SO YEAH.

Can pictures of Dominic Howard REALLY cheer me up after this news?

"Yeah, good luck with that."

…*sigh*

ETA: I made this

Life is really going down the shitter for me, again, through no fault of my own, and I made this yesterday before things got all shitty once more. So, I’m not feeling my best. Be gentle with my snark. My snark loves you. Most of all, keep in mind that none of this is aimed at you! :D I’d still very much like to go enjoy about four bottles of Asahi right now, if you’re paying! Let’s go get drunk, Pink Wota readers!

A-K-BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-48 EDITION!! (plus something about Socko’s Modern Life)

Whatchu want me to talk about on Wotas Gonna Wot, Pink Wota Readers? I know all twelve of you must have something that begs my commentary. I’ll try. I promise I’ll try to promise to try.

I don’t know, life is really weird right now.

Check out my dance.

Since I’m absolutely horrible about writing lately, but I STILL HAVE THINGS TO SAY, I figured I’d throw them into a vlog which I hope will be weekly. It will probably, honestly, be “whenever I fucking feel like it”, which will hopefully be more than I feel like writing.

Then, after I have about five or six episodes of this under my belt,. I’ll suddenly decide I hate doing it and I’ll go back to writing. This is how I keep you on your toes. This blog is like a psych study. God.

This week: “VOICE” PV, Ayumi and her stupid shit, Maji Bomber!!, and BoA

You want me to be arsed to care, to look at this objectively and with a ~brave heart that still loves Morning Musume after all this time…I JUST CAN’T.

When I re-listen to this it occurs to me that maybe I’ve taken a few too many pages out of Luke’s guidebook. Except less skeevy. Maybe. I do end with AKB48 in bikinis.

Still not impressed. Except by Chisato. Chisato impresses me.

Yup, you’ll have to put up with my Muse obsession just a wee bit longer. The good news is, I’ve found a way to tie it into H!P. What!? How can this be? Epic mash-up of ‘Independent Girl～独立女子であるために’ and ‘Bliss’? Although I think that might actually work, sadly, no. I don’t have those skills. But what I am going to do is compare and contrast my two favorite trios – possibly my two favorite acts in all of music right now. (No, Alessandro Cortini, I haven’t forgotten about you…I’m just enjoying your random tweets and also your Twitter updates <—see what I did there?)

It all really started with the performance of ‘We are Buono! ~Buono no Theme~’ in which they donned very extended costumes consisting of musical instruments. Now, they’d done this before. Trust me, I jizzed in my pants when the FC DVD featured Buono! trying their tiny little hands at musical instruments to varying degrees of success/failure. This was just too great, though…

OKAY FIRST OF ALL THEY ENTER THE STAGE TO ‘Ride of the Valkyries’, which is just as epic and just as fitting as Muse entering Wembley to ‘Dance of the Knights’ from Romeo and Juliet. A parallel can be drawn, right there.

Then, they proceed to not even attempt to play their instruments. It’s so cute. However, the song does rock my world, and it does establish that Airi = guitar, Miyabi = bass, and Momo = drums.

My brain, as it usually does, began racing.

(more…)

Pink Wota’s third anniversary is coming up in May, which I find terrifying and also a little sobering. Especially since my domain renewal comes up in less than ten days, and I still haven’t gotten around to paying for that. I will, but…the fact that I didn’t jump on it is very telling.

I began writing this article, honestly, at the end of 2009. In my black notebook in the cramped handwriting that suggests I was on a writing jag when I wrote it, I’ve titled the article “A Wota’s Requiem for 2009 or ~what the fuck am I doing?~”. 2009 drew to a close, and I realized several things. Some are important, some are not. It was the first full year I lived without my mom. That’s important. 2009 was my first year in six that I did not attend an anime or fan convention of any kind. That’s not so important. In 2009 I accomplished very little as a writer, and my ambivalence about that is neither important nor unimportant. Like a lot of things about last year – for me, and for everyone – that last bit just is, and has nothing to do with anyone or anything else.

