Translation - "And that's why I'll go on living" explanation

I've decided to translate Tsunku's newest book, "And that's why I'll go on living" (だから、生きる。）

I don't know if I can make a set schedule, but I hope to make my blog active again and I would like to share what I am sure is going to be an emotional roller coaster of a book.

Tagline: "I threw away my most precious possession, my voice, and I chose to keep on living."

Morning Musume 15th Anniversary Fall Tour ~Colorful Character~

Nakano Sunplaza - October 7th Afternoon

After seeing the set list and partially listening to a concert rip from earlier in the tour I knew this concert was going to be amazing, and it didn't disappoint!  Course, it probably helped that I was second row to the side so could see everything perfectly.  We had row 2 seats for the Summer Concert as well but those were dead center so with row O ended up being row 5.  Off to the side, row 2 is row 2 and afforded us an excellent view. 

However, before the concert it was goods-getting time.  And there were so many amazing things this time that it was hard to choose.  Even leaving off a few things I might order online later I spent 24000 on goods and another 2000 on gatcha.  I'm really impressed with the variety of goods H!P has been putting out lately.  Not just pictures and useless giant badges but attractive hoodies and goods that can be used in daily life.  Trust me, once you've been a fan long enough you stop buying goods just because they are there and have your member on them, because you simply don't have the space for anymore large goods.  Cell phone straps,uchiwa, and tour books are my thing.  Sometime I'll post pictures of my various goods.

After getting goods, it was back in another line for the handshake with Sakura.  Now, there's a lot of negative stuff being said about her on the net, but seriously give the girl a break.  Ugly?  She's 13 and one of the pictures of her was done in horrendous lighting making her look 30. She doesn't look anything like that in the other pictures, though I will admit I think long hair suited her more.  She's really sweet when you talk to her.  And you did get to kinda talk as the handshake was slow paced, they didn't seem to be pushing people along unless they were trying to hog her all to themselves.  So you could easily have a dialogue back and forth before moving on on your own time.  And so that's what I did.  I didn't say much though, just told her "There will be some tough situations but do your best!" and she thanked me and I moved on.

She has as nice firm, yet not overpowering, handshake.  She makes eye contact with you.  She also didn't have the gaijin shock that the 9th and 10th gen did when they first shook hands with me.  She overall just gives off a very pleasant impression.  I look forward to seeing her debut fully at the New Years concerts.

I was allowed in early because I had gotten into the Sakura fanclub handshake, so my boyfriend was in a separate line outside.  He ended up walking right after I finished my handshake though, perfect timing.  We headed down to our seats and waited for the show to start.

If you want to see the full set list you can find it here. As it states at the top of the chart 14 of the songs performed were performed for the first time, so the girls put a lot of work into this concert.  It was an album-song heavy concert with a Platinum-era heavy medley.

First off, the concert promo outfits look much better in person than in photos.  In photos I thought they looked like the girls were just wearing a formless lampshade.  Turns out that is not the case.  The back has a cape that lists 1-10th gen and has the generation of the girl wearing it circled.  The outfits also move quite well with the dances.

The concert started off strong with One Two Three followed by The Matenro Show.  I have heard these songs SO many times that I basically sing along with them in their entirety.  I like One Two Three better than Matenro but both are good songs and look well when performed by the whole group.  Kanon was on the right side of the stage alot so I got to watch her up close quite frequently.  Though, not as frequently as I would have liked since she was often on the back raised stage x_x

What's Up?  is a great audience-involving song.  It's listed as the first performance being during this tour though from reports of the Hawaii FC tour it was actually performed there.  This was the first time that anyone could see it though.  Sound-wise it seemed out of place for Musume when I first saw the dance rehearsal footage, but as I've listened to it more it seems to go along with the fun-loving youth theme of the current Musume.  And it really makes me love the Colorful Era even more.

Waratte You has been a hit for me since first hearing the radio rip, probably because it is a 9th/10th gen song so Kanon is in it.  Now I am a reasonable enough fan / wota that I am not "OMG AMAZING VOICE, JUST LISTEN TO THIS SONG!!!" But, Kanon's solo lines in the song do sound quite powerful and allow her to really let lose on stage.  She is still working on gaining control over her range so this song is a good one for her because she can just belt it all out.  Everyone else performed well also.  The outfits for it were well... kinda special.

