Morning Musume. Tanjo 10 Nen Kinentai Concert Tour 2007 Natsu Thank You My Dearest

This is a wonderful concert performed in the summer of 2007 by the five-woman unit, Morning Musume Tanjo 10nen Kinentai, formed to mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of Morning Musume and consisting of MM graduates Kaori Iida, Natsumi Abe, and Maki Goto, and current MM members Risa Niigaki and Koharu Kusumi. So we have five of the greatest beauties in Hello! Project and three of the greatest voices (Maki, Nacchi, Kaori). They sing both of the singles this unit released, "Bokura ga Ikiru My Asia" and "Itoshiki Tomo e," as well as 20 other songs, more than half of them from the earliest days of the Morning Musume songbook, including "Mirai no Tobira," "Daite Hold on Me," and "Happy Summer Wedding." Each of the girls gets their own solo as well. The girls look fantastic, the costumes are dazzling, the songs fit them well and the singing is sweet. Koharu is as spirited as ever, but the presence of the older girls seems to keep her from getting too aggressive. And her solo is live, not lip-sync'd (yaaayyy!!!). There are comparatively few high-energy numbers ("Love Machine" is one of them--another Yaaay!), but with a group like this, their sheer charisma more than makes up for it. Besides, I like the slower, gentle numbers anyway. Kaori was pregnant at the time (surely a Hello! Project first), so her participation in the concert is limited to a few numbers, including a beautiful solo. But when she's onstage, her beauty, elegance, grace, and class shine out on us. This is especially poignant in light of the tragedy that would befall her baby in July 2008. (A tragedy we only learned about in late November.) If I have any serious complaint with the DVD presentation--and one that's enough to deduct a star off the rating--it's the camerawork. You'd think that with five girls or fewer at any time onstage the camera crew would know how to line up a medium shot so that we could see all the girls together, especially during the crucial dance numbers. No such luck. We get close-ups that are way too close (we'd like to SEE the girls AND their costumes, thank you) and long shots that are way too long. And the switching (cutting back and forth between camera angles) is much too fast. When one of the five is singing a solo verse, is it too much to ask the director to keep one camera on her until she's finished? In any event, the concert is still highly recommended.