Review by Madara
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Uta Doki! - Pop Classics Vol.12V.A.Yossi and Rika "Get Wild"
While this isn't the best of the Uta Doki volumes I've seen (for one thing, it's only got 14 songs and a total of eight singers), it deserves special attention because it offers one of my favorite segments of the show and the one that prompted me to seek out the series in the first place. That would be a performance by Hitomi "Yossi" Yoshizawa and Rika Ishikawa of the anime theme song, "Get Wild," originally performed by T.M. Network for the series, "City Hunter." (It's also been covered by Nami Tamaki.) It's a fun song and Yossi and Rika really let loose with it, clearly having a ball. They are joined midway through the song by the segment's "D.J.," Ayaka Kimura, who's enjoying herself as well. I particularly like Rika's heartfelt delivery of the English lines, "It's your pain, it's my pain, it's somebody's pain" and "It's your dream, it's my dream, it's somebody's dream." Getting this DVD finally allowed me to stop watching this segment in the inferior quality displayed on YouTube. This volume features only four main singers, Natsumi Abe, Yuko Nakazawa, Yossi, and Risa Niigaki. Each of the four gets their own D.J., recruited from the ranks of other H!P performers. Each of the girls does at least one duet with another singer. Nacchi and Yuko each do multiple duets with male singer Hirofumi Banba. In the second major highlight of this volume, Banba and Yuko do a moving duet of Banba's one-time hit, "Sachiko." In addition to performing with Rika, Yossi does a duet with Ayumi Shibata from Melon Kinenbi. Risa does a duet with older female performer Yuki Hyodo who hugs Risa at the end of it and pats her on the head. Some of the numbers have live musical accompaniment. Some don't. This is the first Uta Doki volume I've seen with deejays introducing each performance. In addition to Ayaka deejaying for Yossi, the other deejays are Maimi Yajima from C-ute (for Nacchi), Risako Sugaya from Berryz (for Yuko) and Eri Kamei for fellow Morning Musume member Risa. Nacchi and Maimi have very nice rapport, although Risako can't seem to get Yuko to warm up to her. Eri is very professional, while Ayaka is an absolute delight. Yossi and Risa may not be the best solo singers in Hello! Project, but I enjoy seeing them stretch a bit and try something new. The great thing about a show like this is that it gives them that opportunity.
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Mitsuboshi [Regular Edition]Kirari Tsukishima starring Koharu KusumiKoharu's best album so far
Koharu Kusumi, the sole 7th Gen member of Morning Musume, has had three full-length solo albums as of this writing, and the first one, "Mitsuboshi," remains, by far, the best. For at least six tracks of the ten-track album, she's allowed to sing sweet, beautiful songs without distorting her voice to match that Kirari anime character who dominates her next two albums. Tracks 3, 5, 8, 9, and 10 are the best and display Koharu's strengths as a singer. Track 4 isn't bad, either. Tracks 1 and 2 consist of her first two singles, "Balalaika" and "Koi Kana," bouncy, catchy songs from her anime series that are nowhere near as annoying as her later singles would get. Tracks 6 and 7, "Spaghetti" and "Love da Yo Darling," are the ones that bothered me most here, the ones most like her later, insufferable anime songs. However, upon re-listening to them after listening to her later albums over again, I realize that she's not bad at all in these songs. It's the musical arrangement that's annoying, using all kinds of abrasive synth instrumentation to play up the "kiddie" aspect of the songs. In fact, the synth arrangements are annoying in most of the songs in this album, although not enough to ruin Koharu's singing in the better tracks. Only one song, track 10, "Sugao-flavor," had the kind of careful, low-key arrangement the song required. I believe Koharu has a lot of undeveloped potential as a singer and a star and I hope the Hello! Project management team allows her to grow up as a performer this year. (She'll be 17 in July!) Tsunku, are you listening? Is there anything YOU can do? Or have you forgotten all about the "Miracle Girl" already?