And Sakura seems to be saying so as well.  Though my boyfriend made the astute observation that Reina is basically wearing what she always wears ^_^

 Watashi no Jidai is a great song live, much better than just listening to it on the CD.  When they do the "100 colors for 100 people" part and spell out 1 0 0 with their hands the whole audience does it as well, making for a powerful experience.

Chikyuu ga Naiteru was very fun just as it is when you listen to it and Bravo was a completely new experience with the current line up.  Yes, I know the 9th and 10th gen performed it before but the past few months have seen a lot of growth for both groups so it has a completely different feel than it had before.  Everyone on stage had a lot of energy and well, how can you not love a song that basically has the chicken dance built into it.

Next up were the 9th and 10th gen songs.  I actually am not a big fan of the 10th gen song just because it is too cutesy for me and seems out of place for Haruna and Daishi.  Performed live it is a really fun song though and the candy striper/60s waitress style outfits were adorable.  The 9th gen song  was one of the highlights of the concert for me.  I have loved the cool dance sound of the song ever since I first heard it and since it wasn't performed at the version of the summer concerts I went to this was my first time seeing it live.  It did not disappoint.  All four looked great and pulled off the cool look well.  Well, besides Eripon.  But that was her outfit designers fault.  Her outfit was just... weird.

Seriously, how does Eripon's outfit fit with the style of the song at all?  An argument could be made against Riho's too since it barely has any of the pattern the rest of the 9ki's outfit has but it at least fits the cool dance floor style of the song.

Reina's song Namida Hito Shizuku is simply gorgeous live.  The melody, her voice, her outfit; everything fit perfectly with this touching ballad.  And let me say,  as I said on my Tumblr, I'm not really a fan of Reina NOR a fan of ballads.  But this song is so beautiful and touching that it had me singing along and almost crying with the lyrics.  If you're not a fan of it I recommend looking at translated lyrics and listening again, the story behind it is really well written.

Sayu's song is, well it's Sayu's song.  La la la no Pi pi pi is exactly what you would expect from the title and Sayu's more mature dress seemed at first out of place.  Until the two eggs, who were dressed as rabbits, came out in order to worship Sayu for the whole of the song.  It was a very fun performance to watch and although I'm glad I got to see Eggs I had never seen perform before do it I do have to wonder how it looks when performed with Riho and Masaki as back up.

Kare to issho ni ... well I didn't really like it as it was performed in this concert.  It's a fun song that I understand Sayu is the lead in but the whole song was so focused on Sayu and Reina that even watching the other girls for their silliness during the song wasn't all that fun.  It was a better choice than singing Kono Chikyuu though as this song has more of a Sayu feel.

The rotating song sung at my concert was Shinnen dake ha tsurinuki toose which is probably my favorite B-side on the latest single.  I love the pace of the song and it makes for a very poweful performance.  Plus gorgeous blue outfits looked well on all the girls.  Next was the medley, which featured a great mix of Platinum era songs and 12 Smart songs that really captured the image of the current lineup well.  Sexy Boy and Kimagure were mixed in throughout the medley as a way to transition between songs and they worked great.  Plus the crowd really gets into the dances for both songs and I was no exception, "ue ue"ing with the best of them.  The song I was most waiting for in the medley was I'm Lucky Girl as this is probably my favorite song from Fantasy 11. I am still disappointed that they featured none of the new album songs in JunLinEri's graduation concert, never allowing them to perform the songs they performed in.

Resonant Blue is another favorite song of mine for the rhythm though probably not the best song for showing off the whole group since it's a song that from the get-go had only three singers.  Still, always a good song for the crowd so in the future I'd love to see it adapted to at least allow the rest of the group to harmonize more.  Renai Hunter, no complaints there as it's an excellent song.  Then came the craziest song from the new album Dokkan Cappricio.  It is such an amazing song that really features all the girls.  A little awkward to look at Do and hear her asking you if she's sexy though.  Of course I was more focused on Kanon who was gyrating with the best of them.

