Review by Madara
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Buono! Live Tour 2010 -Rock'n Buono! 3-Buono!3rd Buono concert DVD is a winner!
Buono! Live Tour 2010 ~Rock 'n Buono! 3~ is the third concert DVD from Buono and it's quite a good one. It's better than the second concert although not as inspired as the first one, "Live Hybrid Punch" (2009)--but then it's doubtful anything could be as inspired as that one. Except for one serious omission, which I'll get to in a minute, this set list is filled with wonderful songs (21 in all, with two more as a bonus feature). There isn't a slow moment or a false note anywhere. The girls have an energy level that's hard to match anywhere else in Hello! Project and it only gets pumped up even more at the 48-minute mark when the four-woman rock band, Dolce, comes out and joins them onstage. Two of the women rockers performed at both previous concerts, while the bassist and the drummer are new. The women seem to really enjoy performing for Buono and the three Buono girls get new energy when the rockers come on stage, as was the case at their previous concerts. The girls all look great and are well photographed throughout. There are five costume changes, all nice, but the most attractive are the satiny Union Jack dresses they wear when the rock band comes out. The highlights for me were "My Boy" (which was missing from the previous concert) and "Independent Girl." I like the slower numbers, too, including "Over the Rainbow," "Kimi ga Ireba," and "Blue-Sky-Blue." My only complaint is that my favorite Buono song, "Co.No.Mi.Chi," is not in the concert. For that reason and that reason alone, I'm giving this four stars instead of five. It should have been in here. (And it should have been on their "Best Buono" CD album also, but it isn't.) There's a "VTR" segment in the middle of the concert that shows the girls on vacation somewhere and they go to an amusement park and ride in cars that are called "go-karts," but look more like bumper cars to me. It's a six-minute segment. However, there's a 33-min. DVD extra that shows the same footage plus a lot more, including segments devoted to ping pong and dart-throwing. While it's great fun to watch Momoko vamp no matter where she is, the ping pong and darts segments are just about long enough to overstay their welcome. And I never did figure out where they went. There are two extra songs also, "Shoushitsuten - Vanishing Point" and "I Need You." Nice enough to make us want more songs instead of the vacation footage.
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Petit Best (Pucchi Best) 11Hello! Project15 fun music videos from Hello! Project
There are no great songs in this collection, but no bad ones either and the videos are, at least, all pretty much fun to watch. The highlights, of course, are the Berryz Kobo and C-ute videos, esp. BK's "Maji Bomber!!" and C-ute's "Dance de Bakon!" These girls are all at the peak of their powers and anything they do with lots of dancing is a winner. The Morning Musume girls are at their most glamorous in "Onna ga Medatte Naze Ikenai" and the PV is full of gorgeous closeups (esp. Risa!). MM's "Seishun Collection" is the catchiest song of the bunch and the video is pleasant even if the choreography is unimaginative. Erina Mano sings a nice song, "Onegai Dakara..." but the video is filled with awfully distracting backstage footage of her clowning around in different costumes. Her other video, "Genkimono de Ikou!" looks like a commercial for some kind of energy drink and features a boatload of actors playing ad agency types. I didn't get it. The four girls of S/mileage prove to be delightful performers in their two videos. They each do some Charlie Chaplin schtick in "Yumemiru Fifteen" and in the second one, "Bijin Mama," they have some attractive costume changes. The guest star in "Bijin Mama" is none other than former MM member Nozomi "Nono" Tsuji. What a thrill to see her again in one of these collections. (As I write this, she's in a hospital in Japan nursing her brand-new baby who was born December 26.) There are three anime-themed videos and two of them feature clips from their shows. The Guardians 4 (Aika, Yurina, Saki N., and Risako) sing "Going On!" from "Shugo Chara! Party!" And, as Lilpri, three of the four girls from S/mileage, Yuuka, Kanon, and Ayaka, sing the theme song from "Lilpri" (short for "Little Princess"), with anime clips included. Anime clips are necessary so we can know the sources of these videos and compare the girls with their anime counterparts. Lilpri has a second video, "Idolulu," with no anime clips, but the three are so awesomely cute and perky in their anime costumes that I was pleased anyway. The DVD closes with a solo song from BK's Risako Sugaya, "Elegant Girl." I want more solos from this girl. In fact, I want a whole album. Other than the silent cameo from Nono, there are no Elder Club members on this DVD. There are 15 tracks, but only nine of them are on the CD version, which has another four tracks that are not on this DVD.
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Hello! Project 2010 SUMMER -Fankora-Hello! ProjectStreamlined H!P Summer Concert
The Hello! Project Summer 2010 Concert, aka "Fankora," is notable for relying on songs chosen by fans. Not necessarily a good thing, but hard to judge given that there were nine different set lists for this tour, thanks to nine shows, with a slightly different set list for each. The concert DVD gives us the last one, the evening performance at Nakano Sunplaza on Aug. 8. In looking over the other set lists, I see many numbers that I would love to have seen on the DVD. The one extra on this disc contains four additional numbers from another concert (a total of 10 min.). I would have liked a whole lot more. I don't understand why they couldn't have included a full hour of additional numbers, since they did at least 12 numbers in every concert that were unique to that concert. I understand that the Blu-ray release of this concert offers 22 additional numbers. (Time to spring for a Blu-ray player.) Past H!P summer concerts offered much greater range and far more surprises. And, before 2009, many more acts. In this one, Morning Musume, Berryz Kobo, C-ute, Erina Mano and S/mileage all have equal parity. Each act gets four numbers--two recent singles and two from the repertoire. The H!P Eggs offer backup. There are only two special units in the concert itself (High-King and Zoku v-u-den) and more in the extra, where we actually get a Buono number (Yaaaay!). The songs are not always the best, but they do tend to play to the girls' performing strengths. And that's where this concert truly shines. These girls are all at their peak and they make every number a delight. There wasn't a false note or slow moment anywhere. Berryz and C-ute are arguably the two best acts in H!P right now and every number they do is gold. S/mileage has gotten so much better and prove to be thoroughly delightful and charming performers. Mano has gotten much more confident and matches everyone else's energy level. MM does a fun redo of a classic number ("Koko ni Iruzee!") in which only two of the current lineup originally appeared and they make it their own. There are seven MC segments, which can sometimes slow things down. In the first one, co-MC Hitomi Yoshizawa, from MM's 4th Gen, makes the stunning announcement that three members of MM--Eri, JunJun and LinLin--will be graduating in December. Did I really need to see tears so early in the concert? Why not wait till the last act to announce it?
