I decided to not doing any links for the weekend. I may change my mind on that in the future but I’m not gonna push myself. I can be like the USA Today compared to Intl Wota, if Intl Wota were a real newspaper.

I still have not watched this week’s or last week’s Haromoni or made any progress on the TLS March April Madness. This is the week for that! Well, so long as no H!P scandals pop up (when’s your yearly scandal coming Nacchi??). I’m using this category as a sort of quick State of the Blog or where I’m at in blogging post. I like keeping things in nice categories… and State of the Blog should be for big news!

I only want to talk about one blog today. And that is ★ ☆ yossha yossha YOSSHA! ☆ ★. Yoshimi’s writing rubs some people the wrong way, I’m sure she is aware of that. I’ll even say myself that I don’t like it all. But there is something underlining with Yoshimi, behind all the threats of violence to Risako. When she likes an idol, she REALLY likes an idol.

The whole point of the wota-idol fandom is for this type of fan connection. It doesn’t have to be the level that some of the Japanese wota take it. However, if you can claim that you are dedicated to a particular idol, no matter what happens to that idol or their career, then you are exhibiting the type of connection intended. I think it is clear that, when it comes down to it, Yoshimi has this.

Now, she recently said that she is done posting pictures of JunJUn. I admit, I’m selfish. I’d rather her keep up with JunJun than with who she replaced JunJun with, Maasa Sudou. But I’ll admit that this is a good idea for Yoshimi.

hi, minnasan (JunJun posts) and now chotto matte (Maasa posts) provide a nice contrast to the combative style in some of her other posts. It’s variety within a blog, and I love variety. It almost makes sense for her to promote less popular H!P members as she slags on the more popular ones.

Even if it isn’t for everyone.

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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In this round:
3. Sayumi Michishige vs. 14. Hitomi Saito
6. Aya Matsuura vs. 11. Maasa Sudou

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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.

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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.

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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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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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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.

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