15 posts tagged “c-ute”
While I was thinking of something to write about, I got to thinking about all the comings and goings of 2009 (More going out of H!P than coming into H!P) and how these events might affect H!P.
I decided to look take a look into the future (I'm a part-time psychic) I will now report my findings to you. So here they are, my predictions.
Morning Musume
- Koha graduates and MM leaves the spot empty for about 2-5 months
- MM holds an audition for the first time in years adding 2-4 new members (at least 2 of them from the Kanto region)
- The chances of Ai or Risa graduating rise, Reina is tapped to fill the sub leader position if either of them graduate
- There will be at least 3 tabloid stories claiming things from public drunkeness to boyfriends; those claims are never confirmed
C-ute
- Record sales will go up slightly
- C-ute will head to Hawaii again to do a Alo-Hello! PB and DVD; sales of the PB will be high
- Saki or Mai will have more presence in songs
- Devoted fans will follow Erika's modelling career
Berryz Koubou
- Captain will finally release a photobook, making her the last Berryz member to release a PB
- Risako will release 1 or 2 PBs; stores will quickly sell out
- There will be a tabloid story about Miyabi, Maasa, or Risako; blurry pics will be published
- No one will graduate
There you go! All that predicting made me a bit tired...
Yes the last day of C-ute's fall tour has come and passed and Ume has finally graduated. My all time favorite member is leaving with a nice ceremony but I'll talk about that in a bit.
You're probably saying "Slasha, why didn't you post the day of her graduation?" Well, I wanted to get all the information before I made a post so I could tell you guys what happened.
Now let me tell you what happened. C-ute did their show as normal. When it came time for Erika to graduate, the other members said nice things about her. That was it. No expensive special effects. No bouquet of flowers. No singing to the guest of honor. Nothing.
I'm a little displeased with the graduation and apparently so are the fans who were there. Maybe UFA didn't want to spend a lot of money. Maybe Ume did want a ceremony. Whatever the reason, I'm glad she actually graduated and didn't just leave. Good luck with modelling, Ume!
Now for family pictures.
And so ends an era...
Yes it's true. Ume announced that she would be leaving C-ute on October 25th, the last day of C-ute's current tour. She says that she wants to become a model and is graduating to further her studies in this area.
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?act=helloonline&CODE=article&topic=898 (H!O article)
http://www.helloproject.com/news/0908012000_cute.html (H!P article)
Although Ume, who's my all-time favorite H!P member, is graduating, I'm not that sad. This is probably because I've known for a long time that everyone in H!P will graduate someday. Plus, she's following her dream of being a model, which is something I think she can accomplish. She has the right figure to be a model (In My Biased Opinion) and she has the look of a model (also IMBO). If the modeling thing doesn't work, she always has singing to go back to. I'm also glad that someone in C-ute gets a graduation ceremony (Megu and Kanna never got one. The only H!P Kid who actually graduated was Maiha from Berryz back in 2005)
Now for the question of "What's gonna happen to C-ute now that two members are leaving?) Most people will tell you that Kanna and Erika never had that many lines and never had much presence. What they lacked in solos they made up for in harmony. WIthout those two, I feel that the remaining members will have to rely on Maimi and Airi's solo lines rather than the whole group singing.
Although the one member who I love more than everyone else is graduating, I will following C-ute to see how they progress with this big loss.
C-ute will be coming out with their new single, Shochuu Omimai Moshiagemasu (It means "Midsummer Greetings" reminds me of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for some reason...) on July 1st. The PV has just been released and seeing as I haven't reviewed a PV in a while, I decided to make random comments on this one.
Blue skies? I hope this PV's outside! That would be a nice change.
Oh well that dream's ruined...Let's hope this is a good PV
Interesting dresses (ARGH those dresses have ruffles on them! Ruffles are one of the things I hate...) They would be more appropriate on Valentine's Day, though.