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Morning Musume. Concert Tour 2010 Spring - Pika Pika! -Morning Musume1st MM concert in 5 years without Koharu
I gave this concert a rave review on my blog, but in watching it again for this review, I'm beginning to question its replay value. Maybe it's because I've since learned that three of the members will be graduating this December--Eri, JunJun and LinLin. Which saddens me. And maybe it's because I really do miss Koharu after all. (She graduated in Dec. '09.) I think the girls perform seamlessly without her, a finely-tuned, well-oiled performing unit, yet I miss that element of unpredictability Koharu brought, that sense of being just a little out of sync with everybody else. Also, I've recently re-watched Berryz Kobo's Spring 2009 concert and C-ute's Spring 2010 concert, the two best concerts I've seen from those groups. Everyone's so distinct from each other there, just like Morning Musume used to be when Mari and 4th Gen were in it. There's a level of excitement in BK and C-ute that I don't get anymore from MM. There are some enjoyable songs here, including the handful of recent MM singles that I like ("Kimagure Princess," "Nanchatte Renai," "Shouganai Yume Oibito," "Mikan"), and a handful that were unfamiliar to me (e.g. "Genki Pikappika!") but, overall, few of the songs are really that distinguished. Where are "Sexy Boy," "Ambitious," and "Egao Yes Nude"? Berryz Kobo gets better songs these days. MM does a medley here that includes a song they should have done in its entirety, "Kanashimi Twilight." The medley offers such classic MM songs as "Love Machine," "The Peace," "Koi no Dance Site" and "Koko ni Iruzee," all of which only serve to remind me how much better they were done in MM's classic era. Also, this concert has been shot with that "film" look that I normally see in Avex concerts, as opposed to the video look that's a standard feature of Hello! Project concerts. The film look filters what we see, so that we don't get the immediacy of video and don't really see the girls that clearly. In video closeups you can practically see their skin pores. In "film" closeups, the faces are softened and, at least in this concert, considerably paler than usual. I don't like it. I like the sense of "being there" that we get from the video look. I like to see the sweat. There are no solos. The three separate generations (5th, 6th, 8th) each get their own number. The one DVD extra is a five-minute 6th Gen MC segment that's different from the one we see in the concert.
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Berryz Kobo Concert Tour 2009 Haru - Sono Subete no Ai ni -Berryz KoboThe best Berryz Kobo concert ever?
I've been watching Berryz Kobo concerts for years now and the girls just keep getting better and better. This one, from Spring 2009, just might be their very best. The girls are in peak form, the songs are delightful, the costumes are beautiful, the pace is fast, the energy level is high and...the best thing about it may simply be the fact that for once the camera crew and video director get it right from start to finish. The camerawork, editing and lighting are as close to flawless as I've ever noted in one of these. You can SEE the girls and the camera keeps them in sight, favoring compositions that allow us to watch them dance together without the extreme closeups and quick cutaways that ruin so many other H!P concert DVDs, esp. the ones featuring C-ute. I nominate this concert DVD as the single most important training tool to give to any and all crew members working on Hello! Project concerts. There are 23 songs in the 113-minute concert and it opens with one of my favorites, "Dakishimete Dakishimete." Even when the songs here aren't among my favorites (e.g. "Yuke Yuke Monkey Dance" and "Rival"), they're solid performance pieces and the girls make them all enjoyable. Just as in the Fall 2009 BK concert, where they did "Dschinghis Khan" a cappella, with Risako singing lead and the other girls providing vocal and "beatbox" back-up, there's a similar number here, with Momoko taking the lead. Risako gets a solo, always a good thing in my book, and Saki and Momo do their album duet of "Ah Merry-go-round." There are also duets featuring Saki and Miyabi; Momo and Yurina; and Maasa and Chinami. So everyone's taken care of. While the two strongest singers, Risako and Miyabi, get a higher proportion of solo lines in many of the songs, everyone else gets a lot of them also. No one's left out. Everyone fully participates. This is in contrast with some of the older C-ute concerts, where Maimi and Airi always dominated, leaving the others to serve as glorified back-up. (Fortunately, this has changed with the Spring 2010 C-ute concert, which I've also reviewed here.) There isn't a weak link in the group nor a weak spot in the show. It all ends on a softer note than usual with the title song, "Sono Subete no Ai ni," but it's the perfect way to close such a high-energy show. There are no extras on the DVD, not even any "Making of" footage. Too bad. I miss it.