Now, yes Kanon has some fat on her.  She does have a bit of a pooch on her. You will also notice if you see her live that she has boobs.  Barring unnatural circumstances, body fat tends to come with having boobs.  They just could've made her outfit a little bit looser so it didn't show that she had a pooch so much.  Still the girl is beautiful and I honestly think a lot of Westerners forget that for a 14 year old with boobs comes a tummy too.  Her thighs though, gorgeous, the dancing is really paying off and she does it really well now.

Poor Kanon though, after they came out in the white outfits pictures above her headband kept trying to fall out so every 30 seconds or so in a song you would see her try to subtly push the headband back into her hair but it was really fighting staying on top of her head.  Luckily the last song before encore was the semi choral ballad Zero kara hajimaru seishun so she didn't have to flail around so much while trying not to worry about her headband going flying onto the stage.

For the encore Sakura once again came on stage for a few seconds for greetings before going back off.  Before that though we got to see Wakuteka performed in all its glory. I LOVE that song.  I often skip through songs on my iPod randomly until I find one I want to listen to at the moment but Wakuteka is one of the few songs that as of now I have not been able to skip through.  Be Alive might be the uptempo ballad that they will choose for this era as their ending theme, just like Namidacchi was the ballad for the last group.  It does seem a good theme though maybe something a little more danceable for the last song would be better in the future.

Overall thoughts: This concert had an excellent set list.  Being the 15th anniversary concert, or one of them at least, they did mix in older songs, but not TOO old.  Let's face it, no one wants to see Love Machine anymore, no matter HOW iconic of a song it is.  They could have pulled off a couple of older songs but seemed to stick with 2007 on to be safe.  They did do a couple of random Hello Project songs in the rotating song section but non during the setlist I saw.  I would have liked to see the variations and hope that they are released on the DVD/blu-ray.

Daishi and Haruka did have wraps on their injuries.  Haruka's was the most obvious because the wrap went a few inches above and below her knee.  You could see that she was in pain a couple of times when she wasn't talking during the MCs but she is a professional and didn't let it inhibit her dancing one bit.  Daishi's foot seems to be mostly healed though you could see the wrap sticking out at the end of the concert when she was wearing short boots.  From her dancing, and Haruka's too, you would never be able to tell they were injured.  I hope the two of them don't overdo it but am glad they are professionals who give their all no matter what.

Masaki... well the girl is adorable and does well when doing pre-planned things but apparently cannot handle doing anything spontaneous.  Reina threw her a line a couple of times that was supposed to be improvised and she just bursts into giggles and goes into panic mode.  So she has a bit of a ways to go before she is a real performer, but does great otherwise.  Haruna's dancing is on par with most of the other girls now and she doesn't seem to have the Konkon syndrome.  What I mean by that is that Konkon could not up til the point she graduated from Elder club and beyond dance unless she was fully concentrating on it.  So she almost never made eye contact or waved at the audience all the times I saw her.  You could tell she was completely focused inward to make sure she got the moves right.  Haruna on the other hand may not have every move perfect but waves and smiles at the audience whenever she has the chance.  I prefer that over zombie faced dancing, though Konkon is also adorable.

I can't wait to see the 11-person Musume in January!

Hello Project 2012 Summer 15th Anniversary ~Ktkr Fan no Matsuri~

At Nakano Sunplaza 8/12/2012

 

To be honest, I went into this concert with lower expectations than normal because I wasn't too impressed with the set list.  I mean take a look below:

01. Cho HAPPY SONG（All）
02. Maji desu ka ska! （All）
03. Suki yo junjou hankouki （スマイレージ）
04. Dot bikini （スマイレージ）
05.Song for the DATE（真野恵里菜）
06. Banzai！～Jinsei wa meccha wonderful～（真野恵里菜）
07. Aitai aitai aitai na （℃-ute）
08. Kimi chari （℃-ute）
09.cha cha SING（Berryz工房）
10.Loving you Two much（Berryz工房）
11.One・Two・Three（モーニング娘。）
12. Watashi ga ite kimi ga iru （モーニング娘。）
13. Watashi ga obasan ni nattemo （All）
14. Cabbage hakusho （Peaberry）
15. Koko kara hajimarun da！（吉川友）
16. Smile Blues （Kanyon, Meimei）
17. Watashi no jidai！（モーニング娘。Rokkies）
18.Medley: Koko ni iruze ~ Uchouten love ~ Genkimono de ikou ~ Special generation ~ Dance de Bacon! ~ Pyoko Pyoko Ultra ~ Sukichan ~ Sekai ichi Happy na onna no ko ~ Maji bomber ~ Bravo ~ Yo no naka barairo ~ Koko ni iruze
19. Chotto matte kudasai！（All）