A beach! Then there's hope after all! I have to note that this scene is in slow motion (like every recent H!P PV), which shows that H!P knows how to make a good video
Maimi prepares to break the watermelon with a stick (which is a popular summer in Japan by the way. I would try to do it here but I don't live by any beaches...I guess I can go do it in a park) There's a lovely cameo from Ume (Awesome)
Nakki epically fails on her try. But she looks cute doing it so it's alright
Chisa actually gets a hit and acts like she won the Super Bowl or the World Cup or the NBA Finals or the Daytona 500 or the Stanley Cup (Want me to continue or have I made my point clear)
Let's eat that watermelon that we were beating to death not too long ago. Hope they washed the sand of it first...So after they eat, the girls take pictures. Just about everyone gets one and after more dancing they color.
"Airi! Stay inside the lines!" "I need a red. Does anyone have a red?" "Just use a pink. No one will notice..." Then there's more closeups and more dancing. After that, C-ute decides to go home for the day. "Maybe we'll film another PV here one day." Maimi says as they walk away
I like this PV because: 1. It's not in front of a green screen 2. It's bright and colorful. It makes good use of the slow motion and closeups and this time the PV actually matches the song which is rare is H!P PV these days. So this PV gets an A from me. Good job, girls!
Here in Oklahoma, it's not yet 2009 so that means I can do a wrapup of H!P events in 2008.
C-ute releases - 1 album, 4 singles (LALALA...what do I say next?)
Berryz releases - 1 album, 3 singles (Uh ha! Let's do this for the next 10 months!)
MM releases - 1 album, 2 singles
Graduations (along with a reenactment)
Mutou Mika - to continue studies ('Kay)
Mika: I've decided to graduate
Management: ...To become a solo artist? Because you know you're not as popular as Mano. It wouldn't work right now.
Mika: No no no. I wanna go back to school and be a normal person
Management: ...Really? Ok see you later then. GTFO
Kimura (Nagate) Ayaka - to become an actress (or get married, whatever)
Events
Haromoni@ ends - This show starting to sink after January and never recovered. Then it ended in September.
Berrikyu starts and ends - A awesome show but in the end, it died with Haromoni@. Just terrible...
Yorosen starts - It's actually doing decent so far. Let's see how it does in '09
That's it. Now let's get ready for 2009!!
Well it might be a little late but I'm still gonna talk about this.
On a recent yorosen episode, C-ute was featured. Nakki and the rest of the girls were discussing "Famous men in history". The first person they discussed was...Adolf Hitler. The Adolf Hitler who led Nazi Germany during the 2nd World War (A topic I know a lot about. I like learning about WWII)
They described Hitler as a "great and captivating speaker" (Which was actually true. The man knew how to win an audience) The members acted like they had never heard of Hitler (You think you would've heard of one of the most famous dictators of all time) They even called him "Uncle" Hitler.
The show soon gathered many complaints from people who said that the episode was "Historically inaccurate". The forums were in a panic as to what would happen to C-ute. So TV Tokyo posted this apology a few days later.
Personally I glad they apologized and C-ute's sales weren't that much effected. Now I ask for everyone to put this topic to rest and only bring it up again for historical reasons.
Here's more C-ute fanart I picked up from my internet travels. No pervy pics here...although that doesn't mean I haven't seen any lol
The Mai/Erika alliance is stronger than ever it seems
I think most of you have already seen this very well done drawing of an actual Berryz/C-ute photo
Don't have a clue what the writing says but a cute picture anyway
Well after much waiting, C-ute's PV for their new single, Forever Love, is out now. I know this because: 1. I saw it on Youtube and 2. Because I couldn't get into Dohhhup and the only time that happens is when there's a new PV. The single will be released November 26th.
Now that I can get back on Dohhhup, here's the PV
http://www.dohhhup.com/movie/U0NeM3gEwFSPRBEhsLFmHKxnwfXVAvAb/view.php
The PV is full of good closeups. Everyone looks pretty and the suits actually look kind of cool. The "My Darrin" and "I Lub You" parts were pretty interesting and the spy-like theme to the song and PV is a huge difference from the traditional setting of July's "Edo no Temari Uta" and the Spanish setting of April's "Namida no Iro".
