Hello!Blog

Morning Musume France First Live DVD

Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:30:00 GMT

It really doesn't feel like it was only 2 months ago that I was in Paris at the Japan Expo seeing Morning Musume and hanging out with everyone, it's really depressing thinking when the next event will be that I will be able to attend. I doubt I'll have the cash to get to Japan for sometime now so the only possibilty is another European event somewhere or a cheapish trip to over the States. But, until then the best I'll have to do with is the Morning Musume France First Live DVD. Not such a terrible thing, it'll be great to relive the experience and watch an event that I attended and fingers crossed unlike the LA DVD I'll actually be able to spot myself at the concert what with me getting a great spot at the front... although who reckons sods law it'll either miss me or have me looking all moody like in that photo... damn it, spent a good hour hunting for that photo and I can't find it FAIL! I've already managed to order myself a copy, but if there's anyone that wants to get their hands on a copy, Ohta is currently taking order up until the September 12th for 5838 yen (minus shipping I think). So if you're intersted head over to his site and make an order, http://smiletrade.info/hello/ and see who you can spot.

H!P 2011 Calendar Cover Previews

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:30:00 GMT

Is it just me or are companies trying to sell us things earlier and earlier each year? It's still now even Halloween, but I've seen shops selling Christmas decorations.. WTF?! And it would appear the Hello! Project are no exception, with a release date of "early September" next years calendars should be available (I'm guessing) within the next couple of weeks, only 5 months before you'll be thinking about hanging them on your wall... It's not just me right, this way earlier than any other year right? Having been completely indecisive last year with the calenders I ended up not buying one, which had it's pros and cons. I was in the process of moving so I had no real idea where I would actually hang it and would have probably missed a fair few months, but this has meant that for the first time in 3 years I've not woken up to the images of my idols. And having seen the Berryz Koubou calendar at the Japan Expo in Paris a few months ago, I'm really regretting not ordering it, it looked AMAZING! As yet, we've only got previews of the covers, I'm guessing around the time of their release will get some more previews of the images inside and all the major groups have got one, Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou, C-ute, Manoeri and S/mileage, there's also a Nacchi calendar available but from what I understand this can only be purchased at her concert tour, or ordered through the M-line club web site or from Hello! Project Official shops. If I was just going by the covers of the calendars I think I'd be ordering the Berryz version, it looks a lot more brighter and fun then the others... although Momo office type outfit looks a little odd. I'm still more than willing to be swayed with the others and I won't make a final decision until more previews are available, but it's great to see that both Kamei, Junjun and Linlin feature within it, it'll give us fans a whole extra year to help get over their departure. And Manoeri's cover... WOW! Seriously WOW! She's always looked kind of bland to me, but she look absolutely stunning in this picture, although I'm sure that won't be enough to win me over to buying hers when the previews come out. Who knows, if the S/mileage one is any good I might even delve into theirs and start my fandom for them.

Rika To Attend NYAF

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 15:17:00 GMT

Since graduating from Hello! Project Yossie and Rika have certainly done a lot of travelling and seem to be really pushing for the western audiences and this October Rika will be making another appearance at an Expo in America, this time she'll be Yossie-less, so there's no singing but she is attending with Gashicon, the head designer for h.NAOTO and the illustrator in charge of the Hangry & Angry characters and comics. Both will be attending the New York Anime Festival as Guest of Honor and will be attending the panel discussion and fashion show about the clothes inspired by Hangry & Angry. And although presumably they'll be no performance from Rika, much like when Yossie attended the Anime Expo, it's a chance to find out more with regards to the clothes and fashion that's inspired the unit, aside from the usual answers given when the duo have been asked. With the head designer and illustrator there it should be great insight for those into the h.NAOTO brand. It's almost coming up to a year since I first saw Hangry & Angry perform at Chibi Japan and (roughly) a year since I saw Yossie at Anime Expo and I'm just so pleased that the girls are still appearing outside of Japan at these events, even if it's not to perform, the chance to see your idols in person is still something that I look forward to and although I can't attend NYAF I still hold out hopes that we'll someone attend the Chibi Japan Expo again... you never know, right?