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Biyuden Single Best 9 Vol.1 Omaketsuki [w/ DVD, Limited Edition]BiyudenGreat album by one of H!P's best groups
This CD has, over time, become one of my favorite H!P albums outside of the Morning Musume ones. I don't know why it took me so long to get into Biyuden, but I didn't really embrace them until just about the time they disbanded in mid-2008. (This has been the history of my Hello! Project fandom: I become intensely attached to units and performers just after they disband or lose their best members or get expelled!) I'm a big fan of Rika Ishikawa and I've been pushing for a solo album from her for some time now. (She was already gone from MM when I signed on as a fan.) The great thing about the Biyuden albums is that I can actually hear all the Rika I want. She's the lead singer here and her two partners, Erika Miyoshi and Yui Okada, have just the right voices to complement hers. And when the three sing together the harmonizing is just so smooth. I like all ten songs on this album (five of them were on their previous album, "Suiteroom Number 1"). They've got nice melodies and are imbued with abundant spirit and exuberance. Even the slower ones. And Rika's English lines on "Kacchoii ze! Japan," "Welcome, welcome, welcome to my home," and "Welcome, welcome, welcome to my town," are particularly inviting. I just get a great feeling listening to this album. This is what great pop music should do. Hard to understand how Biyuden produced only two full-length albums in nearly four years. I want more. This edition of the CD comes with a DVD consisting of three different closeup versions of the video for "Aisu Kuriimu to My Purin," one with each of the members. Rika's is the one to watch. She plays it for all it's worth. Wow. "Aisu Kuriimu" indeed!
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Hello! Project Special Unit Mega Best [CD+DVD]Hello! ProjectSpecial Units - Some better than others
This is a CD/DVD collection of songs/videos done by H!P spin-off groups formed for one or two songs and designed to be short-lived, excluding the shuffle units which have their own Mega Best collection. It's a real mixed bag and I give it 4 stars only because it has three of the best H!P videos ever in it. Plus, it's got five videos devoted to different groups of H!P's greatest beauties. "All for One & One for All!" features the "H!P All Stars," meaning every girl who was performing in H!P at the end of 2004, and they come out in order of when they joined and engage in the most spectacular number ever devised by H!P. "Bokura ga Ikiru My Asia," is performed by Morning Musume Tanjou 10nen Kinentai, consisting of Natsumi Abe, Kaori Iida, Maki Goto, Risa Niigaki and Koharu Kusumi, a beautiful song meant to mark the 10th anniversary of the founding of Morning Musume. "Fly High," is performed by Zyx, consisting of Mari Yaguchi and five of the Hello! Project Kids, Erika Umeda, Saki Shimizu, Megumi Murakami, Maimi Yajima and Momoko Tsugunaga. It's one of the best H!P songs I've ever heard and it showcases four of the best of the Kids in the best thing they did before the Kids were split up into Berryz Kobo and C-ute. The "Great Beauties" units are: Gomattou, Romans, Nochiura Natsumi, Def.Diva, and Gam, with varying combos of the following ladies: Nacchi, Maki, Aya Matsuura, Miki Fujimoto, Rika Ishikawa, Mari, Mai Satoda, Hitomi Saito and Ayaka Kumura; The five featured in "My Asia" all belong in this category as well. Nacchi's in 7 out of the 16 featured videos, Maki's in 6, and Aya and Rika are each in 5. Not a bad tally. What's missing from this collection are the MM Otome Gumi and Sakura Gumi videos from 2003-4: "Sakura Mankai," "Yuujou~Kokoro no Busuniwa Naranee!," "Hare Ame Nochi Suki," and "Ai no sono ~ Touch My Heart!" The first two were included on Petit Best 5 while the last two were on the out-of-print Petit Best 4. There's no reason they couldn't have been included here. There are several weaker videos that could have been eliminated to make room for them, including the two "eco"-themed numbers by EcoMoni and Tomoiki Ki wo Uetai. Those are stage pieces, not videos, so they shouldn't have been here anyway. Some of the songs are better to watch, while others are better to listen to. Some are just as enjoyable either way. Lucky we get both the CD and the DVD.