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Cute Concert Tour 2010 Spring - Shocking Live -CuteC-ute Spring Concert their best so far
C-ute is now down to its five strongest members and this is the first concert DVD with the new grouping. And it's a great one, arguably their best concert performance ever. The numbers are lively and the dancing is energetic. While singing and dancing skills vary from one girl to the next, their ability to work together to get out there and entertain us and put on a great show is never in doubt. There are six costume changes, all markedly different from each other and all beautiful. In the third one, they come out in men's suits and ties, looking as cool as can be, especially Mai. They even introduce themselves with male names. (Chisato, in English: "Hello, my name is James," Mai in Chinese: "Nihao, Jackie dai yu!") Each of the five girls gets a solo, the first C-ute concert I've seen where this happens. I enjoyed each of them. Maimi's "Lonely Girl's Night" is the best, of course, and was performed on the Shocking5 album. Chisato and Mai do a great job with familiar songs from the C-ute repertoire. I had a slight problem, though, with the choice of songs for both Airi and Saki. Airi has two solos on the album. "Zansho Omimai Moushiagemasu" would have been better suited for this concert, but she does "Aa Koi" instead, which is difficult for her live because it has instrumental passages that require her to dance during them and she's simply not that good a dancer on her own. The song they give Saki, "Aishiteru Aishiteru," has too many difficult notes and she doesn't always hit them. Saki is the group's best dancer and would have nailed the dance parts of "Aa Koi," while Airi, still the group's best singer, would have nailed the difficult notes in the other song. Despite this minor quibble, I enjoyed them both anyway. Airi and Maimi do a great duet together (in their men's suits) of a song called "Image Color." The other three, Saki, Chisato and Mai, do two trios together, including a delightful song from the album, "Kimi no Senpou." There are 8 songs from the Shocking 5 album performed in the concert, plus another 15 to make 23 total. Chisato and Mai give breakout performances here and are rapidly becoming stars in their own right. If I have a serious complaint, it's that the DVD crew continually ruins our view of the dance routines, with frequent cuts to closeups or extreme long shots, when what we REALLY need is a steady, clear view of the girls' dancing!
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We are Buono! Buono! Live Tour 2010Buono!Starts off slow, but picks up pace
"We Are Buono Live Tour 2010" is Buono's second concert to be released on DVD (after last year's "Live 2009 Hybrid Punch"). For some reason, it just didn't click for me until the 47-minute mark when the live musicians come out and join them on stage. These are the same four female rockers who joined them at last year's concert (Junko Sugawara on lead guitar, Satomi Kikuchi on bass, Eji on keyboard, and Cheeta on drums). These musicians really pump up the Buono girls, who then perform a solid 71 minutes thereafter. Even so, something was missing. At least year's concert there were surprises and fun bits throughout, like Momo's "presidential" rally. They also had a stage with platforms that allowed them to run around the sides of the auditorium and enable more movement. Also, the costumes were much better last year. Here, there was only one costume change I liked. At the 78-minute mark, they pull off their silver plaid dresses (onstage) to reveal sexy tiger-print shorts and tank tops for the song, "Lady Panther." They've even got "tails" that they twirl around. They seem more "liberated" in the three songs they do in these outfits. In contrast, for their opening numbers they wear these heavy pink dresses with long bulky sleeves and petticoats and they really look weighed down. And for the encore, they come out in red plaid coveralls, which also weigh them down. My point here is not that I want to see more of the girls' skin, it's that I want them to be more COMFORTABLE. They perform better that way. At last year's concert, the costume changes were consistently beautiful and didn't burden the girls with a lot of extra fabric. Also, at this concert they don't perform either of my two favorite Buono songs, "My Boy" and "Co.no.mi.chi." Their omission is puzzling to me and contributes to the reduced star rating. At one point, there's a pre-recorded video segment showing the girls at "Buono Station," a radio broadcast booth where they talk among themselves and eat some kind of noodles dipped in tea or sauce. Well, the 2nd disc in this set offers 49 minutes of "Buono Station" segments, including the part shown during the concert. No subtitles, of course. This is followed by a paltry 8 minutes of backstage and rehearsal footage. Another Hello! Project group, S/mileage, is seen backstage with them at one point, but they never appear on the concert disc. I wonder why.
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Single V: Kowarenai Ai ga Hoshiino / Get Up ! Rapper / Be All Right !7AIR/SALT5/11WATER3 great videos and 'Making of' footage
2003 gave us the greatest Hello! Project shuffle units ever and two of the three or four greatest shuffle unit songs ("Kowarenai..." and "Get Up! Rapper"). The videos are pretty spectacular too, although I do enjoy the live performances of these songs that we saw at the Hello! Project 2003 Summer "Yosha Bikkuri Summer!" Concert. I love the mix of performers here, with Atsuko Inaba, Mika Todd, Masae Ohtani and Mai Satoda joining Morning Musume's Rika, Ai-chan and Risa in 7Air and the memorable team-up of Nacchi, Aibon, Aya Matsuura, Makoto Ogawa and Yuki Maeda in Salt5 at a time when Nacchi and Aibon were both still in MM. It's a rare opportunity to see Yuki Maeda perform so far out of her Enka comfort zone, especially since it's such a heavily hiphop-infused song and dance number. And then we've got 11Water with eleven delightful performers, including some of H!P's greatest beauties at the time although, being biased, I consider them ALL beautiful. The 11 wear attractive red outfits, some in cute caps and most with black boots. The videos are great but the real thrill of this DVD is the addition of 30 minutes of "Making of" footage, with ten minutes devoted to each unit. Since they all shot their videos on the same day and at the same place, there is some interaction between the different units. So we get to see Aya and Miki together three years before GAM and at one point we see a trio consisting of one girl from each unit, Kaori, Rika and Aibon. Sometimes, the person behind the camera is one of the girls. (We hear Aibon's voice addressing her subjects at one point.) A running gag involves many of them imitating Aya's intro, "Matsuura Aya desu!" We get to see extended glimpses of Yuki, who's never seen much in these segments. We also get to see Aibon and Nono up to their usual mischief, a key reason to seek out "Making of" footage from this era, although the two never appear together here. That would have been awesome if they did. Mika Todd speaks English to the camera and then to Nono at the very start of the "Making of" portion. Most of the girls get to address the camera alone. Rika's speech is peppered with the words, "sexy," "kawaii," "kakkoii," and "7Air saiko!" How true. I wish there had been dance shot versions of these videos. The shots we get of dance rehearsals are quite exciting. And we get to see more glimpses of just how good a dancer Nono was.