Hello! Project Return To Your iDevices

Sat, 28 Aug 2010 03:17:00 GMT

It's been awhile coming but finally Hello Project are making their way back on to our Apple devices. First about a week ago there was the iPad only release app of Reina's anime show Kaito Reinya and literally minutes into typing this post C-ute's app for promoting their latest single Dance de Bakoon! appeared in the store for download. Links to both apps on the App Store can be found at the bottom of this post. The Kaito Reinya App I imagined won't be seen by a lot of people, iPhones seem to be fairly common now days, but the iPad is still not that common place. This is really unfortunate as this App is really great! On buying this last week there was the problem that it was only available in the Japanese iTunes store, from what I've been told this should be rolling out to other countries soon so keep an eye out for it, but if you can't wait that long you can attempt to set yourself up a Japanese iTunes account and grab a copy from their for 450yen. Having literally only just started to watch the Kaito Reinya anime over on CrunchyRoll I was really excited about this and not knowing exactly what to expect made it even more excited, as unlike the apps that have appeared previously on both the iPhone and Android it's more than just a glorified slide show. From opening the app we're treated to some really lovely presentation, the app is filled with animation and lovely Reina's voice. On a basic level it's a spoken word comic book type thing of the first episode of the anime. If you've seen the anime already then this isn't exactly going to draw you in, but it does feature a bit of interactivity, as during the comic you're able to interact with little bits, poke the wanted poster of Reinya to hear her speak, play with all the coins that fill up your screen. As well as the first episode there's also a ton of extras in this App that make the price tag totally worth it! There's a character synopsis, a episode breakdown, an interview section with Reina asking her 4 questions and a trailer for the DVD release of the series. All in all a great app that I think really goes to show what Up Front can do when they put the effort in, and for those of you without an iPad I've included a short video below showing you what the app is like, I haven't shown everything as I don't want to spoil it for those heading off to buy the app. C-ute's App, which appeared earlier this morning (night?) is free and for the iPhone, from what I can see it's available in all versions of the iTunes store (well certainly it's available in the Japanese and UK stores) so if you've got an iPhone or iPad (or even an iPad if you don't mind the small screen size) you've got no excuse not to download this... what are you waiting for? Go download it! Much like the apps for the KPop artists I spoke about in a previous post (Maimi Gets An Android App) this is more for the promotion of their recent single Dance de Bakoon and features a whole manner of things for you to look through. There's a news section for those of you wanting to know about television, radio and magazine appearances.A Product section, with details about each of the version of the single, with shots of each cover. A Profile section of the group and each individual member and a Gallery of all the girls. There's also a Movie of the girls... which I've unfortunately yet to get working. For a free you can't really go wrong, there's everything there that you could want. But I do feel slightly disappointed with it as a whole, the presentation isn't great and kind of feels like a University project standard :S and as I've said previously I've yet to get the included movie playing properly all I get is sound. Hopefully this is just the start of this kind of app for the iPhone/iTouch and for a first version it's not bad, fingers crossed will be seeing improvements on the look and the functionality of these apps in the future, perhaps we'll even see an update in the near future that will see the movie playing? After the trouble that was caused with the PB apps being removed from the Apple's App Store and Android getting all the attention it's great to see that H!P are back and are coming with other ways to promote themselves on these devices without getting grief from Apple. Now it's time to carry on filling up my screen will idol and H!P apps, come on Up Front, release more apps I want a whole screen of H!P!! Kaito Reinya iPad App - iTunes Store C-ute Dance de Bakoon! - iTunes Store