A few people may not be surprised by this, but as early as December I began wondering why I was even blogging anymore. Gone seem to be the days of just talking about what you like and don’t like, sharing opinions in a calm and mature manner, and recycling old jokes. Or maybe, I’ve also thought over these past months, I’m doing too much outside of my own enjoyment. For instance, the many times I’ve joined and participated in fandoms for television shows, movies, obscure book series…I always burn out a couple of years in. It’s not the fault of the source material, not at all. I just tend to find The Fandom to be indistinguishable after some time from my fandom, siphoning the original love I had, that undefinable spark.

I mean, there they are on my wall, right above my computer. Koharu. Maasa. Erika. They’re looking down at me, they’re judging me. Actually, it’s more like they’re just smiling at me and cheering me on, which makes me feel even worse when I have to tell them that I don’t know how long I can really keep this up. From the very beginning I wondered what was wrong with me that I wasn’t the sort of wota who spent a lot of hard-earned money on tons of photos and trinkets and other merchandise (really, the answer is because I have no money, but it didn’t stop me from racking up massive credit card debt in my early Morning Musume fan days, collecting all their CD’s. Yeah, I had to sell that collection off in 2007 to pay off the massive credit card bills I’d incurred) (still not paid off, not Morning Musume’s fault). Was I not into it enough? I learned songs, I learned dances, I bought what I could afford and I lamented after the rest. I used to systematically break apart every release, from the aesthetics to the music and even beyond (Ayumi Hamasaki being my primary science project, there, but H!P got the treatment a few times).

J-Pop is my love and my joy, and over about seven years (ten, if you count my old anime music obsession/gateway drug) it has become a large part of my life, something by which people know me, something by which I tend to define myself. So why do I question what I’m doing here? How do I still know all the moves to ‘Renai Revolution 21′ and yet feel uncomfortable in my own blog?

It could be that I’ve lost interest, but the more obvious and self-pitying answer is that I don’t have time to do the research I want, yet still want to do more than just announce new releases or critique costumes. With the exceptions of Ayumi Hamasaki and H!P pre-2007, maybe I really don’t have any idea what I’m talking about. And I’m sorry about that. If you come to Pink Wota and find my fact-checking fuzzy, I apologize. I tried to explain, in the couple of years I hosted our J-Pop panel at anime conventions, that information isn’t often the easiest thing to find for a new would-be fan, especially an anglophone. All I really want to do on PW is talk about the music I like, the artists I admire, but when I still don’t talk about acts like THE Possible or Shiina Ringo so much, it’s not for lack of love or caring. When I bite my tongue on AKB48 it’s not because I don’t love what they do.

I just don’t know, am afraid to make a mistake, and have become so jaded with fandoms in general that most times I’d rather eat rat ass than ask questions on forums. Arguing on the internet is the lamest pasttime of all, and I’ve seen a devolution occur, to the point where arguing on the internet seems to define the J-Pop fandom (what are we, K-Pop!? Guys, seriously). Self-researching is harder, yes, but at least it doesn’t come with the possibility of fandom dickery and bias. Granted, dickery and bias is funny, and I do enjoy me some witty hate, but only to an extent. I love my J-Pop fandom, but at this point I’m fragile to sharing it. Even recently I’ve found that one petty misunderstanding can sour a song for me, and risking that is something I am increasingly hesitant to do. After all, I came here for the music in the beginning. That’s not changing. Fortress of Solitude, headphones on. I do like what I like.

Ya gotta have a thick skin. I suppose I can only be confident in blogging away at Ayumi Hamasaki because I am not only well-versed in her work and background, but also have a thicker, more objective skin where she is concerned. Debating Ayumi seems to have more meat, to me, more legitimate avenues of exploration and interpretation. Arguing about which member of H!P is the best comes with a morass of innavigable spite, and very few people seem to be The Dude:

BE THE DUDE.