 .. it's not a very interesting set list.  Now, that doesn't mean it's a bad selection of songs, just quite lame for a Hello Project concert.  Almost all of these songs can be seen at each group's solo concert.  And that's not really what people are looking for when they go to the Winter/Summer concerts.  Especially when it's something like the 15th anniversary year, you expect a bit more.

Play: Stacys ~The Second Killing of Young Girls a Musical~

Boy, is that title hard to translate.  On Thursday I went to see the widely talked about Musume as zombies play.  Now, unlike many who were probably completely confused by the concept, I was actually familiar with the story. I had never watched the movie myself but I remembered hearing about a schoolgirl zombie b-horror movie several years ago and as soon as I read the title and the premise of the musical in my fanclub letter I knew that was what they were performing.  The only question in my mind was how: how on earth do you perform a play about zombies being chopped to bits on stage?  And with IDOLS!?

The Promotional Poster

Above you see the poster for this time's play.  Of course, as soon as this poster made it to the internet there were outcries of "Reina and Riho dominated again!" forgetting that Kuduu is also in this picture.  Yes, they are the main characters in the story, in fact each is a main character in a separate but interlocking sub-story.  Reina and Riho are good actresses, they work well as leads.  Kuduu does excellent as well.  

Don't let them being leads fool you, the other girls get the same if not more stage time, the stories simply do not focus on them.  But this story doesn't really focus on any of the girls.  The main character is actually the young man who from the beginning of the play where he encounters a weird request by Reina's character that throws his whole life for a loop.  Throughout the play we see him in the background though it is told from his point of view, first about the strange girl he met.  Then about a strange laboratory full of its own secrets.  And finally about a young detective girl and an encounter she has that will change the whole definition of what a Stacy is.

From here on I am going to discuss the story as I remember it.  I do hope the DVD is subbed by someone when it is released as it is excellent.

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Storyline 1 - "My meeting with a mysterious stranger" (that's what I'm calling it)

   So it starts out with a young man sitting gazing at nothing on a bench.  Along comes Reina's character to bug him.  Quickly she throws a weird request at him "Please accept the right to kill me for a second time"  Apparently this is something that many girls are doing these days.  That's right, because girls of the ages 14-16 (different from the novel which was 15-17) all become infected with a strange disease where they die and come back soon after as a Stacy, a being that only wishes to eat and convert the general public, or what we would generally call a zombie.

Reina is in the stage of this disease which is called "Near Happiness", wherein the girl frolics around always happy and laughing at anything.  This is the stage that happens shortly before she is about to die and become a Stacy, and it is at this point that many girls search out someone to kill them later on.  Reina's character unfortunately does not have any family to do the job for her as we learn her best friend became a Stacy and killed Reina's parents.  Reina was the one who had to chop her friends to bits with tools she found around the house.

Over the course of the day in the park, and after we see the Re-killing Forces (what the JSDF has become now that the job of military around the world is primarily to kill Stacys) wheeling off a cart of bodies, Reina and the young man have become close and he has accepted the job of killing her when she comes back to life.  It isn't until the very end of the play where we see the actual scene of him killing Reina in a very long and drawn out death-match.  Before that though we get the Coffee and Milk Dance, a strange dream that the young man often has where girls dance around balancing coffee in one hand and milk in the other.  Hey, no one ever said this kid was sane. (And yes, from what I have started reading of the novel, this is in the novel.)