Hello!Blog Turns 4 Years Old

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:08:00 GMT

Getting older, doesn't it just suck! Well, I think so at least. But on the plus side it's not me that's getting older (I age in reverse don't you know) but my blog, 4 years old. It's running around all over the sofas, poking the dog and laughing hysterically at the word 'bum'. This year for me has seen a decline in the blogging side and I know quite a few people have commented on this and I am really trying to push myself to blog more. I've had a really hectic year, work up until recently (about a month ago) had really got on top of me, working 9-530 and then coming home, munching on summer dinner and then working another 6-7 hours on my work projects meant that time for blogging was short. It's not as some have said me taking a dislike to H!P or becoming too interested in the likes of KPop, although I won't argue that both do raise their heads slightly. I'm not exactly quiet about my lack of interest in the current single releases of Morning Musume both with the songs themselves and the PVs, I also still feel that the WOW factor of a lot of the merchandise and CDs releases are lacking slightly... just take a look at the fridge white board that The Chris brought back for me from his recent to trip to Japan, I don't know if anyone tested it, but the magnet isn't strong enough to hold the piece of cardboard its glued to attached to the fridge <_< And as for Kpop, well it's my 2nd love, I'm allowed to to enjoy more things than just H!P right? LOL But this is a good example of the quality of merchanhidse, I'm sure I've mentioned it before but WOW, if you've never bought a kpop single/mini album do so, you'll be wishing that H!P followed suit, it's like when I first got into H!P and was stunned by the quality of the packaging and releases. So, I've managed to quit my day job and am now doing what I did of an evening during the day, I've actually got a life back, instead of those 2 hours of an evening which I had to myself I now have full evenings and weekends to do as I please, so this month at least although the work has been cut drastically I've been enjoying the free time and the retuning of what could be considered a life. Once I've had enough of drunken nights and xbox sessions I'll be straight back on the blogging, in fact come the start of the next month I'm making a conscious effort to get back into the blogging regime of a few years back. And as for the year as a whole, it's been AMAZING! In the 12 months between the blog turning 3 to 4, I've managed to do so much related to Hello! Project. I've managed to see Hangry & Angry 4 times, in 3 different countries, I've not only managed to get up and meet both Yossie and Rika 4 times at the signings but I've been part of their fan based interactions at the recent concerts, getting to ask questions to them at both the German and Paris gigs, on top of that the fact that I was asked to help arrange these questions was so great, I felt so privileged that I've actually helped to do something at these concerts. I'm also really pleased that I've managed to sort out the odd presumptions of my appearance at these concerts as well, having spent a drunken 10 minutes up at the bar before the concert in Paris with some of the organisers, we all had a good laugh at what they were expecting when they saw me, if I remember rightly it was a tall, slightly balding, dirty (mainly the smelly wearing the same clothes smelly) old man... who the hell know where they got that description from >_<" I'm not (that) old, I have a full head of hair, I wash every day and hate wearing the same clothes two days in a row, plus I'm not the worlds tallest person. I think the only presumption I didn't manage to shake off was the 'dirty' part, but then it was for a whole different reason than the smelly part XD.... oh and they thought I had a kid... WTF! That was an awkward moment, some drinks, some flirting and then all of a sudden "so you have a kid"... awkward looks, and then a huge laughing session and denials from me, if I have a kid no ones told me about it hahaha. And then there was Morning Musume in Paris, a long weekend with friends from the UK and the US and some new friends, such fun! I had CatchFiveBats and Hexi stay at mine for a few days as well so the fun lasted that little but longer. It was really a great experience, which I won't go in to too much detail over as the posts for the whole trip can still be found only a couple down from here. And then the now regular karaoke and drinking sessions with the fellow UK H!P fans (if anyones interested we're all heading out for a drink and some sing songs next month at some point) only last weekend myself, CDevil, Lampshade and Matt_D all headed down to Bournemouth for a drink up in good old fashioned student style, cheap drinks, mindless smashing of melons with house hold utensils and wandering the streets at who knows what time in hunt for the one kebab shop in Bournemouth still open and willing to serve us food. So, looking forward what to expect from the coming year, what do I want to achieve? Well, obviously blog wise, get back into gear and get on it, blog more, fix that damn birthday scroller the only thing I couldn't recover when my server crashed, take more regular backups, get into S/mileage, hope that the exchange rate sorts it's self out so I can start buying more H!P. I'm planning on heading back to Berlin at some point next year and hook up with those Hitomi Heaven girls and drink some more diesel, who knows, check out some pumped topless guys again <_< I'm quietly confident that we'll see some more H!P performances overseas in the coming year, so I'm saving what little I can just in case, it's these trips that I'm loving the most lately. Boozy drunken nights with H!P fans enjoying what we all love best, our idols, our music and each other company! Waffle over! Happy Birthday Blog!

