I feel bad. :(

I’ve been listening to AKB48 (even though I’m NO CLOSER TO BEING ABLE TO TELL EVERYONE APART – I need to be in the Idol Special Ed classes, seriously…) and K-Pop so often lately, I’ve been totally neglecting all the new H!P shit. I don’t mean that it’s all shit, literally. I mean, some of it really is, or maybe just aspects of it, but I like to throw that word around a lot. Understand that. YOU’RE NEW HERE, AREN’T YOU? Shit. See, there I go again.

Anyway, instead of giving boring reviews of songs, talking about how much I love harmonicas and hate those little bleepy parts that make ‘Bye! Bye! Bye!’ sound like your mp3 is skipping, I decided to go back to my roots and review some COVERS. FUCK YEAH, COVERS, I CAN REVIEW THE HELL OUT OF THOSE. H!P has always been an easy target where covers are concerned:

It's been what? Three years? I STILL WANT TO PUNCH THIS COVER IN ITS GODDAMN FACE. "Everyone get dressed in the dark, wander in, look as awkward as possible...don't worry, we'll add a background in post." WHEN EVEN MIKI LOOKS UGLY IN YOUR COVER, YOU'VE FAILED AT COVER.

So, what about Sumpin New? There is never a lack of newness to snark on in the Hello!Universe, so here we go.

First up, since the entire single fell through the cracks of Going Crazy During Yuletime last month, we have ‘SHOCK!’ from Suzuki Airi featuring C-ute. There are three different covers (so H!P can make more money off of desperate wota), and all of them follow a not-so-startlingly similar theme: MOAR AIRI. AIRI EVERYWHERE. LOOK AT THIS GQMF IDOL. I’m one of the many who personally love the single but wonder what the hell made it so impossible to distribute lines anywhere. Who pissed off UFA? Not Airi!

This is the most gratuitous offender. I have to admit that Airi is working the crap out of it, here, all fierce and hot. And Maimi will not be upstaged, she's just back there all like "look at my new hair, bitches". Chisato...we'll get into you later. Saki is trying to pull an inticing open-mouthed expression, hoping some enterprising wota will shove a balloon in there. MaiMai, as usual, is just MAD. >:(

My favorite of the covers, and also the one I refer to as the 'People on the Left...we HATE the People on the Right' cover (see early Paula Poundstone for reference) Airi, Maimi, and Chisato are just chillin' over there lookin' fly as Hell, and Saki is apparently still chewing on that giant wad of gum that's keeping her jaw perpetually open. CLOSE YOUR MOUTH, GOD. MaiMai is still MAD. >:(

While we’re here in the (sort of?) middle, I have to say I LOVE the fashion for this single. Best H!P has done (for someone other than Buono!, and definitely for C-ute) in a while. Black and White WORKS for C-ute, admit it (FOREVER LOVE, anyone? Yes, please). But, and I’ve mentioned this on Twitter and Picboard but not yet here (obviously…what the Hell, I’m just now officially acknowledging that this single exists), CHISATO ABSOLUTELY KICKS EVERYONE ELSE’S ASS. It’s the tophat. It’s gotta be the tophat. OR IS IT. Look at that perfect tailoring. Think of Chisato covering Britney’s ‘Circus’ now. Or don’t. Actually, that’s a very bad idea, don’t do that. Think of Chi forcing S/mileage to jump through hoops and making Buono! balance balls on their noses. HELL YES, CHISATO CAN BE MY H!P RINGMASTER ANYDAY. All eyes on her, in the center of the ring, just like a circus. I fucking love that outfit.

But what the Hell with the Gladiator boots. Those are disastrous, and EVERYONE is wearing them. What, pray tell, is wrong with regular boots?

OH GAGA, YOU DON'T COUNT. ON EARTH. EVER.

So now that I’ve gotten the FASHION FUCKERY CHECK out of the way, on to the last ‘SHOCK!’ cover:

I don't dislike Airi. At all. But I love that Maimi's sexcat-ness and Saki's open-mouthed hotlegs-ness stole this shot from her. Otherwise, really, we're looking at four girls worhsipping at the Altar of Airi. UPDATE: MaiMai still mad, needs nap. And jfc, UFA Photoshop Guy/Girl: YOUR OVERUSE OF THE ERASER TOOL FRUSTRATES ME.

So where do we move from C-ute? How about something less stark and monochromatic? How about something with A MILLION FUCKING COLORS, in true H!P fashion? I’d like that. It’s been a while since we’ve seen a krillion-chromatic H!P cover, after all, and the last one we saw sold like fartcakes at a bakesale (hey, don’t look at me, I loved Mikan), sooooo:

Because they’re Melon FUCKING Kinenbi, they can get away with this. Also, because they’re MFKB, they make it look pretty kickass! I see so many seemingly random pan-global miscellany, like lanterns, a pig, cranes, pyramids, a lucky cat, the Statue of Liberty, Buddha, an elephant, and Murata Megumi. And there’s also a cock.

One more thing before we move on: to anyone else does this looks like a Kula Shaker cover with four hot chicks added for emphasis? I love Melon Kinenbi.

As we go on, the covers get smaller and smaller:

Considering that 1) the preview for ‘Our Songs’ makes it sound like their best song since ‘MY BOY’, and 2) their costumes are absolutely radical, which is par for the course, and 3) THEY ARE THE GODDAMN BUONO!….Buono! deserves better than these piece of shit covers. Someone just got really lazy and decided “random confetti” and unreadable text was a good choice. If that first cover were a Fandom!Secret, there would be about thirty comments bitching about how you can’t read the damned thing because of the jacked-up colors in the font. Ffffffuuuuuuuuu. Still, look at those jackets. LOOK AT THOSE CITADEL-INSPIRED JACKETS, those are hot. Still, these covers are the music art equivalent of:

They got sprinkles.

Augh, I’m almost tuckered out now. But there is one cover left. One vile, heinous, barely-visible cover left as our images continue to get smaller and smaller and smaller.

OIC.

The preview uber-super-small-I-Hope-you-brought-a-microscope cover for Morning Musume’s forthcoming ‘Onna ga blah blah blah where did all the exclamation points go!?!’ It’s like they invaded the set of the Shabondama video wearing wedding cakes. Now it makes sense, though. IT MAKES SENSE WHY KOHARU IS GONE. She saw these outfits. She saw them coming off the designer’s table, and raised such a “HELL NAW” that Tsunku was like:

...but she got to do the boobs-and-ass song first.

But then again, Koharu obviously agreed on these:

What has been seen cannot be unseen. Therefore, a unicorn chaser.

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MOAR RISAKO!!!!

Y HALO THAR.