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Kirari to Fuyu [w/ DVD, Limited Edition]Kirari Tsukishima starring Koharu KusumiKoharu's 3rd album--better than her 2nd
Koharu's first album, "Mitsuboshi," is still the best solo work she's ever done. The second, "Kirarin Land," was extremely painful to listen to (aside, that is, from the duets with C-ute's Mai Hagiwara). This third album, "Kirari to Fuyu," has some annoying tracks, but it doesn't make you feel totally stupid for being a Koharu fan. And some of those annoying tracks, like "Papancake," have begun to grow on me with each listen. (I'm still resistant, however, to the dog sounds Koharu makes in "Puppy Love.") The best tracks are the four Koharu does as part of the trio, Milky Way, in which she's joined by Sayaka Kitahara and Yuu Kikkawa, both of whom bring some welcome charm and vocal power to the album. Track 2, the fast-stepping "Anataboshi," is especially delightful. Milky Way is seen in four of the six videos included on the DVD that comes with the album. One of the videos offers a cartoon representation of the girls as seen on the anime show, "Kirarin Revolution," that uses their voices (and the source of most, if not all, of the songs included on Koharu's albums). However, Milky Way is not credited on the DVD case, other than in tiny letters on the track list. Nor do we see Sayaka or Yuu pictured anywhere, not even in the little booklet included with the CD. Only Koharu's pictures are seen. That's not cool. If I was managing Sayaka or Yuu, I'd be mighty angry. Koharu's best solo track on the album is #6: "Mass Colorful," which offers some interesting arrangments employing Spanish guitar. It's a haunting melody and should have been sung a little slower and less perky, but I still can't get it out of my head. And I believe Koharu is fully capable of singing it the way it should have been sung. She has much more of a vocal range than these songs allow her to show and I wish they'd let her grow up on these albums and perform like a real singer and the great talent she truly is.
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Cute Concert Tour 2008 Natsu - Wasuretaku nai NatsuCuteThe C-ute girls tap up a storm!
This is probably the best C-ute concert I've yet seen. At 110 minutes long, it features most of their best material and some of the best dancing I've seen them do. It's a high-energy performance from start to finish, with only a few breaks for short skits, with one performed entirely in English! The girls have five costume changes--all gorgeous--and they perform on a good-sized stage with lighting that's bright and even for the most part, although the lighting director indulges in a few distracting tricks early on, like using pink and red lighting on the girls which makes them near invisible when they've got pink or red costumes on. (Just for that I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5.) The clear highlight is a tap routine performed by the girls in Chapter 12, a song with "Enjoy Girls" in the title. Maimi and Airi each get tap solos, but the best parts are the group tap shots. The camera occasionally cuts to their faces, so we miss some of the tap steps, but it could have been worse. Other highlights: performances of their latest singles right at the beginning, including "Edo no Temari Uta II"; Airi's solo number; Airi's duet with Maimi; and Maimi's solo. However, Maimi does an even better solo at another performance, as seen in the DVD's extra footage. (I don't know the name of the song.) I wish they'd included that one in the concert proper. (Another reason for 4 stars instead of 5.) Also, a song performed in a different finale as seen in the extra footage is better than the ones they sing in the concert finale we do see. The backstage footage in general is pretty great, particularly the tap rehearsal. A non-singing highlight for fans who don't understand Japanese is found in Chapter 9 with a skit featuring Kanna and the two most adorable performers in Hello! Project, Mai Mai and Chisato, speaking entirely in English!
