There were not many Ai Kago reactions after all.

Buono’s Kiss!Kiss!Kiss! PV was released and can be viewed at some boys blog. I haven’t watched it yet so I don’t have any opinion. I just like that, after 2 previous singles, it’s possible to label this PV as “Typical Buono.”

There are more reviews for Perfume’s GAME. Shanimuni Paradise and boylikesmusicPerfume. It pains me to see that neither of them enjoy “take me take me” as much as I do. I will freely admit that I’m liking this song because it was made for the exact reasons Shanimuni points out:

If there was ever fan service in a song…….

They had an album called Fan Service, they are not above this!

I do enjoy that GAME is getting reactions to Perfume across the blogs. It’ll take some time to win over more fans and there are some who simply won’t pay attention to this group at all. This is slowly changing.

Posted on the Hello!Online tracker was Morning Musume’s appearance on Utaban. I am going to review this for TLS later on today as I have some fun comments for it. But real quick, this is a combination of mainstream Japan’s opinion of Morning Musume (Utaban doesn’t care about Momusu anymore) and an episode of Haromoni (boring rubbish as we watch Momusu watch other people do nothing). I would recommend watching this but it really is no different from the last few years of Morning Musume on these shows.

As for Airi Suzuki’s third photobook (from strawberrie)…

Aika. Kanna. Junjun.

2006: Def Diva
2007: GAM
2008: C-ute

When it happens, you can all call it the Rakuten Eagles Curse.

* Morning Musume doesn’t count since The Manpower was A) not intended for the baseball team, B) did not have Rakuten Eagles in the title and C) would ruin my theory.

My guesses as to how:

1 - Chisato Okai pulls out a knife in the middle of a concert and finally cuts a solo line. In who is debatable.

2 - Erika Umeda gets caught in a scandal and rocks the foundation of the unit - haha, yah right.

3 - Japan gets sick of teenage girls - haha, yah right.

4 - Airi becomes a full-time member of Buono. What something that could seriously happen?

5 - Either Maimi or Mai is getting pregnant, or both - and potentially with the same baby daddy.

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.

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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.”

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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.

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It’s been a week of negativity here at TLS. Looking over the history of the Japanese music industry, I realized that there are many, many ugly endings. American Idol disappointed by sending off one Colton Berry. We’ve also seen lots of blinking and death by snakebites.

And as amazing as it sounds, the negativity ends with this week’s episode of Haromoni.

After hitting rock bottom, the only direction one can go is up. Well, I guess you could linger around rock bottom, but most people will elevate, even if only a tiny bit. This is the situation we find Haromoni in this week. Last week’s episode was so bad that I think it’ll be impossible for me not to enjoy this week’s episode more.

Plus, I have a new theory on why this show doesn’t work, but more on that later.

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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.

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Without International Wota, I wouldn’t have been able to put this piece together. Thanks to this site, I benefit from being able to take in different perspectives. I think our opinions can only become strong when they are challenged.

The majority of our little community does not look upon Lalala Shiawase no Uta favorably. However, it is not an unanimous objection. Cutieparty really likes it and Fields of maiZe of berryZ doesn’t hate it. I’m sure that more people will join their side as time goes on. It’s nearly impossible to have an unanimous decision on International Wota with all the opinions coming from all different backgrounds.

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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.

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First off, Samantha for pointing this out and arrowisland for scanning them are officially my favorite people right now. If you read the comments for my last entry, you’d have seen a link to Maimi’s photobook. If not, well, here. Thanks to the both of you though. You are TLS HEROES.

This photobook is great. There are no shots that are truly glamorous like the ones you could find in Momoko’s first. Truthfully, would those even work for Maimi? This pb has also brought to the forefront something that I have been wondering. The difference between U15 and H!P U15. The controversy over U15 becomes even a bigger subject for me as I’m officially a year older now. There is one shot in particular in Maimi’s that looks a lot like some things that I have seen from U15 books. I am saving it for later while I figure out what I have to say. For now, I’m simply enjoying the view.

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