3 Member Morning Musume Graduation

Mon, 09 Aug 2010 01:30:00 GMT

Tsunku WTF DUDE WTF!! MySpace To be honest, I've been expecting a graduation sometime soon, but I'm surprised with the three members that are leaving. In my mind, and clearly in no one else's that I've spoken to about it as they all look at me funny and tell me I'm stupid but I've been wanting a change in the line up of Morning Musume for awhile, force the group to reevaluate the vocals and personalities within the group, giving some of the underused girls a chance to try and shine. For me if I was to choose 3 members to graduate, oddly when I've spoken to people about it I've always said that it should be three members, I'd of chosen the top 3 girls; Aichan, Gaki and Kamei. Now we've got the who, I guess it's the why. Ai, has an awesome voice and looks amazing, sure she's not the strongest member to go for a solo career but, I think currently within Morning Musume she's getting a bit to much of the attention vocally, which is totally understandable but I'd love to see some of the 8th gen members get some of that attention as so far in single releases they're pretty much just backing. Gaki and Kamei are then left, the reasoning behind that would simply to graduate them to put the unit into a weaker position, imagine the shear wonders Sayumi could achieve if left in charge the unit! Reina would be the only member left you gets a decent share of the lines and so it would force a whole balance shift in everything. And then imagine what would happen in the auditions, we'd need to get a collection of powerful personalities and singing voices to help push the unit, it'd be an interesting and exciting time. But, what do we get? We get a Kamei, Junjun and Linlin graduation. What exactly will this achieve? We see two girls that have far from reached their peak within the unit, yet to be used in any good way in regards to single releases and have quite the fan base growing. With Kamei, we're losing a more active member within the singles, but a member that I don't think will drastically shift anything. Eri graduating because of a skin condition, which by the sounds of it she hasn't been able to manage completely whilst being within Morning Musume, seems like a legit reason for leaving unlike Kanna's medical reason for leaving C-ute, but the reasoning behind Junjun and Linlin's to me at least doesn't sound so straight forward. I'm always wary of members graduating to do something else, I always worry what the likelihood is of them actually going through with it. So they're off to "focus(ing) on their singers and entertainer career in China", let's hope that they're career will be more long lived and more active than that of Icecream Musume. Fingers crossed. On a more personal note, again it would appear that my favourite member within a unit is graduating, at this rate I'm expecting to see either Nakki or Chinami graduating soon <_< This now puts me back into that position of who takes the position of favourite member within Morning Musume? Looking at my results from the last poll Hello!Project 2010 Poll Ends & A Look At Some Results it would appear that it would be Gaki... but, with the recent appearance of Morning Musume at the Japan Expo and my time spent seeing the group, Mittsi has totally won me over, TOTALLY! It sucks that these girls can be replaced so easily after a graduation for me... Koha for Linlin, Linlin for Mittsi. With the sad comes the excitement, 9th generation auditions! Fingers crossed we'll see some decent talent appearing, some strong personalities but I think at the moment what Morning Musume really need is another strong singer up to the standard of Aichan.