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Cute Cutie Circuit 2008 - September 10 wa Cute no Hi -CuteStick with it for the second half
This is an odd C-ute concert. It's shorter than usual (under 90 minutes) and it's shot on a small, narrow, cluttered stage, with dark, erratic lighting that does the girls no favors (e.g. red lighting on red costumes, which means you can't see the girls!). Huge speakers block some of the camera angles, making the dance routines hard to see in some shots. There is only one costume change (unlike the five they had in the summer 2008 concert) and it comes right at the half-way point. But it greatly improves the concert. The bulky, unattractive red plaid outfits worn in the first half of the concert give way to these really snazzy white-and-red sequined numbers with white boots that get the girls motivated to cut loose in the second half (about 45 minutes) with one dynamite fast-paced number after another, including some of my favorite C-ute songs, such as "Edo no Temari Uta II," "Namida no Iro," and "Jump." Preceding the good set, which starts at Chapter 11, is a very cute skit at Chapter 10 with Mai Mai appearing as "DJ Mai Mai" ("Check it out, check it out") and joined by Chisato and Airi in trying to do covers of older songs, such as "Morning Coffee" and "Fly High." For future viewings, I'll just skip to Chapter 10 and watch the concert from that point. The first half is saddled with weaker material, the wrong outfits, long skits that slow things down, and bad lighting, while the second half is easily one of the best things they've ever done, almost on a par with the C-ute concert from summer 2008, "Wasuretaku nai Natsu," also reviewed here. This DVD comes with no extras except for an alternate audio track featuring the girls commenting on the concert themselves. If you don't understand Japanese (and I don't), you can just enjoy hearing the girls laugh at themselves and try to pick out who's doing most of the talking. (I hear a lot of Chisato.)
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Berryz Kobo Concert Tour 2008 Aki -Berikore!-Berryz KoboThe Berryz girls put on a great show
Berryz Kobo is rapidly becoming the most accomplished and consistently high-profile unit within Hello! Project. For evidence, just check out this latest concert of theirs, taped in October 2008 at the Nakano Sunplaza. The girls come out and sing and dance at a furious pace for 100 solid minutes. They've been working together for over five years at this point (longer than most of the current lineup of Morning Musume) and they've become quite a confident, finely-tuned team of performers. Everybody contributes and carries the weight equally. They're just a total delight to watch from start to finish. The songs are generally pleasant and upbeat, reminding me of the best qualities of old American rock 'n' roll, from an era when pop music was intended to make you feel good. The highlight for me was a duet, "Ah Merry-Go-Round," performed by the two top talents in the group, Saki Shimizu and Momoko Tsugunaga. It's a beautiful, gentle song that is sung with great feeling. Later, Risako Sugaya does a solo (the only girl in the group to sing solo in this concert) of a song called "Real Love," and while I think others in the group have better voices, she does such a fine job with a highly dramatic number that I was pleasantly surprised. Her solo is followed by another soft song, "Koi Shiteru Toki wa Itsumo...," in which she's joined by four of the others, with Saki and Momoko teaming up to hit the high notes. Nice. Highly recommended.
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Morning Musume CONCERT TOUR 2003 SPRING "NON STOP!"Morning MusumeA happy discovery...
It's always a pleasant surprise to discover another great Morning Musume concert from the group's "golden age." In this one, from Spring 2003, the twelve girls are still at their peak and function as a finely-tuned performing unit, maintaining a high-energy level throughout the two-hour concert and never hitting a false note. They also have a stage that gives them abundant freedom of movement. MM is in 90% of the concert, with the rest given over to one song each from Pucchimoni, Minimoni, Country Musume and Coconuts Musume. (Rika is part of Country M, so Coconuts is the only act here that has no MM members.) MM sings several songs that are not often heard at these concerts, so for me there was a lot of fresh material. And the old favorites are beautifully handled: this concert contains what is probably the group's last great rendition of "Love Machine." The last 40 minutes are devoted to Kei Yasuda's graduation and the introduction of the four new 6th Gen girls. For five years, Kei was one of the group's mainstays and she gets a worthy send-off. However, the carefully balanced group dynamic was disrupted by the introduction of the three young and inexperienced members of 6th Gen (not counting Miki, who'd been with H!P for almost 2 years by then) and things would never be the same again. The "golden age" was over.