Masaki demonstrates the ever-famous Coffee and Milk Dance

Storyline 2 - The Stacy Who Talks and the Imprisoned Girls

  Our second storyline takes place in an all girls school where the entire school population became Stacys simultaneously and the Re-killing Forces are now using it as a way to study the patterns of the Stacys.  We meet a very unique Force member who pretends to sing and dance with the Stacys before killing them off as if it is a game.  Except one of the Stacys seems to respond to him as he is about to kill her.  This is the one played by Riho.  She seems to be saying "Help me" which catches the man off guard because Stacys can't talk.  And the fact that Riho resembles his sister who had to kill when she turned.

As the rest of the force members come in ready to clean up the bodies they go to kill this last remaining one before being stopped by crazy man.  They won't believe him when he says she talked because that simply can't be, Stacys don't talk.  Stacys don't have emotions or react to anything, they simply search for meat.  Before they can override crazy man and kill Riho anyways they learn that in another part of the school a truly insane man (driven so by the job he has had to do all these years) has released the locks on all the rooms containing Stacys and the school is in complete chaos.  This storyline is never fully wrapped up, we simply see the Stacys and the Force members fighting and presume that most of the force members are killed.  At the end though all members do hear Riho's Stacy speak and are thrown into disbelief.  This news spreads as a rumor around the country.

Storyline 3 - Drew, the Stacy Hunter

At the opening of this third story we see a hilarious song and dance that is an advertisement for chainsaws that are "sure to get the re-killing done right", and a young girl named Drew.

The last story focuses on Drew, a character played by Kuduu.  She is 13 years old and 11 months, so just before the period where she may become a Stacy.  And she has some special powers that allow her to attack and kill Stacys without having an actual sharp weapon in her hand.

After the opening commercial scene we see her entering what is presented as an abandoned building and approaching a young man who is leading a Stacy (Ayumi) on a leash.  We learn that it is his girlfriend and he is not going to let her be killed.  He swears that she can control her urges and is still the same girl, though we see her straining at the end of her chain to try and kill the young man while his back is turned.

Drew sees this as well and explains to the man that she is simply doing her job, her job to kill Stacys with these mysterious powers she has.  When asked about her name she explains that her name is actually 公江（Kimie) but because of how the character looks she is always called Hamue and decided to rename herself after Drew Barrymore.

She is finally persuaded by the young man to help him hide his Stacy just as the Re-killing Forces arrive and misunderstand the situation.  They are being told to not take any chances and so end up killing Drew before she has become a Stacy (though we know at this point she is in the Near Happiness stage) .

The scene changes and we hear reports of how Stacys are now evolving and becoming stronger, especially those who show mysterious powers are coming back to life with those powers ten-fold.  So an order is given to kill girls before they become Stacys, as soon as they display the Near Happiness signs of laughter and frolicking.

And so the Force Members arrive at what is a hospice for girls about to become Stacys run by a kind but very stupid doctor.  He constantly gets punched and kicked by the Stacys around him, with the girls using the excuse that they are Near Happiness and cannot help themselves.

And here is where all three stories collide.  The boy and Ayumi Stacy arrive at the hospice, with the doctor being amused at what he sees as keeping a Stacy as a pet.  Then Drew arrives, though we know she has been killed, and yet is still able to talk to the soon-to-become Stacys about not giving up hope.  Ayumi speaks in front of everyone, including the forces that have arrived and they realize the rumors are true.  And the Near Happiness girls along with Drew agree to cover for the boy and Ayumi Stacy who seem to be able to form a bond and should go off and create a new life that is half-Stacy half-human.  Reina's Stacy has also been wandering even though she should have been dead and we are left at the end of the story seeing a new world of Stacys being reborn.

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At least that is all I remember.   Of course there are many more details that I don't know where to put in or just how accurate I can relate them to the story but the main thing I want to say is that this musical (yes it is indeed a full musical, with lots of very difficult to sing lyrics about killing and god being a fun-loving madman) is amazing!  It isn't an idol musical.  It is a well-produced and well-rehearsed production.

In many cases the girls are running around so quickly on stage that one mistake could make a few of them end up on a pile on the floor.  All of the girls did an excellent job and portrayed the emotionless Stacys quite well.

