ORICON ROUNDUP

CHARTS:

Singles:

01 Yowamushi SANTA Shuuchishin 152,260
02 Koyoi, Tsuki ga Miezutomo Porno Graffitti 81,907
03 White Xmas KAT-TUN 19,962
04 Aino Mamade... Akimoto Junko 17,550
05 Heart of Winter Yamazaki Masayoshi 14,206
06 Eien no Ashita DEEN 13,898
07 Tobira GReeeeN 13,235
08 CROSS GAME alice nine. 12,703
09 Minna no Tamago Shugo Chara Egg! 12,587
10 PAPERMOON Tommy heavenly6 11,838

Albums:

01 SUPERMARKET FANTASY Mr.Children 707,763
02 EXILE BALLAD BEST EXILE 257,760
03 VOICE Nakashima Mika 33,920
04 Enka Meikyoku Collection 9 - Aishu no Mizuumi - Hikawa Kiyoshi 28,765
05 ai no Uta 2 Various Artists 28,125

40 Abe Natsumi Best Selection 15 Shoku no Nigaoe Tachi Abe Natsumi 5,206
66 Pucchi Best 9 Various Artists 3,354
122 MEGA MELON Melon Kinenbi 1,477
132 Hello! Project Special Unit MEGA Best Various Artists 1,349
148 Taiyo to Ciscomoon (T&C BOMBER) MEGA Best T&C Bomber 1,172
164 Hello! Project Shuffle Unit MEGA Best Various Artists 1,102
168 Tanpopo / Pucchimoni MEGA Best Tanpopo / Pucchimoni 1,084
171 Country Musume MEGA Best Country Musume 1,073
182 Legend Nakazawa Yuko 1,020

ORICON ROUNDUP

CHARTS:

Single:

01 White Xmas KAT-TUN 250,106
02 Tobira GReeeeN 42,394
03 Prototype Ishikawa Chiaki 29,402
04 Kimagure Romantic Ikimono Gakari 23,662
05 NAKED LOVE Nightmare 22,030
06 Aino Mamade Akimoto Junko 21,664
07 Sunao ni Naretara JUJU feat. Spontania / I can be free JUJU 18,145
08 Jesus Gackt 15,900
09 Last Christmas EXILE 13,662
10 Tsunagari Sunset Dragon Ash 12,441

29 Screen Abe Natsumi 4,848

Album:

01 EXILE BALLAD BEST EXILE 943,901
02 Macross F / Macross Frontier: Nyantama TVSoundtrack 86,450
03 VOICE Nakashima Mika 61,049
04 ai no Uta 2 Various Artists 39,120
05 Circus Britney Spears 30,340

PREVIEW: Abe Natsumi's likely final single as a H!P member, SCREEN is released next month and dohhhup! released the PV early this morning.

It's definitely one of the more intricate PVs as of late and it looks like they did their best with a limited budget. Nacchi looks incredible, as always, and the imagery in the PV is quite nice. I think the fade in/outs were overdone just a touch, but overall it created a nice mood and it fit the song well. I'm not exactly sure what was meant to be going on but at least it looked like something was happening :P I loved when Nacchi picks up the key (I think it was a key, yeah?) I just love those old brass style keys, they're quite cool.
The song itself is mid-tempo and a nice change of pace from Nacchi's recent ballads. I can't say it left a huge impression on me or that I think it is awesome but I didn't hate it, which is always a good start.

NEWS: Shocking news this afternoon as the official Hello!Project website announced the mass graduation of every Elder Club member on the 31st of March, 2009.

Graduating Members


Nakazawa Yuko, Iida Kaori, Abe Natsumi, Yasuda Kei, Yaguchi Mari


Ishikawa Rika, Yoshizawa Hitomi, Tsuji Nozomi, Konno Asami, Ogawa Makoto


Fujimoto Miki, Satoda Mai, Inaba Atsuko, Maeda Yuki


Melon Kinenbi
Saito Hitomi, Murata Megumi, Ohtani Masae, Shibata Ayumi


Miyoshi Erika, Matsuura Aya, Okada Yui


Ongaku Gatas' Eggs
Korenaga Miki, Noto Arisa, Sengoku Minami, Sawada Yuri

While the girls are graduating from Hello!Project, they will apparently still remain part of UFA and continue as artists without being idols. Whether this refers to all members is unclear at this point. The Eggs will likely remain within the Hello! Pro Eggs, other than Korenaga who graduated as an Egg since joining Ongaku Gatas.

I gotta say... This is just horrible news. To me many of these artists are who I think of when I think of H!P. How can you have H!P without Yuko or Nacchi? Mari or Kei? Crazy Johnson? The incredible 4th gen? All the soloists? Ahh, it's gonna take a bit to get my head around this. Just the other day I was ranking my fav members in H!P with a friend and they were surprised I had so many of these Elder Club members so high. I really do respect and adore these girls. They will be missed.

No I haven't gone insane ... New Year has come early this year with the previews of Hello! Project's 2009 calendars and some look really wonderful.

Morning Musume

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This is just amazing. I love the background and the theme first off, very pure and sweet. The girls all look great in white, with varying outfits and styles. Gaki stands out to me the most, she just looks amazing. Reina and Ai are also very pretty as are the other girls. Nobody looks bad, which is rare for group photos. I hope the pics inside are as good as the cover!

Matsuura Aya

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This is another incredible cover. It honestly looks like a photobook to me. Ayaya really pops against the grassy backdrop and her expression is beautiful. Very nice!