Morning Musume Photo Album

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 22:23:00 GMT

Awhile ago HelloStoreUSA started stocking folders for photos, I've been after one for quite some time after filling up my previous one, it had got to the point where I had a shelf full of photos all piled up on top of each other in a totally unorganised unbrowsable mess, so getting a new folder was high on my list of to gets. But with me being me, I didn't want to get one without being able to make sure I could get the sleeves as well... I know right, totally pointless, but I tried getting some from my local stationary shop and they just didn't feel right :S But along with the folders HelloStoreUSA also stocked the sleeves that can be found in the H!P stores, so all was good! Having owned a previous photo album I was expecting something similar, but I think it was Lolli that made a comment to me on Twitter about needing to re enforce it or something similar, my reply was along on the lines of "I've already got one and that's fine I'm sure this one will be to". The one I currently own is pretty much your bog standard folder, thick cardboard, in a plastic cover with Morning Musume on the front, it's lasted me a good 3 years with no dents tears or any form of damage as it's pretty decent quality, my thoughts were along the long of lines of what the hell must someone be doing to their folder for it to get tatty? Well... Having received the new one I was a little shocked at how poor quality it was. Sure the print on it is nice and metallic looking, it looks really nice, but at the price of around £15 I was expecting more that just a piece of cardboard with a binder in the middle. Seriously WTF was the thinking behind this when this was produced? I'm hoping you'll be able to see the difference in the photo below, just to show that I'm not being overly moany. It'll do the job of holding my photos for sure, but the corners are already getting bent and dog eared. Sometimes I wonder about the quality of the merchandise I'm buying, I've yet to be impressed with a CD single release I've bought in quite sometime (but then I haven't bought any Manoeri in awhile and her CDs generally have the selection in variety that the other units used to have), PB releases are all become soft covers, where's my nice hard backs? Perhaps I've been spoilt recently with the quality of the KPop releases I've purchased? I'm not to sure, but I feel the WOW! factor has certainly been missing from the purchased I've made.