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Cute Concert Tour 2009 Natsu Aki - Cutie JUMP! -CuteA great concert with a moving finale
This is an amazing concert and possibly the best thing I've seen C-ute do--ever! It's got a great lineup of songs and dance numbers and it's topped off by Erika Umeda's graduation from C-ute. There's a problem with the DVD that has nothing to do with the concert itself, and I'll address it below, which accounts for the 4-star rating instead of 5, but the concert is nearly two hours of solid entertainment value. The girls are at their peak and do 27 songs, all of them enjoyable, a mix of old favorites, recent singles and a few I've never heard before. The camera keeps the girls in view and lets us see them dance--for the most part. There are six costume changes--all beautiful. I particularly liked when they came out in cute maid outfits and did a tap dance number and a bit involving synchronized broom-tossing. Maimi and Airi get one solo each. Erika and Saki do a duet and Chisato and Mai do one also. During the medley, there's a musical break between songs so the girls can each do an individual dance bit. Unfortunately, the director botches the cuts and we don't see each dance properly. We do at least get to see Mai and Chisato do a split together. And we get a better shot of it all in rehearsal in the "Making of" segment. Erika's graduation takes up the last 25 min. of a 119-min. concert. I'd never seen the C-ute girls cry before. And they all cry. Chisato just about broke my heart. They even all say goodbye at one point and leave the stage as if for good, but the crowd's chants keep up and they all soon come back for a second set of goodbyes. It's quite an emotional spectacle. The big problem I had was with the 39-min. "Making of" portion of the DVD. For some strange reason, all the shots are either out-of-focus (closeups) or just soft (long shots). On my big flatscreen set, all the shots were definitely out of focus; on my old 13-inch set, they looked a little better but were still very soft. I'm a TV professional, but I couldn't tell whether it was a camera problem (my first guess) or a DVD mastering issue. Either way, it's unacceptable and indicates a breakdown in quality control on the part of Zetima. Besides, the "Making of" segments were padded with a lot of unnecessary stuff. Why show us concert footage taken by the Making of crew when we'd already seen it in the concert itself? But at least they give us rehearsal footage of the broom-tossing.
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Berryz Kobo Concert Tour 2009 Aki Medachitai !!Berryz KoboVery good BK concert, with one quibble
Berryz Kobo has been turning out consistently fine concerts for years now, and this one is no exception. Is it their best? Probably not, but I would need to see the others again to compare. Besides, I had a problem with it that I'll address below. But overall, it has so much good stuff in it that I don't hesitate to recommend it to other BK fans. It opens with my all-time favorite song of theirs, the rousing "Ryuusei Boy," a recent B-side which gets the concert off to a great start. Some old favorites, including "Munasawagi Scarlet" and "Very Beauty" (performed as a solo by Momoko) are mixed with a lot of material that's fresh to me. I counted twelve songs I hadn't heard before. Chinami even gets a solo (her first?) and Yurina and Miyabi get a duet. The costume changes are all very nice. The biggest surprise here is their performance of "Dschinghis Khan." Right in the middle of it, the girls stand on stage in a line and proceed to perform it "a cappella" (without musical accompaniment). Risako sings the lead, handling all the lyrics, while Momoko, Maasa and Yurina sing back-up and, in a refreshing and clever touch, Miyabi, Saki and Chinami do "beatbox" sounds into their mikes. It's an imaginative approach to a number they've performed many times, but the real revelation here is Risako Sugaya, who shows more and more vocal power as she gets older. She belts out the lyrics, while toning it down for the chorus. She's got a difficult job and she performs it admirably. I really enjoyed listening to her. She is showing extraordinary potential and stands out as that rare Hello! Project performer who seems to grasp the use of her voice as a means of self-expression. My chief problem with the concert is that they do all of their strongest material in the first two-thirds of the show. I kept waiting for them to do my other big favorite of theirs, "Dakishimete, Dakishimete," a high-energy dance number that would really have perked up the concert's last half-hour, which includes some of their weaker songs ("Rival," anyone?). But they never do it. The girls are in peak form throughout, but sometimes the difference between a great concert and a very good one can be one song. The concert lasts 104 min. and the DVD has no extras. The credits sequence includes baby and childhood photos of each of them. You can see their strong characters already forming at an early age.
