Bye Bye Bye! [w/ DVD, Limited Edition]

I was a bit disappointed with the Single Video release of this song, since it didn't have the Dance Shot Version as an alternate, only a distinctly unimaginative Close-up version, in which the girls were presented rather blandly, with no special attention to hairstyle, makeup, or outfits. The Dance Shot version is included here on a supplementary DVD and it's the one to get. It's a very good dance piece, with echoes of earlier eras of female dance units, and the girls are dressed in snazzy and attractive silver outfits. It's not a great song, though, nor is it quite up to the caliber of their previous dance single, "Forever Love," chiefly because they shunt Saki Nakajima and Erika Umeda off to the sides here. Which is a shame in Saki's case because she's clearly the best dancer in C-ute and arguably one of the best dancers in Hello! Project entirely. Why they don't give her more to do is beyond me. (Of course, if they'd managed to hold onto Megumi Murakami, C-ute would have had TWO great dancers and not just one.) As a result, this release gets only three stars from me, rather than four. (I'd already taken a star off because they made me double dip with this one just to get the Dance Shot version.) Kanna Arihara's absent from this video, reportedly out sick, so there's only six of them here.