Hangry & Angry Neo Magazine Interview

Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:23:00 GMT

There are only two things later than Neo Magazines review with Hangry & Angry and that's this post and my as yet unwritten thoughts on all the Hangry & Angry concerts I attended, but at least I have the excuse of a server crash at the time of the concerts and up until today, a complete lack of free time. Considering this turned up in the August issue and the concerts were held in May, there's quite a lag. I don't obviously work in the press industry and have no idea how it works, but I was kind of hoping that we'd of seen this interview a little closer to the concerts. Aside from the delay, there are numerous issues I have with the article, perhaps having a heavy bias toward the girls and the unit puts me in the wrong frame of mind when reading this I don't know, but I can't help but feel let down by everything that this issue of Neo has to offer the fans of Hangry & Angry. And on the morning I bought the magazine I felt the need to share my thoughts on Twitter, for the most part everyone who I was discussing this with agreed with my thoughts, that is everyone except the interviewer and writer of the article. Tom Smith. After reading my tweets he replied to the problems with the following simple tweet; "that's more than u'll find in any other UK mag, grumpyknicks ;) RT @ptom98 3page hangry&angry interview, works out to half a page of text..." Now, to be fair he does have a perfectly good point, there are no other English magazines out there (at least to my knowledge) that got an interview or have featured them in any way within their pages, and in that respect I guess I should be grateful and not moan.... shouldn't I? Well I'm going to sit back and try and weigh up the pros and cons of the article and see if my opinion on it can be changed. The first thing I noticed when I saw this on the shelves on WHSmiths as I wandered down to work was the cover, although the cover is very BLEACH heavy my eyes were drawn to the words Morning Musume. It's the first time I've bought a magazine (well a non imported Japanese magazine) with this on the cover and I felt really excited about it, then I read the full heading, "CALLING ALL MORNING MUSUME FANS INTRODUCING YOUR NEW, FAVOURITE ACT". Do I need to state the obvious? Hangry & Angry was formed in October 2008 and by the time they've appeared in this issue they'd released 2 singles, a mini album and a studio release album and performed numerous concerts, in Japan, America and Europe, even their album Sadistic Dance had been available for at least 6 months, so the idea that this unit could be considered new seems a little far fetched, as does the idea that they're "introducing" them to us, the fans of Morning Musume. It's also a little presumptuous that they're going to be our new favourite group, I love them but their image and musical style are so drastically different to that of Morning Musume or even any other unit that either Yossie or Rika have appeared in, that that statement is so far from the truth it's laughable. Pro: Morning Musume get mention on the cover. Con: The statement is just wrong in so many ways. Flicking straight to the pages where the girls feature you only need to look at the title of the page to see the first mistake. "SADISTI SISTERS" in big writing at the top of the page and yes that's right, if you turn the page it's also at the top of the third page as well. I know I'm not really one that complain about spelling, I don't even want to think about the amount of mistakes I've made in this write up, but surely having made a similar mistake before (Hangry & Angry in Neo Magazine) by calling their 'Sadistic Dance' album 'Sadist Dance', SADISTIC would now be in their spell checker. Prior to their interview, Neo (@NEO_Magazine) gave the opportunity for fans to tweet them some questions to ask at the interview, after the poor turnout I had when holding the competition to ask the girls questions at the European performances on here (Ask Hangry & Angry A Question) I was curious to see how many of these fan questions would make it into the interview. I haven't got a clue how many questions were submitted or whether they managed to surpass the amazing turnout of 6 people (7 if you include myself) who submitted questions to me, but as far as I can see not a single fan question made it into the article. Not only that but as far as good questions go the article is extremely parse and raises the question why an interview was actually needed, aside from a couple of comments from Yossie and Rika regarding the turnout at the autograph session at Tokyo Toys (haha, consider yourselves lucky I'm only moaning about this article, I could on for ever about how crappily organised the Tokyo Toy signing was), them trying to appeal to a Western audience with the PV for Top Secret and a comment on Camden there's nothing that can't be pulled up from numerous sites on the net. There's a mention of them coming from Morning Musume, there's mention of the fashion label and the characters they each play and how they are similar to their own personalities. But, we don't get any more in-depth than this, we don't get any views on their performances throughout Europe, we don't really get a view on their take on the fans aside from the usual "we didn't expect them to know of Morning Musume" etc etc. We're not even treated to any photos of any of the UK events which would have been nice, especially considering it's a UK magazine, but instead we have photos from their performance in Berlin at the Alexa Shopping Centre (Hangry & Angry At Alexa Shopping Centre). And going back to the remark that Tom tweeted me, ultimately this three page interview boils down to about a half a page of text, with very few interesting questions. Pro: A three page spread with Hangry and Angry, photos of them live at their Berlin autograph and performance session. Con: Spelling mistakes, a lack of any real questions turning the 'interview' into more of a basic introduction to the unit for those that don't know who they are and even then there's not much there. Sure, it's more that I'll find in any other UK magazine but that doesn't necessarily make it any good, personally I'd of preferred it if the likes of Bizarre Magazine was to get the interview for this, they've interviewed a couple of Japanese artists before and the whole image that Hangry & Angry are portraying may have been more suited to this magazine, the interview may not have been spread over so many pages but it would have no doubt of been a much more interesting read.

Sad Photo of Old Harajuku Store

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 18:16:00 GMT

It's been almost 5 months since the Harajuku Hello! Project store shut down (Harajuku H!P Store to Shut) but I got a little reminder of it yesterday afternoon when Chris logged onto MSN and sent me a photo, in his words "a present of a kind", of his current trip to Japan. The present, a photo of the once impressive shop front of the Harajuku store. It's a sad site that's for sure. To see one of my favorite shops in this state... especially when it used to look as good as the images below. Those lonely blues cones and blank white walls, such a sorry state. He's also had great pleasure in telling me how much more popular AKB are at the moment out there compared to H!P :'(

Japan Expo Photos

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:06:00 GMT

For those of you wanting to see a bit more of Morning Musume at the Japan Expo ebebop (Paul Elliott) has uploaded a torrent of around 600 photos from the signings and the Expo as a whole. If you feel like grabbing the torrent it can be found here; http://www.mediafire.com/?85564rnf8app1ux And as a little preview as to what to expect I've thrown a couple of the photos below just to show how awesome they are.