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Uta Doki! - Pop Classics Vol.1Hello! ProjectVol. 1 leaves room for improvement
The best Uta Doki Pop Classics volumes that I've seen remain nos. 3, 4, & 5 (all reviewed by me here). Vols. 1 & 2 show them in the early stages of creating a formula that works. The girls are mostly great--and they include most of Hello! Project's heavy hitters--but the choice of songs in Volume 1, all from 1971-78, leaves a lot to be desired. Still, there are a few highlights: Kei Yasuda and Atsuko Inaba, joined by Akira Inaba, sing "Ano Subarashii Ai wo Mou Ichido," also heard on H!P's Folk Songs 3 album. Aya Matsuura sings "Kanda Gawa," originally by Kaguyahime. Maki Goto does "Hageshii Koi," by Saijo Hideki, a rock song with accompaniment by two band members from Sharan Q--Hatake on guitar and Makoto on drums. Nozomi "Nono" Tsuji gets a solo, always a good thing in my book: "Nagori Yuki," by Iruka. Nono's low-key here and very good. Atsuko Inaba sings "(Omoide...)" in a duet with Akira Inaba, who originally performed the song and also accompanies on guitar. A nice slow ballad and Atsuko's an amazing singer. Maki Goto sings "Katte ni Shiyagare" by Kenji Sawada. Possibly the best on the DVD. Yuko Nakazawa joins Sugita Jirou in a duet of his song, "ANAK." He also accompanies on guitar. Maki sings Anri's "Olivia wo Kikinagara," the one with the English line, "Making good things better," which has been covered by H!P before, on the "Folk Songs 2" album, but by different singers. Natsumi Abe does a Momoe Yamaguchi song, "Akai Shougeki," and Mari Yaguchi does a Yumi Arai song, "Chuuou Freeway." Mari also does an Agnes Chan song, "Hinageshi no Hana," but sings it in too high a register. (Mari's not the best soloist in H!P, but she's great in a group.) Ayaka Kimura sings "Monkey Magic," a song about the legendary Monkey King, entirely in English. Ayaka and Kaori have a ball doing Pink Lady's "Nagisa no Sindbad." Also appearing are Country Musume, Melon Kinenbi, and an older female singer, Miki Hirayama. The male singers represented, Sugita Jirou, Akira Inaba, and Gen Takayama, are distinguished older singers, all strumming guitars, and they do a great job with the girls. There are 8 min. of outtakes, including a bit in "Monkey Magic" where Taisei, the keyboardist from Sharan Q, comes out from the keyboard to dance next to Ayaka, the closest I've ever seen a male musician get to one of the H!P girls. It's cute. And perfectly natural for a party boy like Taisei.
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Uta Doki! - Pop Classics Vol.2Hello! ProjectVolume 2 is better than Volume 1
Uta Doki Pop Classics Vol. 2 represents an improvement over Vol. 1, in terms of song choices, but doesn't yet reach the heights achieved by Vols. 3, 4 & 5, the best in the entire 12-volume series. Still, among the 24 songs performed, there are a number of highlights worth singling out: Yuko Nakazawa and Kaori Iida perform "Machibuse," originally done by Hitomi Ishikawa. Yuko Nakazawa and Yuki Maeda, two of the finest voices in Hello! Project, do a duet of "Matsu Wa" by Amin, a song also covered by W (Nono and Aibon) in their first album. Ai Takahashi sings "Sailor Fuku to Kikanju" by Hiroko Yakushimaru (from the movie of the same name). Kaori Iida sings "Akai Sweet Pea" (Seiko Matsuda). Atsuko Inaba sings one of Anri's most memorable songs, "Kanashimi ga Tomaranai," the one with the refrain in English, "I can't stop the loneliness..." Maki Goto sings "Love is Over" (Ouyang FeiFei). Kei Yasuda sings "Aijin" (Teresa Teng). Nozomi Tsuji rocks out with "Roppongi Shinjuu" by Ann Lewis. Maki performs "Desire Jounetsu" (Akina Nakamori), accompanied by Sharan Q band members Hatake on guitar and Makoto on drums. Yuki sings "My Revolution" (Misato Watanabe). Ai sings "Cha Cha Cha" (Akemi Ishii). Thes original recordings of these songs all date from 1980-86. Many of the songs have English lines in them, which are a challenge for most of the girls. As it turns out, the two youngest, Ai-chan and Nono, boast the best English pronunciation. Mari Yaguchi again proves to be the weakest soloist here. She sings Lum's theme song from "Urusei Yatsura," and makes us wish for the original performance from the animated TV series. She also does a poor job with Hirofumi Banba's wonderful song, "Sachiko," which is, thankfully, redone in Vol. 12 by a duet of Yuko and Mr. Banba himself. I'm a fan of Mari and love her work with various groups (Morning Musume, Tanpopo, Minimoni, various shuffle units), but she's not the best soloist on these DVDs. Also present here are Natsumi Abe, Melon Kinenbi, and Country Musume. Missing in action are Aya Matsuura and Ayaka Kimura, who were in Vol. 1. (Ai Takahashi was not in Vol. 1.) The only male singer in this volume is Kenji Nagae, who performs "High School Lullaby" with MK. Taisei, the keyboardist from Sharan Q, accompanies the girls on nine of the songs. Hatake and Makoto appear only in the Maki number cited above. There are 8 min. of outtakes.
