return of Double-U. I feel almost nothing about it now; if anything, it just feels lonely.

I’ve tried to like the new Momosu songs, but truthfully, everything after Jinsei Blues feels dead to me, because Bro is dead. That was the last single I remember talking to him about when he was alive and at that point, he’d decided to leave H!P behind. That made me sad, but I understood.

He said he still wanted to get together and watch all the concerts we hadn’t watched yet. His fiancée had no interest in anything Japanese, so it would have still been something we could share. He said he missed watching those with me.

That will never happen. We never watched another concert again.

 

His last gift to me, at Christmas, was a disk drive with all the H!P concerts we’d ever watched on it. They were beautifully organized. Bro gave this to me so I could enjoy the concerts, but also so that I would post again.
And frankly, it hurts too much.

It hurts to remember it all. It hurts that I don’t have anyone else to love Japan and Japanese media with. Writing in here feels pointless.

It’s strange to say that. It’s not that my fandom was only there for his benefit. If that were true, I would never have gotten into Arashi, for example. I will always love Japan and the music, but it’s all inextricably linked to him. Posting something, knowing he’ll never read it, just hurts too much.

And I’m really sorry. I’m sorry to be sad on a blog I named ‘always cheerful’ 12 years ago. I didn’t know it would end like this. I wrestled with whether I would close up Itsumo Genki, and I don’t want to, but I don’t know when I’ll ever post again. I don’t want to say that I will and then disappear. Goodness knows I’ve broken a lot of promises for posts on this site.

I know the world is crazy right now, and I truly hope anyone reading this is safe and stable. Please take care of yourselves. Try to find any positives you can and encourage each other. If you still love H!P, write a blog, keep loving it, and cherish your fandom friends.

I need to heal. Hopefully, I’ll be able to write again someday (knowing me, I’ll probably come back and edit this when I have time and energy to think). I don’t know what I’ll do with my other blog. Arashi and doramas were my thing, more than Bro’s, so maybe I’ll write in there from time to time.
Itsumo Genki is going to rest.

I’m sorry for all the posts I never finished, especially when I promised I would.

I’m so grateful for the memories, the music, and the dream. It connected my brother and I, and it showed me a world that made me happy for so many years. I pray you all find happiness there too, for as long as your fandom lasts.

What kind of face are you singing with?
What kind of voice are you laughing with?
I wonder if we’ll even be able to meet in the next world
This is painful
– ‘Toki wo Koe Sora wo Koe‘ – Morning Musume ’14

~Isilie