Petit Best (Pucchi Best) 4 DVD

The Petit Best 4 DVD comes from 2003, one of the peak years of H!P greatness. It was out of print for a long time, but then it came back into print early in 2009 and I bought it. Of the 14 videos included, ten are pretty awesome and the others will do just fine. It's got the Morning Musume Otome Gumi and Sakura Gumi videos that were hard to find for so long (although I eventually bought them as Single-V's), "Hare Ame Nochi Suki" and "Ai no Sono Touch My Heart," the first two Morning Musume songs I ever heard. It's got Zyx's "Fly High," one of the best non-MM videos from H!P. (I've since bought the "Fly High" Single-V, which has the fantastic Dance Shot version as well.) It's got Romans' "Sexy Night" video, which gives us five of H!P's sexiest girls, Rika Ishikawa, Mari Yaguchi, Mai Satoda, Hitomi Saito and Ayaka Kimura, all in lingerie dresses and bright red lipstick dancing and lounging around a spacious bedroom. Sexy night, indeed! Aa's "First Kiss" has the odd trio of Airi Suzuki, Miyabi Natsuyaki and Reina Tanaka, but it's a nice song and gave us our first real hint of Airi's awesome vocal potential. Morning Musume's "Shabondama" gave us our first video glimpse of 6th Gen. Minimoni is up to their delightful old tricks in "Kazoe Uta Bath Version"--Ai-chan, Nono and Aibon at their peak. The four gorgeous ladies of Melon Kinenbi offer one of their sexiest videos with "Chance of Love." Country Musume is joined by MM's Miki Fujimoto and Asami Konno for the disarmingly bouncy "Uwaki na Honey Pie." Aya Matsuura gives us four costume changes (including a bit in male drag) and a wild trip on a flying saucer in the rousing "Goodbye Natsuo." Rounding out the collection are a quartet of undistinguished videos featuring pleasant solos from Maki Goto and Yuki Maeda, a duet of Natsumi Abe with an older woman named Yosumi Keiko (playing her mother), and an awkward video of "Get Along with You" from Yuko Nakazawa. Not one of her best songs and given a low-contrast video look that's quite a strain on the eyes. (Why did Yuko, one of the best solo artists in all of Hello! Project and one of their greatest beauties, get consistently subjected to the worst video treatment?)