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SHOCKING5 [w/ DVD, Limited Edition]CuteMy favorite C-ute album so far
C-ute's down to five members now. Kanna Arihara left the group about a year ago and I don't believe she's heard on this album. Erika Umeda graduated at the end of last year and she's heard in at least two of these songs. So that leaves Maimi, Airi, Saki, Chisato and Mai. They adopt a more mature sound and style here, as befitting a group in its late 'teens (well, except for Mai). So we don't get the girlish songs a la "Sakura Chirari" that made up their early repertoire. We hear two of their catchier recent singles, "Everyday Zekkouchou!!" and "Bye Bye Bye!" as well as "Shock!," the newest single at the time of this album. Plus eight songs that were previously unfamiliar to me. They're not the greatest songs I've ever heard on a Hello! Project release. I mean, there's nothing comparable to "Ryuusei Boy," a superb song found on Berryz Kobo's latest album. Other C-ute albums, including their last one, "Akogare My Star," may have had better songs on them, but this one's a much more consistent and enjoyable listen. The girls are all in fine voice and the songs range from good to pretty good. Maimi gets a very nice solo, "Lonely Girl's Night," and Airi gets two, "Aa Koi" and "Zansho Onimai Moushiageamasu," also very nice. They sound great. I would buy Maimi and Airi solo albums. (Or an album just featuring the two of them.) Also, Saki, Chisato and Mai get their own song, "Kimi no Senpou," which includes a dialogue riff about hamburgers. Saki's got a cute, pleasant voice that I'd like hear more. I would have enjoyed a Saki duet with one of the others, maybe Mai...or Airi! All the girls harmonize nicely on track 2, "The Party!" and track 10, "Yume ga Aru Kara." The last song, track 11, "Shochuu Omimai Moushiagemasu (H22 Remix)" is much faster-paced than the others and features some gimmicky studio touches and a rock 'n' roll beat. The CD comes with a DVD that features the music video for the song, "Shigatsu Sengen" (track 8). They wear nice satin mini-dresses in it, but they don't dance at all. They stand around looking (very) pretty in medium and close shots framed against rather shabby backgrounds from an abandoned building and stone structure on the Tokyo waterfront. The PV is followed by 14 lovely minutes of "Making of" footage from the PV-and-photo shoot. I took screen grabs from this DVD to create a C-ute photobook on my blog (March 18, 2010 entry).
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Hello! Project 2009 Summer Kakumei Gannen - Hello! Chanpuru -Hello! ProjectAnother great H!P summer concert
I love the big Hello! Project concerts staged at the beginning of the year and in the summer. Here, in the Summer 2009 H!P concert, the first without the Elder Club, we get Morning Musume, Berryz Kobo, C-ute, Erina Mano and the Hello! Pro Eggs, a total of 49 performers. I esp. love the six big numbers featuring the entire ensemble, each of the groups wearing different costumes, making for a stage awash in color and high energy. They're all upbeat group songs, including MM classic "Koko ni Iruzee," and two with "Jump" in the title. The elaborate choreography keeps the girls in constant motion around the fairly small stage of the Nakano Sunplaza. MM does three numbers and BK and C-ute do two each. Mano does one and S/mileage (with four Eggs) does one. The rest of the 39 numbers mix and match from the various performers on hand to recreate old H!P units such as Tanpopo, Minimoni, Aa, Zyx, Pucchimoni, and V-u-den, or appear in existing side units such as Buono and Guardians 4. It's a varied and well-rounded program and moves at a fast clip through its 128 minutes. My favorite number is the one featuring the new Pucchimoni V, Erina Mano and C-ute's Saki Nakajima doing the song, "Pira! Otome no Negai." (Mai Hagiwara is in the unit also, but was absent due to illness.) It's a fun novelty song with a delightful chorus of nonsense lyrics and it's sung and danced at a fast pace as the two girls hold their mikes up as if they were playing piccolos and sing and dance and scurry cutely about the stage. Other highlights: High-King's "C/C" which lets Saki S. and Maimi prove what great dancers they are. Ai Takahashi does an old Momoe Yamaguchi song, "Cosmos." "Fly High" performed by a recreated Zyx, featuring Risa in the old Mari role and two of the original Zyx members, Momoko and Erika. Risako rocks out as one of the new V-u-den. Lots of costume changes and all beautiful. This is the last H!P concert to feature MM's Koharu Kusumi and C-ute's Erika Umeda, both of whom have since graduated. On the negative side, I could have done without Shin Minimoni (the two new Eggs in it are way too young) and Ice Cream Musume, an inexperienced group recruited from Taiwan. And why not make better use of the Eggs and put the most talented ones--Arisa Noto, Minami Sengoku, Yuu Kikkawa and Sayaka Kitahara--into units? It's a wonderful concert nonetheless and proof that H!P still has fire in it.
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Ai Kago meets JazzAi KagoAibon sings great old songs--in English!
I'm a huge fan of Ai Kago and I regret to say that I missed the performance that Mozenator describes in his review on this page, although I did get to see her in a later public appearance that same weekend. Luckily, however, both Mozenator and I, joined by a third East Coast fan, got to see Kago perform on Monday night, June 7, 2010, at Birdland in Manhattan's theater district. She sang "How High the Moon," the first song on this album, and she wowed the sold-out crowd, which included some veteran Broadway performers and songwriters. And she looked fantastic in a satin cheongsam dress. (You can see the clip of her on YouTube under the title, "Ai Kago sings 'How High the Moon' at Birdland in NYC") I love this album. I grew up hearing these standards, whether in films or TV shows, on the radio or on albums by some of my favorite singers. Now, granted, Aibon may not have the vocal power or the range of the great singers who popularized these songs (e.g. Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald)--and I might ask, who does today?--but she brings something else to them. Her own interpretation. She clearly loves these songs and wants to sing them and she puts all her heart into them. I was familiar with the doo-wop version of "Blue Moon" but had never heard it sung the way Aibon does it here. And I just melt when I hear her sing, so sweetly, "You'd be so nice to come home to..." and "All of me, why not take all of me..." Why not, indeed? And given all her tribulations in Japan following her "scandal" and dismissal from Hello! Project, there's a special poignance to her reading of "Someone to Watch Over Me." She needed someone to watch over her during her darkest days and it continues to pain me that there wasn't anybody. Aibon has a nice voice and sharp instincts and her vocalization of material like this is only going to get better the more she practices and performs. Her performance of "How High the Moon" at Birdland was even better than the one on this album. After her performance, I managed to get a chance to tell her how much I liked this album and her response (she made a face) indicates that she may be her own worst critic, not an uncommon trait among creative types. Still, I can honestly say I genuinely enjoy this album and recommend it to fans of hers. And if she releases another one in a year, even if it's got the same songs, I'll get that one, too.