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Uta Doki! - Pop Classics Vol.3Hello! ProjectAnother fine collection of classic songs
Uta Doki! Pop Classics Vol. 3 is almost as good as Vol. 4, which I've also reviewed here. There's one great song after another, one great performer after another. The best thing here is the presence of Maki Goto doing five songs, all of them winners, including a cover of Momoe Yamaguchi's "Playback, Pt. 2." The next best is Aya Matsuura doing three songs, including rocking out with an Ann Lewis cover. The weekly themes covered in this volume are: Growing Up, Young Blood, Anime, Rock, and Farewell. Highlights include Melon Kinenbi doing the Galaxy Express 999 theme song, Mai Satoda and Atsuko Inaba doing the Sailor Moon song, Mari Yaguchi doing the title song from Nausicaa, Mari and Kei Yasuda having a blast with "Y.M.C.A.," Mai doing a rock song, "Train Train," and Nacchi and Tsunku teaming up for a very nice duet. Tsunku's bandmates, Taisei, Hatake, and Makoto provide live music in several numbers and have a great time. Also featured are Yuko Nakazawa, Kaori Iida, Ayaka Kimura, Yuki Maeda, Miki Hirayama, Akira Inaba and, in a duet with Maki, Gen Takayama. Does it get better than this? Well yeah, but not very often.
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Uta Doki! - Pop Classics Vol.4Hello! ProjectAmong the best of the Uta Doki DVDs
Of the five Uta Doki! Pop Classics volumes I own, Vol. 4 is easily the best. It has the greatest variety of singers (27 in total), a stunning array of song styles (26 numbers) and notable male performers from earlier eras of Japanese music. Included are six numbers taped outside the studio at a special Morning Musume "Secret Festa" concert where we get to see eleven H!P performers not seen in the rest of the volume performing in different combinations. This section of the DVD includes solos by Ai Takahashi covering Yumi Arai and Miki Fujimoto covering Momoe Yamaguchi, both of which just happen to be the only songs on this volume that I'd heard before. Other highlights: Maki Goto sings 3 songs, including a stirring duet with singer/guitarist Sugita Jirou; Yuko Nakazawa performs a great solo of "Momoiro Toiki"; at Secret Festa, the remaining three members of 4th Gen, Yossi, Rika and Nono, perform a number together; plus Nono gets a solo of her own. Also, Melon Kinenbi and Country Musume are seen in two numbers each and they seem to be having a ball. Also represented: Aya Matsuura, Kei Yasuda, Mari Yaguchi, Yuki Maeda, Kaori Iida, and Natsumi Abe, among others.
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Petit Best (Pucchi Best) 4Hello! ProjectHello! Project's Greatest Hits of 2003
Petit Best 4 is easily one of the best in the entire Petit Best series. Nearly every song on it is a winner. Too bad it's out of print. I found my copy in the used CD bin of a Japanese bookstore in my city. But where am I going to find the DVD version, which is also out of print? My collection is not complete without the videos from the Otome Gumi and Sakura Gumi units that year. ("Hey, every time, I'm so proud OF you!") Or those from the short-lived groups, Aa, Zyx and Romans? Or the somewhat longer-lived Minimoni. Or Yuki's "Tokyo Kirigirisu," Yuko's "Get Along with You," Country Musume's "Uwaki na Honey Pie," and Melon Kinenbi's "Chance of Love." You get the idea. The CD has the three wonderful songs from the 2003 Shuffle Units (7Air's "Kowarenai Ai ga Hoshii no," Salt5's "Get Up! Rapper," and 11Water's "Be All Right!"), while the DVD doesn't. (Where ARE the videos to those songs?)
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HAROPURO On Stage! 2007 Rock Desuyo!Maki Goto, Melon KinenbiMaki and the MK girls at their peak!