Does it seem to anyone else that war broke out over the last year? Snarky, bilous, pointless war that was difficult to avoid? H!P changed its whole fucking rule book, and those who took the opportunity to seek out other idol music found themselves in an unfortunate crossfire. Here is where I find myself (and I stress that this only myself, this is a personal post of epic proportions, and I don’t really expect anyone to give a shit – I’m word-vomiting for blogging catharsis):

1) I don’t care enough about current H!P to have a place within the fandom there.

2) I don’t know enough about the other groups I now like to write or say a damned thing without sounding like a retarded flipper baby.

and

3) The snark I resort to in place of facts just makes me feel like a douche and mourn for the old days of mindless gushing.

It’s as if there is some taboo against asking for help in the Asian music fandoms. I’ve heard it before in my previous Morning Musume years: “I can’t keep those girls straight! I don’t know who’s who! Can someone please help me?”…I actually helped a few friends. It’s a serious undertaking. It took me considerable time, I know. Therefore, I bow down to those bloggers who have made “Get to Know” or “101″ posts. As for myself, I committed a few days of my time (between work and other important things) to learning the girls of SNSD on sight. Difficult, difficult, difficult, but I DID it. Do I feel like I can do anything, now? Hell, no, because there are at least four other K-Pop groups I want to learn and it’s like they all keep adding members and shit before I can tell them “STOP!! YOU’RE MAKING IT WORSE!” (<–see? Snark. It makes me feel like a douche)

So here I am, left with my options: continue to self-research and enlist the aide of friends when available, hoping the faces and voices of AKB48, KARA, After School, and all the rest sink in, or just try to force it?

I asked myself that question back in December. I’m sitting here now, looking at it, and laughing. Because apparently I chose something between the former and the latter. I don’t want to force it. H!P took some enjoyable time for me, and it doesn’t strike me, looking back, that I had oodles more time back in 2004, 05, and 06 to learn. Somehow I feel like we’re all expected to knew new groups, faces, nicknames, and personality traits within a month, these days. It’s like “OH YOU CAN’T TELL WHO OGAWA SAKI IS YET GTFO” and, honestly, you guys, I’m scared. Not that someone can knife you over the internet, but for fuck’s sake that’s how crazy some people get. I just don’t care as much, and while I can look at people like Ray and CJ and see that they’ve moved on, I’m a bit more hesitant. I have “wota” in my blog’s title for fuck’s sake.

I don’t learn things that quickly. I can’t. I’m still too busy digging the music. To wit, I loved Muse since 2005 before, last year, ever giving a shit about what they looked like. Matt Bellamy seriously could have passed me on the street in 2007, while I was listening to ‘Origin of Symmetry’ on my iPod, and I wouldn’t have known. I probably would have been like “did you dress yourself in the dark, you tiny, strangely attractive man?” but I wouldn’t have known.But yeah, different worlds, because J-Pop and K-Pop are all about the image, right? AUGH I hate trying to justify why I sometimes just don’t care, and yet sometimes do.

When I drool over AKB photospreads, I want to know whose legs or whose belly I’m wanting to nuzzle. While we’re on the subject of AKB: I wanted to write so much about ‘RIVER’. I loved it, it re-awakened my J-Pop love, it was my favorite J-Pop song of 2009. But with the exception of a handful, I still don’t know who’s who. I can’t compare Maeda’s lines or close-ups to Random Girl I Don’t Know Yet. I can’t identify AKB by split-second. And yet I don’t want to do this until I’m seized by the overwhelming desire to Do It On My Own (cue ‘Muscle Museum’), because otherwise it feels like I’m doing it just so I can seem hip, cool, with-it, knowledgeable about something I didn’t really need to know when all I was doing was going “this song is absolutely amazing – and that one girl with the fringe is super-cute”.