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Morning Musume Concert Tour 2009 Aki -Nine Smile-Morning MusumeKoharu's graduation + MM concert
This is a good Morning Musume concert with all nine girls in peak form and a tracklist filled with many of their best recent songs, plus a few that we don't hear often enough (e.g. "Genki+"). I especially liked their rousing renditon of "Kimagure Princess," my favorite MM song from the last two years. The main concert portion lasts 95 min. and includes such highlights as recreations of Sakura Gumi doing "Sakura Mankai" (with three of the original performers included--Ai, Risa and Eri) and Otome Gumi doing "Yuujou~Kokoro no Busu ni wa Naranee!~" (with two of the original performers included--Reina and Sayumi); an Eri solo (backed by Aika); an Ai and Reina duet; a Risa and Koharu duet; a Chinese-language version of "Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisenai Darou?" led by JunJun and LinLin; a four-song "Coupling Medley"; and a new version of "Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari." The emphasis is on the graduating Koharu Kusumi, the sole 7th Gen member, and, thankfully, she doesn't do any of her "Kirari" anime songs. At the 96-min. mark (19 min. on the second disc), out comes Koharu in her red-and-black graduation dress to address the crowd, followed by all eight of the rest of MM forming a farewell line. Each girl speaks to her individually and it's quite unusual for its intimacy. It's like we're witnessing private moments between the two, esp. when Koharu and Sayumi embrace for a long time and whisper to each other off-mike. (The "privacy" is also amplified by the lack of subtitles. For the first time in one of these graduations, I feel I'm missing a significant backstory by not knowing what they're saying.) There's a different vibe to this than any other graduation I've seen, partly because Koharu is younger than all but one of the others and newer to the group than all but three. So they're not saying goodbye to their "sempai." Also, Koharu laughs and smiles a lot and doesn't shed nearly as many tears as the others. She cries a couple of times, but never for very long nor with much intensity. It's moving, but not quite the emotional spectacle we saw at other famous graduations (Maki, Nacchi, Aibon and Nono). The whole graduation portion, from start of ceremony to Koharu's final, post-credits appearance before the crowd, lasts 56 min., making it one of the longest graduations in Hello! Project history. (The whole concert is 152 min. and is contained on two discs.)
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Hello! Project 2007 Summer 10th Anniversary Dai Kanshasai - Hello Pro Natsu MatsuriHello! ProjectOne of the best H!P summer concerts ever
The Hello! Project Summer 2007 concert ranks as one of the very best H!P productions I've ever seen. Every aspect of it is as close to perfection as we can get in one of these. The giant Saitama Super Arena with its long runway to bring the show out into the audience is used to maximum effect (and a far cry from the tiny venues the last few H!P concerts have been held in). The 46 featured performers, plus 23 Hello! Pro Eggs, represent a perfect mix of ages. The 36 songs are wonderfully chosen--a mix of then-new singles with favorites from the H!P songbook and lesser known songs ripe for replay. And many dazzling costume changes. The performers don't all come out in the opening number. Guest performers first appear in later numbers and the second disc in the two-disc set, starting at the 125-minute mark, opens with some real surprise OG guests. The opening number has the various groups come out in beautiful color-coded outfits with flowing trains: Morning Musume in red, V-u-den in yellow, Melon Kinenbi in green, Berryz Kobo in pink and C-ute in blue. As they enter and make their way around the stage and runway joining the Hello! Pro Eggs, already in the midst of "Hello to You," they create a ravishing spectacle, an artist's dream of color, delightful music and beautiful women. This may be the first concert in which Berryz and C-ute fully came into their own as important and integral units in H!P's entertainment machine, on a par with MM. All 14 of their members had much more solid performing experience than four of the then-nine-member MM lineup, which was still breaking in the three new 8th Gen members (Aika, JunJun and LinLin). In any event, every featured performer gets a lot to do here in various re-groupings and re-dos of shuffle unit songs and the like. No one gets short shrift, not even the Eggs. It's great to see Yossi, newly graduated from MM, join Ayaka Kimura and Mai Satoda in recreating Pucchimoni. MK and V-u-den show us how mature and sexy women should look and move, while the younger girls rush out onto the runway in exuberant displays of youthful energy and agility. It's quite a show. The whole thing is 150 min., followed by a mere 21 min. of precious backstage footage. It's a long one and packed with great stuff, maybe too much to take in one sitting, but if you don't you'll lessen the big surprise at the beginning of the second disc.