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.
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Hello! Project 2004 Winter - C'MON! Dance WorldHello! ProjectThe one that got me started as a fan...
This was the first Hello! Project concert I ever saw and it gave my very first glimpse of Morning Musume. That was on August 29, 2005, exactly three years ago today. I was hooked within the first few minutes of the opening act, which started with MM Otome Gumi's rousing "Ai no Sono - Touch My Heart," and I've been a fan ever since. I go back to this concert regularly and, after seeing dozens of MM/H!P concerts since, I still consider this one of the best I've ever seen. There isn't a false note in the entire 137-minute show nor even one bad song. And the costumes are fantastic throughout. Everyone's in top form here, especially Morning Musume, which gets the lion's share of the concert time (probably the last time that would happen in a Hello! Project winter concert) and performs some of their best numbers. Everyone else on hand is great, too, including Aya Matsuura, Maki Goto, Yuko Nakazawa, Minimoni, Country Musume, Melon Kinenbi, etc., and even the Hello! Project Kids. Finally, there's Nacchi's graduation ceremony, which is quite an emotional spectacle. Does it get better than this? No.
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Morning Musume Concert Tour 2008 Haru - Single Dai Zensyuu!!Morning MusumeCurrent MM lineup just doesn't cut it
This is the first Morning Musume concert DVD I've seen since before Yossi and Miki left in 2007 and it's the biggest disappointment I've experienced since becoming an MM fan three years ago. The current lineup just can't sustain a high-energy show for two hours. Without the strong personalities that marked the group in past years, they just seem to be going through the motions. No wonder they're rapidly being eclipsed by Berryz and C-ute. To make matters worse, some genius decided to have them do all 36 Morning Musume singles here, from the very first hit, "Morning Coffee," to the latest, "Resonant Blue." That's too much heavy lifting for this lineup and they botch most of the older classics. As the two top performers in this bunch, Ai-chan and Risa try their hardest, but they were at their best when surrounded by dynamic personalities like Nacchi, Mari, Rika, Yossi and Miki. There's nobody like that left. Koharu is the only one who displays any air of excitement at all, but she always acts like she's dancing to her own tune anyway. And, of course, the camera keeps cutting away from her whenever she gets a line or starts to do anything interesting. It's all very frustrating.
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Berryz Kobo & Cute Nakayoshi Battle Concert Tour 2008 Haru - Berryz Kamen vs Cutie Ranger - with Cute TracksCuteHigh energy show with 2 top H!P acts
This is one of the best Hello! Project concerts I've ever seen. The girls of Berryz and C-ute have been training, rehearsing and performing together for five solid years and the hard work shows in the smoothness of the show and the high confidence of the girls. The songs are all well chosen and the right costumes picked out. The placement of the girls in each number gives us a chance to see Berryz and C-ute perform together, separately, and mixed and matched in different groupings. And it all works. Saki Shimizu, the Berryz captain, shines the brightest of all the stars here. She's quite a powerhouse of a performer and arguably the best dancer in H!P after Ai Takahashi. She does a wonderful number with Maimi Yajima and Saki Nakajima (the second best dancer in this concert) and my only complaint is that the camera kept cutting away from one girl to the other, so we missed a lot of good dancing. In cases like this, the camera should simply set up a three-shot with all the girls in frame and stay on them for the whole number. Also, as a fan of Sentai (Power Rangers) shows, I greatly enjoyed the sentai parodies in this concert and the cute costumes designed for them.