But I’m in that crossfire. I’m still thinking, tweeting, about H!P (occasionally, though this has dropped off like…idek a proper metaphor. Like Morning Musume’s single sales. ZING), still wondering what’s next, hoping for an awesome year in H!P despite all the snark. So far, that isn’t really happening for anyone but Berryz. IN MY OPINION. No yelling on the internet, please. The AKB vs. H!P wars seem to have died down a little bit since the winter, but I still don’t want to risk my neck in toeing the waters.

Yet it seems disingenuous that I ask for everyone to get the fuck along – after all, I’m trying to distance myself from organized fandom, right? I’m the one who criticized every move Morning Musume made last year, right? I still love to make fun of Mitsui Aika because Cheez-its Cry she is such an easy target, right?

Yup.

So what the fuck am I doing? I’m definitely not above this, and I certainly don’t feel too old for this shit in my heart of hearts. After all, anyone who sticks around long enough will start to notice that their fandom gets younger. No shit. It’s because you’re getting older. The grand embrace that seemed to happen between new Star Trek fans and established Star Trek fans (even bringing some of us established ones out of the fandom closet, so to speak) seems almost storybook – new fangirls and fanboys wet their pants over awesome new movie, end up waxing GQMF about DeForest Kelley, Majel Barrett, even Voyager (>_>). That’s no comparison to anything that has happened or potentially could happen in the Asian music fandoms, because there is too much delineation, too much new and not enough real interest in old (unless you want to be one of those ever-increasingly stereotypical “I LIKED AYUMI HAMASAKI UNTIL ABOUT 2004″ or, hey, I fit into this one “I LIKED MORNING MUSUME UNTIL ABOUT 2007″ people). I mean, Deep Space Nine vs. The Next Generation is not Team K vs. SweetS, and consuming back catalogs of movies, TV episodes, books, comics, etc. has much more substantive discussion fodder than old albums and concerts, if you can even find them.

I used to think that H!P fans had dedication, but what we really had was a well-practiced cycle of what to expect. A new group here, a graduation there, five or six singles a year from the major groups, and concert DVD’s in regular increments. Auditions occasionally, and on rare and sensational occasions, a scandal.

It wasn’t consistent and unrelenting drama. It worked while it did in Japan, that cyclical and predictable formula, but it doesn’t anymore. Maybe – conjecture, here – the information age had predisposed a generation of fans to consistent and unrelenting drama? And I notice that, in the absence of having it happen within the body of work itself (K-Pop does a good job with that, and the netizens just take it from there and – BAM! BATSHIT TIME!), the fans tend to make the drama themselves. Haters, antis, what-have-you. Yelling on the internet.

Had I made it to Anime Expo 2009, it would have been right near the end of my cycle of love for Morning Musume. I can’t fault anyone for still loving them – they’re still Morning Musume, after all. But after writing this big, weird, rambly article, I realize what the fuck I’m doing. I’m trying to keep blogging the same way I did in 2007, when that isn’t how my mind is working, anymore. Might as well pass the torch. *throws torch into crowd, runs* Catch that shit. Use it. I’ll sporadically post random things, try to be topical and perhaps funny, but eh.

When you don’t care, you don’t care. And you can’t force it. Then it’s just not fair to the real fans, or to yourself.

Shine on, you crazy diamonds.

Buono! forever.

For the record, here is my 2010 Hello Blog ranking, not that it really matters after all I’ve just said:

Honestly, I’ve had this one up for a while on my YouTube channel, but decided to wait for a “dry spell” to post it. The reasoning? I don’t really think it’s my best. Well, honestly, if you wrenched my arm and got to the bottom of things, I honestly think everything I do is pretty shit, but I try not to let that detract from having others possibly enjoy things.

Here you go. Possibly enjoy it!

Why are these so hard to do for H!P? I don’t even know. Most of the time nothing HAPPENS in these PV’s, is the main problem. But the other day I re-watched this one and had to raise an eyebrow at the utter strangeness of the images.

Were there an extended version, I would explore the possibility of Miki herself being the balloon strangler, but the video is long enough on its own thank you very much.