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Hello! Project 2010 WINTER Kachofugetsu -Mobekimasu!-Hello! ProjectNot the best of H!P Winter Concerts
This is the first Hello! Project Winter Concert without the Elder Club. As a result, there are only 25 featured performers in the big ensemble numbers (not counting the Hello! Pro Eggs). It also doesn't have the recently graduated Koharu from MM or Erika from C-ute. All three main groups, Morning Musume, Berryz Kobo, and C-ute, seem to share equal status in this concert. The only other featured performers are solo artist Erina Mano and S/mileage, a group made up of four of the H!P Eggs. Erina Mano seems to be taking the role formerly played by the Elder Club and offering songs which sound different from everything else. She also performs the only solos in this concert. There aren't a lot of great songs on the track list. Some of these songs, though, work better in live performance than as a listening experience. This is true of most of BK's songs here, although I'm glad they did "Ryuusei Boy," my favorite recent H!P song and the first time I've seen it in performance. I was hoping MM would do "Kimagure Princess" live, but it sounded too much like the studio recording to me. The small stage at Nakano Sunplaza creates problems with space, lighting and camera angles. Still, with fewer girls to work with than in past winter concerts (which had much bigger arenas), the choreographers use the space in the opening and closing ensemble numbers very well, with several different levels in play. The costumes are great and they change into new ones quite a lot. My favorites are the gold-and-red outfits with gold boots that all 25 of the featured performers wear in the opening set. The next-to-last song is the Morning Musume classic "Souda! We're Alive," and everyone joins in on it. The final number is "Aozora ga Itsumademo Tsuzuku You na Mirai de Are!"--exactly the same song which closed the big H!P Summer 2009 concert. That's two big H!P concerts in a row to use the same finale. And since I just re-watched the summer concert again the night before watching this, it was particularly annoying. Why didn't they pick another song as next-to-last and then close with "Souda! We're Alive"? There is no "Making of" footage, possibly the first winter concert I've seen that didn't include any. I miss it. All in all, the two discs containing the winter concerts (this and "Shuffle Date"), both sold separately, add up to a seriously diminished spectacle when compared to past years.
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Clips Vol.1Buono!Great videos, but one major problem
This is the first collection of Buono's music videos and there are a total of ten. Buono's videos, particularly the later ones, tend to have some production money behind them and look more expensive than most Hello! Project videos these days. They often go out on location or use additional performers. "Take it Easy!" is shot in a beachside resort town and is all filmed on location. "My Boy" tells a Mission: Impossible-style story in which the three girls are high-tech cat burglars in sleek outfits breaking into an ornate space to steal...well you'll have to see it to find out. (This PV was on the Petit Best 10 DVD.) "Bravo*Bravo" offers two different versions of Buono, one backed by cheerleaders and one backed by a four-woman rock band. My favorite video here is "co.no.mi.chi," which takes the girls to "London," and other exotic locales, all created in the computer. It's my favorite Buono song as well. The girls look fantastic in the video. It's nice to finally see the "Our Songs" video. On the DVD that came with the "We Are Buono" CD, there was "Making of" footage from that video, which really intrigued me. Not only is the main PV here, but also two separate Dance Shot versions and two separate Close-up versions of the same video, including one consisting entirely of shots of the girls filmed on moving cranes with the bridge location drifting behind them. These are then followed by a 49-minute session with the girls as they watch each of the ten main videos and comment on them. All well and good if you understand Japanese, but the inclusion of this feature meant the exclusion of something more important--the Dance Shot versions of the other videos. Why were they not included here? The C-ute and Berryz Kobo single clips collections offer Dance Shot versions. The only way I can see the Buono Dance Shot versions is to go on YouTube. Which is unacceptable to me. I want them on DVD. And, as far as I can tell, they're not available unless you buy the right single edition. And I never know ahead of time which one has the Dance Shot version. And when I do find out it's usually out-of-print already. This gets very frustrating. I want my Dance Shot versions. Buono's one of the top H!P acts at the moment and I enjoyed these videos, but the lack of Dance Shot versions means I take two stars off the rating, 3* instead of 5*.
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Hello! Project 2010 Winter Kacho Fugetsu -Shuffle Date-Hello! ProjectShuffle Date concert has its moments
Since the Elder Club graduation in 2009, Hello! Project has had to come up with a gimmick to make its annual H!P summer and winter concert tours more memorable. For this one they recreated a bunch of old units with current members, drawing from Morning Musume, Berryz Kobo, C-ute and the Hello! Pro Eggs to give us new versions of Minimoni, Petitmoni, Tanpopo, Zyx, Def.Diva, and V-u-den, among others. Trouble is, all it does is remind us how great the old units were. Who among the current bunch can fill the shoes of Nacchi, Maki, Aya, Mari, Rika, Kaori, Yossi, Kei, Aibon and Nono? Not many, but they make a game try. Aa! at least has two of its original members, Miyabi and Airi, both in fine voice, so it comes off best among the revival units. Two already existing units, Buono and High-King, perform their own material rather than covers and they come off best of all. They've also got five of the top performers in the current H!P lineup--Ai T., Saki S., Maimi, Airi and Momoko. The recreated Petitmoni, consisting of Erina Mano, Saki Nakajima, and Mai Hagiwara, pulls off the most delightful number in the whole show, "Pira! Otome no Negai," a fast-paced novelty song pumped up with catchy nonsense lyrics. The recreated Zyx, led by Risa, does a good job on Zyx's two singles from 2003. Ai T., Eri and Saki S. do a fine job on "Love Like Crazy," originally performed by Nacchi, Maki and Aya. However, the attempt by Reina, Sayumi, Maasa and Maimi to recreate Def.Diva (Nacchi, Maki, Aya, Rika) falls flat, despite Maimi's best efforts. Sayumi tries to do Rika as she leads a recreated V-u-den in two songs. She simply doesn't have the voice to pull it off, but she does get the sexy part right. She and JunJun and Risako wear these eye-catching red patent vinyl minidresses with black stockings and garter belts. Sayumi's the most provocative and clearly relishes it, making up considerably for her awkward singing. The Hello! Pro Eggs offer great back-up dancing, but are not showcased very well by the camerawork. The production quality is often poor. The stage is cramped and the set design too busy. The lighting often washes out the image. There are bad camera angles and frequent cutaways, usually just when a performer is doing something interesting. A lot of good dancing goes unseen as a result. Despite the highlights cited above, I've seen much better H!P winter concerts.