Riho, I must say, has gotten a lot of control over her voice recently.   A solo song her character had involved a lot of range and she was able to pull it off flawlessly.  I could say I want Kanon to be the main character, but just because she is my oshi that doesn't mean it is always what I want.  She did excellent in her role and danced fiercely (often on my side of the stage)

I can't wait for the DVD of this to come out.  I want to see it again so badly that if I didn't have work tomorrow night I would pay for the Ustream to see it again.  Anyone who can watch the Ustream should, it is well worth the price of paying for it.

I leave you with a shot from the press performance.

Morning Musume 2012 Spring Tour Ultra Smart

This is a place keeper until I get time to fully write out my experience from May 6th at Nakano Sunplaza.

Actually, think I am gonna go ahead and give up on this one.

The concert I attended is the same one released on the USB and I definitely recommend watching it.  There were a couple of songs I wasn't expecting, Goodbye Natsuo and Aki Urara, both of which were performed wonderfully.

Also, Aika really was doing her best from the Nakano concerts on to dance as much as possible, and she did really well.  She was still only in the songs she had been in up til now but she performed most of the dances, though modified, off on one side of the stage.  I did tear up a bit when she came out and was dancing, realizing that she is such a great performer but has made the hard decision to leave.

I look forward to seeing how the 10 members do at the summer concerts.

I will see the zombie novel-based play on Thursday and there will definitely be a write up of that, until then, here is a smiling picture of Zukki to make your day.

Smileage Mega Bank Vol.5 ~2nd Year Entry Special~

On May 12th I attended Smileage Mega Bank Volume 5 which was an early celebration of their 2 year anniversary (not counting their indies year and despite the fact that Smileage now is not the same Smileage as it was this same time last year).

Because I have work on Saturday I knwe I was going to be arriving to the venue with no time to spare, so as soon as my last class was finished I rushed out to jump on trains and hope there were no delays.  Well, even with no delays in my just under an hour of traveling, I entered into the venue  as the opening VTR was rolling.  Phew, I had made it.  With absolutely no glowsticks and exhausted from a long day at work I found my seat and collapsed in it to await the start of the event.


The only ever Smileage Fanclub Event I have attended was Megabank Volume 2 which took place about a month after their major debut, so I wasn't sure what to expect going into this one.  I just knew that in both the first and second they had done challenges which involved the audience and were a lot of fun, and that the fourth one was when they held Yuuka's graduation.


This one, turned out to be completely different.  Usually a FC event is a bunch of activities and talk with a mini concert at the end.  This time, the activities and songs were intermixed.  The theme was a school setting.  During Homeroom we learn that Take-chan's father is being transferred overseas so this will be her last day in the school.  Ayacho is the standoff classmate who doesn't really care about the others but even she gets up and gives Take-chan a present when the others do.  However, none of the presents are actually useful items, used scrunchies, something lying around the girl's room, etc.  


Homeroom finishes and if I remember they moved on to Social Studies next, asking them various questions related to different areas in Japan.  Was quite amusing to hear some of the answers.  I am no good at the geography of Japan myself though so I could sympathize.  They also did a "cooking" class where they used pots and pans to make music (think Stomp!) to the rhythm of the food they wanted to make.  It was really well rehearsed and fun to clap along to.  The third (though maybe not in that order) class... well I actually forgot which class they were mimicking, but I remember what happened hehe.  


Need to do these reports closer to the event date but the last two weeks have been crazy.


The third class involved them doing "3-sided box game".  Now, for those of you unfamiliar, this involves having the open side of the box facing the audience and the other three sides closed so that the participants have to put their arms in through holes in the sides or top and try to guess what the object is by feeling it.  This might seem simple and non-threatening, but I'm sure it's not when you are the one doing it.  And on top of that, the audience is supposed to act like the thing in the box is something gross/frightening no matter what it is.  


In this case, the object was cauliflower, cut in half, with one piece hanging and one laying on the bottom of the box.  After each girl had her turn of touching the object, including Kanana (who barely touched the object without freaking out and running across the stage then back to her seat) they took their guesses.  The closest guess was broccoli but that was not considered good enough.  The bravest of the six is Take-chan, she broke off a piece of the object to try and feel it better.  Kanyon was also feeling the object quite a bit, so her and Take were the ones who guessed broccoli.  I think they should have taken that as correct because I don't think broccoli and cauliflower feel all that different myself.  Ah well.