THE LYRICS:

Wearing marching band uniforms
Holding balloons from the fair
Walking all alone outside at night
Running now these damned outfits
Attracted some pervert
Who might want to kill us
Oh WHY WHY

It’s okay girls I got away
From that guy
I’m sad that I lost my balloon
This room has way too many unused hangers
What’s my hotel room floor number?

Mirrored wall
Close up shot
Find my balloon
Hang something up
Unreasonably long earring

Ladies night at the gay bar
It’s obviously just our friends
There’s a balloon and marching band theme
Oh my god I’m so pissed at these hangers right now
You take that! Clear this room out or hang something up!
Check us out with our Europop
I just need to change my top
Guess I’ll sleep in the bathroom again
You think you’ve got it bad
My balloon was stolen that’s all I’ve really got
Watch my butt as I leave!

I think we’re in an Eli Roth movie now
I’ll do the pee dance by this wall
I just want to get my balloon back again?
Guess he stopped chasing me back there

Still in this bathroom stall
Fuck these hangers!
Where’s my balloon?
Kneeling, these boots hurt like hell

Robot dancing to hell out there while these hangers
Obscure my close-up shot and I’m SO not impressed
I’m just totally out of this concept, okay, what the hell,
I was crying but now I’m okay?
I got chased all around by some crazy guy I’ll catch my breath
Mother crap my balloon’s gone again!
Hey you guys I’m either running frightened alone or cooped up in a bathroom, how messed up is this?

You should know, there’s an actual storyline here, like that part where Ayaya got locked in that room
Looks like ‘Saw’, and that part before when were all running scared?
There’s a guy strangling girls with balloons!
I’m so desperate for company I’ll just wait here in my fetish ensemble and wait for this guy!
As for me, I just got to look scared and be part of this song when it’s obvious I don’t belong!
SHUT UP Rika you’re only in this cause Miki didn’t take the job, shut up and run for your life!

OK, guys. I love Kamei Eri. You know I think she’s super-beautiful, even though in the early days of her tenure with MoMusu I gave her the (loving) little nickname “Fraken-chan” (gurl was scurry back then, I’m sorry).

Nevertheless, there’s this:

ST-ST-ST-STUNNING.

TURTLE POWER IS ALL IN THE LEGS.

ULTIMATE TOP OF BEAUTY

But am I I the only one who does not find this beautiful?

Ew. Just…ew. Apparently I’m the only (languishing, and admittedly getting-too-old-for-this-shit) wota who isn’t creaming his/her pants over this. I’m late to the party, I know, but for posterity’s sake I feel the need to point out that this picture is pretty much the opposite of sexy, for me. I am getting no eye contact, this whole white bikini/sloppy hairstyle/dark background thing indeed makes her head look about three times too large, and then there’s the diaper bottom.

But to make matters worse, it’s the bones. This isn’t just the lament of a fat girl wishing stick-thin girls weren’t worshipped (it could be) – hell, I’d hump 9/9 of SNSD, and have you SEEN how skinny those girls are? More to a current fixation of mine, have you seen 2/3 of Muse? Those boys could give K-Pop girls a run for the money. This isn’t a point of “bony skinny = not a good body image blah blah blah politics” contention. Nah, bony skinny just happens (sometimes. Sometimes it is forced, but a lot of times it is genetics). No, I just don’t see how it’s sexy for a girl to look like a starving third-world child. I’d send her pennies a day if presented with a photo like this.

It’s all in the lighting, it’s all in the choice of wardrobe and the angle of her head, I know. But damn, that is one very unattractive photo.

Now THIS:

*phew* Kamei is still beautiful. I was scared.

Did I want to make a point with this? Not really. I just wanted to offer a counterpoint. But maybe I’ll make one anyway: bad photos happen. Sometimes they even become photobook centerpieces. It doesn’t mean we all love it, and it doesn’t mean we love an idol less because that one photo seems sort of…creepy, maybe? Yeah, I’d call “starving pasty Eri in a diaper” creepy.