So let me try to explain the plot of this video. The C-ute...Agents...Detectives...whatever are hacking into some computers. They then spy on (clones of) themselves dancing around and singing. I'm suprised that police didn't arrest C-ute at the end of the PV for cyber-terrorism or that this didn't happen:
Erika: I'm hacking the system now
Maimi: Make sure you get the data reports
Airi: Man whoever uses this computer watchs a lot of hentai
Nakki: And whoever uses this one needs a virus check. This computer is soooooo sloooow!
Anyway, as usual, Airi and Maimi are the main singers but this time the other girls get a few lines in. The dancing is typical for a C-ute song in my opinion.
So overall I would give this PV an A-. Extra points for creativity.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKe0d2B1tKk
This is a video of C-ute's performance of Berryz Koubou's Piriri to Yukou from way back in 2005. If you're expecting Kanna to pop up somewhere, you're out of luck. She doesn't get here until early 2006. No, my friends, this is the original C-ute. These are the H!P Kids who didn't get picked to be in Berryz. This video is one of the only videos that I've seen of pre-Kanna, Megumi-era C-ute. They're kind of hard to find. Anyway back to the subject. I can't find high quality images for the performance to post here but I'm still gonna try to review the video of my favorite H!P group performing my favorite Berryz song anyway.
Umeda Erika: She did perfect on here. Her voice blends pretty nicely with this song especially on the bridge. About her outfit, she got a skirt, which is awesome because she has amazing legs.
Yajima Maimi: Her unique voice actually melded well with this song. She did really well whoa-whoa-whoa part on the chorus. Her outfit was awesome too. She looked pretty as always.
Murakami Megumi: Megu looked kinda boyish on this performance. Maybe it was the mix of her hairstyle and her (Stylish) plaid pants. Her voice was wonderful and it made me miss her even more.
Nakajima Saki: Nakki was really cute in this performance. But her voice was kinda annoying. It's super high piched and squeaky. Now her voice was ok but her voice back then scared me a bit.
Suzuki Airi: Airi did very well in this song. This is before the cute/sexy Suzuki that we know today. This is just cute Airi doing a great performance.
Okai Chisato: She did ok here. She wasn't as awesome as she was on Suiiitsu---Live 3 years later but she was ok. I just can't believe she looked like a boy back then too lol.
Hagiwara Mai: Maimai was cute as always on here. Her voice also went very well with the song. Sometimes though, it seemed like little Mai was that into the performance.
I thought that the overall performance gets an B from me. It wasn't the best C-ute can do but it's pretty good.
This is a landmark event in my H!P fandom. I just recieved my limited edition copy of C-ute's Edo no Temari Uta II and this is my first single that I actually bought instead of downloaded. I feel so happy to support H!P! Anyway the single comes with 8 interchangeable covers, one with each member and one with all the members. Guess which cover I'm using right now? I should review the songs while I'm sitting here listening to them.
1. Edo no Temari Uta II - Awesome song. It's also has historical value too. It mentions the Great Fire of Meireki (Also known as the Furisode Fire), which burned 60-70% of Edo (Tokyo) back in 1657. Back getting back to the present, the song has a nice sort of hip hop feel to it. Everyone gets a solo line, which made me very happy. But the PV costumes could be better though...
2. Wasuretakunai Natsu - Nice and summery. A pretty good c/w. It also has Tsunku engrish in it so that makes it a little bit better.
I've heard some news that made me pretty happy. Berryz Koubou will be performing at the Asia Song Festival in Korea. That means...international Berryz. I think this is their first performance outside of Japan so congrats Berryz.
More info here: http://www.asf.kofice.or.kr/l_eng/03_per/index.php check the very bottom for their profile.
