I did not have a Daily Links post yesterday in order to create a schedule for this feature. My first post (on the 22nd) was late in the evening and I’d prefer this to be posted in the morning hours. No specific time - just the morning hours.

I picked a lucky time to start looking around at other blogs. Right at the top of my most recent feeds was Tokyograph reporting that Ai Kago is going to be in a Hong Kong film. I like to joke around about dropping SCOOPS for International Wota - and I outscooped them all today! As for the news, it’s way too early to pass any real judgment. She could have a legit role or just a quick cameo - who knows at this point? I’ll be interested in what everyone else thinks of this though and I’m sure tomorrow’s Daily Links will be filled with Aibon reactions.

Maize of fields and maiZe and berryZ was the first one to tell me, but lots of blogs have information on Berryz Koubou’s 17th single. You can read it up at Just Another H!P Blog, some boys! blog, Strawberrie or Totally Hello! Project - they all have pretty much the same information. I’m pretty happy about this because it’ll mean a final end to Dschinghis Khan videos at the end of H!P programming. This is also big news for Berryz Koubou as it’ll push Berryz Koubou into a tie at 3rd place for sheer amount of singles released under Hello!Project:

Number of Singles Released (5 or over):
Morning Musume: 36
Aya Matsuura: 21 (20 released, 1 announced)
Berryz Koubou: 17 (16 released, 1 announced)
Maki Goto: 17
Melon Kinenbi: 17
Mini Moni: 12
Yuko Nakazawa: 12
Country Musume: 11
Natsumi Abe: 10
v-u-den: 10
Taiyou to Ciscomoon/T&C Bomber: 8
Tanpopo: 8
Yuki Maeda: 8
W: 7
Miki Fujimoto: 6
C-ute: 5 (4 minor)
Coconuts Musume: 5

While it is conceivable that Melon Kinenbi will get another release, Berryz Koubou will most likely take sole possession of 3rd place by the end of the year. Aya Matsuura’s releases have slowed down considerably - 4 in the last 3 years - so it should only be a matter of time until Berryz passes her. As for one day taking the #1 spot, I would imagine that BK would break up before that point.

Looking the list over, can you believe that Yuko Nakazawa has 12 singles or that Yuki Maeda has 8?

To finish things up today, everyone visit wotachat! It is pengie’s (of unchained) hosted chatroom. She wants to populate it even more so I’m passing along the word of my own will and volition (read: forced). I’m usually there at some point every day and many IW bloggers/contributors make a daily visit at some point. It’s pretty fun - although the conversation always starts getting bizzare when a certain resident of Hawaii shows up.

Will I keep up with Berikyuu? Probably not. I didn’t keep up with Musume Dokyu or Uta Doki. Too many files to download, too much to keep up with. It’s going to need to be some kind of show for me to follow it regularly.

But before I get to watching it - I have high hopes for Berikyuu.

Haromoni is not the same show it was when I started watching it on a weekly basis. Two months ago, the majority of the show consisted of the Musume girls watching videos. Now an episode of Haromoni is more about the girls themselves. In an ideal world, the show would be better due to the changes. It isn’t. It is true that the girls are acting out the majority of the videos. However, the videos are still boring, predictable and repetitive. It makes me wonder if they filmed a month’s worth of episodes at a time. It’s possible to get a hit using the same format and the same gags over and over, but more often it’ll be a miss.

Berikyuu will save me from this! It just HAS to. We are all starved for variety entertainment from the H!P Kids. DVDs of material only come by so often. Appearances on the music shows only come with releases. There has never really been a steady stream of variety material from the H!P Kids. I am of the belief that the majority of them can be great entertainers in these situations. But am I giving them the benefit of the doubt? The fact is that the Kids - unlike Morning Musume - haven’t have the chance to disappoint yet.

Continue Reading »

There are some days where I question how much of a fan I truly am of idols. Today is one of those days. It has been roughly one year since the Hello!Project, and thus, idol career of Ai Kago came to an end. It was a bitter end - at the time there was hope and promise for a revitalization of her career that had been previously suspended for a year. However, Ai did not want to play the by the frivolous and petty rules rules of being an idol.

And this makes me not want to play by the rules of idol worship.

So there are some days that I look at Kanna Arihara, and others, and think:

“We can’t go on together, with suspicious minds.”

Continue Reading »

That’s David Banner.

Yesterday, there was a gamma ray burst that may have been visible to the naked eye. Gamma ray bursts can be very scary things. The amount of energy that they realize is something that just cannot simply be imagined. However, they are weird phenomena. I would expect a star blowing up to release energy in all directions, but this doesn’t happen.

For those more interested in this gamma ray burst, here is an article (with a photo of the light). Even though the light is just reaching us now, the star that exploded was 7.5 billion light years away. That means 3 billion years before our solar system was in its current form, this star blew up. And it is just now reaching us. That is crazy!! I would also imagine that there were no objects in space that was in the line of path of the light for us to see it. No asteroids, comets, planets, space junk, American flags or babies for this light to deflect off of. I can only imagine the odds of us seeing this light were pretty low.

I would have been satisfied just seeing this event without capturing it. Because only by witnessing some sort of a gamma explosion could I have transformed into The Hulk.

Which begs the question, what H!P member would make the most convincing Hulk? Well it’s not going to be Edward Norton.

Continue Reading »

No, it wasn’t worth watching. In fact, I decided that I wasn’t going to watch it this week and go do something productive.

Yah right, I wish.

Continue Reading »

I like Dschinghis Khan. That is, I like the German pop band. Truthfully, I only know two songs that they have done. The song Dschinghis Khan and Moskau. Moskau is the better of the two. The star of the band, Louis Hendrik Potgieter, was charismatic enough that I’d watch him doing almost anything. I can imagine him reading the daily newspaper dancing like he does in Moskau. It is a fantastic little scene in my head.

I like Koi no Dance Site. Morning Musume’s 8th single was fun. It was goofy and wacky. However, it all worked. Despite acting like goofs, there was a charm to it. It was a very different music video as it incorporated odd sets, many costume changes and a great deal of editing to achieve some special effects. Somehow, it fit the song, which involved a lot of nonsense “Ba ba bon’s” and “Uh ha’s.”

But I’m not so sure if I like Berryz Koubou’s Dschinghis Khan.

Continue Reading »

Paul Thomas is a TLS HERO! I’ve been holding off rankings for a while. But I have no reason not to now.

Also, I know that Paul is going to do rankings based on everyone voting in his poll. However, I am interested in my rankings compared to other International Wota bloggers. Therefore, I’ve figured out which bloggers have the closest rankings to me.

Continue Reading »

When a group like Berryz Koubou or C-ute releases a single, the goal isn’t to make good music but music that will sell. It would be nice for both to be true. It is not always going to happen though. These two groups are on the verge of releasing singles that, based on their own merits, cannot possible sell well. That is just based on the music. People will buy these singles though. They will buy them because they “support” their group.

What a wacky world we live in.

Continue Reading »

A few weeks before the 58th Kouhaku aired, I had a conversation about what was probably going to happen on it. What I wanted from the show was very simple. No Love Machine. I figured that there is no good reason to remind people that the 8 members who performed that song were all long gone. However, I got a surprising counterargument and I conceded, Morning Musume should perform Love Machine at Kouhaku.

But it was still boring.

Continue Reading »

Plenty of places to ski here in New England Maimi and Risako, we got piled on with snow Thursday and more is coming today.