I STILL LOVE HER.

But let me tell you, that piece of crap bikini didn’t make me put in a pre-order for SWEET or anything. JUST SAYIN’.

And now, a fantastic H!P bikini body to counter that:

Sayumi in a bikini is never irrelevant.

…because then Tsunku forces you to graduate and “pursue modeling”, that’s why.

Perhaps I sound like some flailing would-be Nostradamus for this one, but as my previous posts on Reimagining Sub-par Ayumi Hamasaki Videos have indicated, I like to imagine different videos for good songs, okay? And I always thought that the video for ‘Osaka koi no Uta’ was woefully lacking, as stunning as that song is. What did I imagine in its place? A fashion/runway/photoshoot/make-up theme.

I am not even kidding, I’ve had this fake concept for like three years, and then the costumes come out for ‘Onna ga Medatte Naze Ikenai’ and everyone is comparing them to ‘Osaka koi no Uta’. Gotta admit, I’ll take that comparison. And then…THEN….the PV preview dropped, as did my jaw. This is pretty much the concept I’d been wanting!

A concept that would have been right in place with the dwindling but still-ample budget of Morning Musume PV’s during the transitional 6th-to-7th generation. Whereas the “we’re not going to really light anything, so just use your imagination” PV for ‘Osaka koi no Uta’ could be exactly what I was expecting here.

Don’t get me wrong, though. ‘Nanchatte Renai’, for all its (imo) flaws, had great lighting and camerawork, too. I still say ‘Shouganai Yume Oibito’ was a gorgeous video. ‘Kimagure Princess’ and ‘Naichau Kamo’ suffered from the same problem as most C-ute videos: lack of scope. But here comes ‘Onna ga Medatte Naze Ikenai’ down the line, and…what’s this…?

RACK FOCUS. TRACKING SHOT. AMAZING LIGHTING. THE GIRLS WORKIN’ IT. lack of Koharu, sniff. COLOR. IT LOOKS GLOSSY AND CLASSY AND FIERCE.

This is the mature, self-aware, well-marketed Morning Musume I never saw in 2010.

Well played, Tsunku, well played. Now, the question: was it all waiting for Koharu’s departure? Because I think the girl would have slipped right into a more mature look (even though those costumes make you think “there is no fucking way this is a mature video lawl” NO IT SERIOUSLY IS), but the timing would prove otherwise. Sure she got to be in the ‘Kimagure T&A’ video, but that was just…baffling. Still very baffling, what they were trying to accomplish with that one.

For reference, here is the video, albeit still pretty LQ:

Everyone is staggeringly beautiful, with the exception of Aika, who has no big sexy lips to pout, and would be better suited working with Hagiawara Mai in a new unit for Large Heads.

And oh, my. The transformation of Gaki-san from the last single to this one. I was beginning to think we’d lost her, that she was just turning to a skinny girl with a very pointy face, but NO!! This is the Gaki I know and love and….other things. GAKI. Fuckin’ KAMEI, too.

But mostly, ladies and gentlemen, the Pandas. LinLin obviously owns that runway. Miss J Alexander would approve. And we think that’s it until JUNJUN comes marching in, her legs get their own close-up, and she just throws fierce all over that camera lens. Hot damn, gurl, you fine.

Gaki, Sayu, Kamei and Aika are all obviously sabotaged by terrible direction of how to pose at the end of the runway, unless they think that’s really how models pose at the end of a runway, in which case:

But this is just focusing on the particulars. This video, in general, leaves me feeling happy for Morning Musume. That maybe they’ve found that magical niche after a year of flailing around and trying to locate it. I really hope this single does well on the charts, as the video is fucking FIERCE and it’s not like AKB48 picked a salacious follow-up to ‘RIVER’ or anything (I like it, okay, but….yeah).

Hopefully I can update this with screenshots, but that’s all dependent on how soon I can get a copy.

P.S. The line where they all go “MY FACE!” still cracks my shit up.