Okai Chisato can dance better than you

Earlier today, a video of Chisato dancing in what looks to be her room was uploaded to the official C-ute channel.



When all of these Hello! Project Youtube channels started popping up, many uploaders feared for their accounts. If UFA had their own channel, they would surely start being harsher when it comes to tracking down unauthorized uploading of PVs and stuff, right?

Months later, not much has changed. Early uploading seems to be cracked down on more frequently, but account suspensions seem to actually have gone down. Either that, or uploaders have just began to give up.

Unlike most uploaders, I jumped for joy (not literally then, but I did squeal like a schoolgirl when I saw the above video) when I heard UFA was opening Youtube channels. I didn't care about them uploading PVs, but it's videos like this that I hoped would be the bulk of their uploads.

Slowly, but surely, UFA began to upload videos like this and I had hope that I would get what I wished for. However, the Chisato Dance de Bakoon! dance cover is something even better.

For years I have watched various girls (and sometimes guys) dance in front of their cameras. Actually, that's exactly how I got into Hello! Project in the first place (yes, that is an actual blog comment by me shortly after I became a fan in 2007). I thought that Kozue was as good at it gets for Youtube, but that was before Chisato decided to show everybody how it's really done.

Beyond the great dancing, there is something extra special about Chisato's video. It has a girl next door feel to it. From her massive CD collection (see Kylon, now you know someone who has more CDs than me) to her stuffed doggie to her wearing "normal" clothes - it's just something that as fans we don't get to see often (or at all really). The rare times that we do see some of those elements (like, say a girl wearing casual clothes), it's usually either planned, or is a stalker picture or something. We rarely get to see those girls be normal girls. Dancing in front of a camera is far from normal, but it's at least we get to see into Chisato's personal life, if just for four minutes.

And I'm not the only one who enjoyed the video. In just a couple of hours, it is already in the top 3 of C-ute's channel's most viewed videos with 12,000 and has gained numerous daily awards (number 1 most discussed for music videos in Japan) on Youtube. At this rate, by tomorrow the video will be the most viewed on C-ute's channel period.

I'm really happy for Chisato, not only for that amazing video, but for the popularity that she has been gaining this past year. Pre-2010 she was an underdog. She rarely got any attention (from fans and UFA), but with each single she seems to get more lines and has become more prominent in nearly everything C-ute does.

I still remember her singing First Kiss in C-ute's first ever concert. It was my first ever concert DVD purchase and I was still new to C-ute. While Airi blew me away with her vocal abilities at such a young age, I thought Chisato could grow into something special. Three years later she's beyond special; she's amazing.