Abe Natsumi

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This one also resembles a photobook cover to me. It's not as great as Aya's but it's still pretty nice. Nacchi's skin looks flawless (thanks photoshop? or genes?) and the whispy maiden look suits her. I only question her leaning towards the camera, her head looks slightly large. No biggie... *oh wait*

Berryz Koubou

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hmmm... What can you say about this? It's a bit boring. They're just standing there in front of stairs (of all things) in some rather ugly outfits. Risako looks possessed , Yurina looks like she is about to cast some horrible spell on me and Miyabi is thinking "wtf am I doing here... and why am I in the back row?!" Hopefully the pics inside are better.

C-ute

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Oh lord, ok *lol* Ummm... Hmmm. This kind of looks like some annual UN Conference camping trip. Coming together in peace and harmony to roast marshmallows over a blazing bonfire ^_^ Inside should be interesting, to say the VERY least.

NEWS: I know I have been really slacking off on the news portion of this blog lately so first up I'm going to be going through all the latest news (that I know of)... so here we go:

Morning Musume's new single has been announced and will be released on the 24th of September which isn't TOO far off, I guess. The title hasn't been announced but there has been some speculation that it may be the beautiful ballad (Ame no furanai hoshi de wa aisenai darou) that was the closing song of the current H!P Wonderful Hearts concert. I personally would prefer a brand new song, along the same lines of Resonant Blue, purely because I want a new fresh song. The ballad would be great as a high class B-side imo.

Buono!'s Gachinko de Ikou! is released soon (20th Aug) and a commercial has begun airing giving us a sneak peek at the PV.

The white background is very pure and refreshing and helps us focus on the girls in the dancing shots of the girls, while it is contrasted with the crazy band shots which are much more hectic. Not too much to say from that tiny 15sec clip but it does seem like it could end up being a great PV.

C-ute was on Yahoo! Live Talk on Thursday, which I watched live, and they were really good. Kanna was present which was fantastic but she was a bit quiet at the beginning (though she seemed to loosen up after she was asked some questions). The best portions of the talk were when the girls each got up and showed off their outfits and described them, also when they showed off their talents. Download it at the Hello! Online Tracker.

Maimi & Erika also appeared on Tombori Station to promote their new single Edo no Temari Uta II. You can watch it on the Tombori website.

The Aku Yuu Monogatari TV drama aired yesterday evening and you can watch Takahashi Ai & Niigaki Risa as Pink Lady below:

The performance isn't very long but I love how Ai & Gaki's voices blend together, they harmonize very well. They seemed to get into the dance and performance well. I believe they performed more than just the one track, but this is all I could find atm.

Suzuki Airi also performed but I haven't seen a video of that pop up yet.

Berryz Koubou performed at the Osaka King Festival about a week ago but I forgot to post about it *sorry* I'm not sure if a video of the performance popped up, I didn't see one but if someone did feel free to let me know.

The girls were also on MBS Radio Sound Kingdom wearing the same outfits they wore at the Osaka King Festival performance.

Concert Time: A whole bunch of info on upcoming concerts and events were announced recently.

Ongaku Gatas will have a new tour in December this year. It is currently untitled. Miyoshi Erika will appear in a stage play while she will join Okada Yui for a FC Bus Tour in October.
Sharan Q will have a 20th Anniversary concert which will feature H!P performers as guests. At the moment Abe Natsumi, Nakazawa Yuko, Morning Musume, Berryz Koubou, C-ute and Matsuura Aya are known to be participating. Berryz Koubou will have another Gekiharo Gekidan stage play coming up and Matsuura Aya will have an Xmas Dinner show.

Random Ramblings

So I began my blog 3 weeks ago today and I originally wanted it to be a blog which posted every bit of news, was heaps up to date, all that wonderful stuff. I did start out like that I think but it is very difficult trying to keep up with everything as you can see from all this news I had missed in the past few days. I definitely will still be a H!P news blog, posting the most interesting tid-bits but I believe I will probably phase out the less news-worthy stuff unless it truly interests me and focus more on my reviews and random, interesting stuff I've found.

Big thanks to Int Wota who have written about me I think 4 times since I began and it has really helped. I recently began monitoring my hits to the site and it was much better than I expected and then after Int Wota wrote a story about me it just shot up. It's nice to know there are some folks who seem to be constantly coming and checking out this blog. I'll do my best to keep it up to date for all you. Ganbarre masu!

I added the media center to the top of the blog a few days ago so that I could add songs that I reviewed and such. The tracks are only 64kbps so they should load very quickly and I hope it doesn't stuff anyone's viewing of the page up. They aren't download-able atm, but I can check that option. I'm not sure why people would want the low quality tracks though and I don't want to get in trouble and the blog to get shut down so I think I'll leave them as just listen-able.
I know (think) the site has troubles in IE. For me at least it sort of freezes while it loads, I can't seem to figure out why and I'm not tech savvy enough to fix it so I apologise and hope it isn't a huge issue.

One last thing. Please check out my Canaria Club DVD review *shameless plug* If you haven't already. I really think it's a good look at a backstage view of an idol concert + it took me literally hours and hours to screen cap all of that and write on it and nobody commented yet *sad*

In the upcoming week I hope to be doing reviews of THE Possible's backstage DVD as well as their new single, C-ute's new single and Canaria Club's latest single. I'm sure I'll get the time so just keep an eye out for them.

Thanks again,
Mars.