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Hello! Project 2003 Winter - Tanoshinjatte masuHello! ProjectGreat H!P concert from MM's peak period
This concert is from that golden era when Hello! Project's top acts dominated its concerts. Here that means Morning Musume, Aya Matsuura and Maki Goto, all doing great sets, especially MM, which does five songs, including the best renditions I've yet seen of "Koko ni Iruzee" and "Do It! Now." This was when Nacchi, Kaori, Mari, Kei, Rika, Aibon and Nono were all still in the group, along with 5th Gen but before 6th Gen. There are plenty of other acts, including new formations of Tanpopo and Pucchimoni, as well as Melon Kinenbi, Country Musume, and the star trio of Aya, Maki, and Miki Fujimoto (when she was still a solo act) performing as Gomattou (in addition to their own solo sets). Also, the H!P Kids are there, newly arrived and before they became Berryz and C-ute, so they're used sparingly and don't get underfoot the way they do in later concerts. Plus, there's a steady stream of dazzling costume changes throughout. All in all, one of the best H!P concerts I've yet seen.
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W (Double You) no Sekai Vol.1W (Double You)Aibon and Nono in six great W videos
This DVD contains six videos by W, the duo comprised of former Morning Musume members Ai "Aibon" Kago and Nozomi "Nono" Tsuji. Five of them are covers of songs originally done by earlier female duos of J-pop. The sixth is a song performed on the soundtrack of the long running "Doraemon" animated TV series. All the videos are delightful, but four stand out as sublime entertainments for true fans of Aibon and Nono. "Koi no Vacance" allows the girls to dance, pose in extreme closeup, wear plaid skirts and knee socks, and just be adorable. "Samishii Nettaigyo" gives them their coolest outfits yet--full-length silver satin trenchcoats--and some great dance steps. The song is a real treat, too. "Shiroi Iro wa Koibito no Iro" is just a sweet, gentle, melodic song and the girls harmonize on it with a vocal skill that may surprise some of you. The video's imagery is just simple shots of them dressed in white, sitting outdoors singing. Lovely. Best of all is "Aa Ii Na," in which they get to be their funny playful selves again and march jauntily through a CGI-created background of jungles, ancient ruins, major cities, world landmarks and outer space, joined by Berryz Koubo for two verses.
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HAROPURO PARTY! 2006 - Maki Goto Captain KoenMaki GotoRika and Nono stand out in 5-girl show
Hello! Project put together some marvelous small-scale concerts on occasion and the best ones I've seen so far are the Hello Pro Party Concerts, one in 2005 with Aya Matsuura joined by W and Melon Kinenbi, and this one, from 2006, with Maki Goto, Nozomi "Nono" Tsuji, and V-u-den (Rika Ishikawa, Erika Miyoshi, Yui Okada). Maki may be the headliner here, but Rika and Nono steal the show, setting the pace for the others and keeping things going at a fast-and-furious clip when they're on stage. Rika displays a fierce performing style that's way more intense than anything I saw when she was in Morning Musume. Nono gets to shine on her own and show off her versatility in a way she's almost never had the opportunity to display over the years. Erika and Yui are better than anything I've seen them in before this. Maki is a wonderful singer, as always, but her performing style is better suited to her more intimate solo shows and she tends to get slightly overwhelmed by Rika and Nono at times, in contrast to the way that Aya adapted so skillfully to Aibon and Nono's antics and matched their energy in her Hello Pro Party a year earlier. Still highly recommended, esp. to fans of Nono and Rika.
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Single V: Joshi Kashimashi MonogatariMorning MusumeA great Morning Musume video
This is one of the greatest MM videos ever (and arguably their last great one), giving every girl a chance to shine as each gets a verse devoted to her sung by all the rest of the 14-member lineup at the time. They all get to fool around and make cute and funny faces, as well as participate in a full-fledged dance number shot in a subway car. This DVD includes a second version of the video, called the "Panic Train" version, which is basically a Dance Shot Version showing the choreographed number in its full glory with the girls dancing together in attractive costumes, shot in two takes on a stationary train. There's also a delightful "Making of" segment that shows both shoots, the one on the moving train and the one in the stationary train at night, and includes some delightful Aibon and Nono antics. The two videos run for a total of 12 minutes, while the "Making of" runs nine minutes. I think it's safe to say you get your money's worth.