At the end of their three classes the final school bell rings and then Take-chan gets an email from her father.  Turns out she doesn't have to move after all!  So all the girls take back their gifts (except for Kanana who offers to let Take keep it, but Take doesn't want it) and return to their seats.


In between each class period they sang a different song, which I thought was a good way to mix the songs into the activities.  Songs included Chotto Matte Kudasai, Suki-chan (with extended cheering time for all six girls), Dot Bikini and two or 3 others that I am blanking out on.


At the end of the event they talked about how they felt (the one I went to was the last of all six time-slots).  One thing Ayacho said stood out to a lot of people and kind of hinted that she might not be completely happy with Smileage as it is.  She talked about how relieved she was there were no sudden VTRs to spoil the moment and how the Smileage she was standing there with was nothing like what she imagined it would be from one year before.  Nothing she said was really negative, but you could tell that there have been a lot of things going through her head this past year. 


The six members do seem to work well now though they still have a long way to go.  Kanyon seems to get along with the 2nd gen just fine, but she was the one who took the announcement the best from the beginning.  Ayacho is just getting there but I think she has finally really grasped what it means to be a leader and is doing her best to push Smileage higher.


With the announcement of the first Smileage Bus Tour, it seems like this is a step in the right direction.  ^^


I leave you with a cute picture of Kanyon I found online.  It's her card from the mobile card battle game.

Tsunku's movie - Atsuhime Number 1!

So haven't posted on here in a long time huh?  Well, that's because I haven't gone to ANY HP related events, too busy and no concerts in my area right now.  So sorry I have been absent from blogging for a while.

But that all changed today when I went to see the movie Tsunku was executive producer of, Atsuhime Number 1! Starring in the movie were Yossi, Rika, Yuko, Tokki, Tsunku himself, Dandy (the "gets" guy), among others.

Looking at this poster you probably think, I have no clue what this movie could be about.  So, here's the trailer.
Still no clue, well here's the basic plot:

The famous Atsu-princess is very reluctant to go off to Edo to be married to the Shogun so she tries continually to run away from Tae (her caretaker played by Yuko) and Mitsu (her guard ninja played by Tokki) and ends up on the edge of a field looking up at a meteor.  She wishes to be somewhere far away and her wish is granted as she ends up in the middle of Hakone in modern day Japan.  Picked up by an otaku artist and his girlfriend (who works as a hostess)  the three are taken to their apartment in downtown Tokyo and proceed to be surprised by everything around them.  Mitsu even throws a shuriken into the telephone as it rings.

Taken to the hostess' workplace out of curiosity at women working on their own Atsu is convinced to try out hostessing for one night.  Right away she crosses path with the current No.1 at the club Ami (played by Yossi) and the two are instant rivals, especially after Atsu and a customer have a near violent fight.

Their competition starts from that encounter and we see Atsu grow more and more accustomed to life in the modern age, so accustomed that when the customer she previously fought confesses his love to her she really wants to stay.  But along with learning a secret about Ami and why she needs to be No.1 so badly, she also overhears a conversation between the otaku and Tae about how drastically history may change if she doesn't go back.  And so she makes the difficult decision to go back, prompting a tearful goodbye scene when the man who loves her runs to where she is waiting for the meteor to pass by again so that Tae and her can go home.  (Mitsu has fallen in love with the janitor at the hostess club and decided to stay in the modern age.)

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Overall I would say it is a comedy but it has some very touching moments to.  There is a great scene where Atsu finds out Ami's secret and has a heart-to-heart with her that really changes how she views the girl she has had such a fierce rivalry with.

Then, comedy-wise, there are many scenes with Tsunku (playing himself) in and out of the club where due to Mitsu's rashness he is put to sleep with drugs several times while trying to creep on the hostesses he is enamored with.

I definitely recommend this movie to anyone in Japan or anyone who can see the DVD when it is released.  Though I would suggest waiting for it to be subbed because the Japanese the three Edo-period ladies use is old-styled Japanese.  Great movie though ^^