HAROPURO On Stage! 2007 Rock Desuyo!

This is the kind of small-scale concert that Hello! Project can sometimes do so well. Here we've got five performers--Maki Goto and the four members of Melon Kinenbi--all in their 20s and all in peak form, and all allowed to be the attractive, sexy women they naturally are, but in a mature, as opposed to vulgar, way. They sing a lot of good songs here and just get out on that small stage and let loose for the enthusiastic audience. The MK girls--Ayumi, Masae, Hitomi and Megumi--are as dynamic as I've ever seen them. And Maki has some solos that are as beautiful as anything I've ever heard from her. She shows great confidence, has wonderful chemistry with the other girls, and knows how to keep the audience in the palm of her hand in a subtle, understated way. The best thing I've seen Maki in was her final concert for H!P, "How to Use Sexy," but this is a close second; and a close third is the Morning Musume Tanjo 10 Nen Kinentai Concert Tour 2007, to name her three final concert appearances for Hello! Project. Now that Maki has left H!P, I can only hope that her new label, AVEX, learns how to play to her strengths and allow her to be this good again.