Tuesday, December 28, 2010

H!P videos you may have missed, 2010 edition

Staying with this end of the year theme I'm currently on, this post will list some of my favorite videos that have made their way onto the Hello! Online tracker, but either weren't too popular or were released so long ago you may have forgotten about them. This post is going to be really long because, well, tons of great stuff happened in 2010.

Up to Boy is a pretty neat Idol magazine that various H!P members have appeared on in the past. For issue 195, Maimi and Airi shared the stage to make a memorable issue. If you are a fan of photobook making ofs, this is pretty much the same thing. There are some really awesome moments throughout this DVD, like this:




Held sometime in 2009 (which explains why many Elder Club members are present), this is a set of fanclub events featuring every single H!P member of the time.

The format for each event is more or less the same. A quick introduction/recap of the attending member's past and then the fun begins. One of my favorite games is played - the old Hello! Morning karaoke battle. It goes something like this: a couple of seconds of a H!P song is played. If you know what song it is, you run up to the mic and state the title. In some variations of the game, you also have to sing a couple of lines from the song to get credit. After that, all of the members of the event sing a couple short songs then move onto more games.

I really loved these events because of the interaction between the girls. You get to see some pretty random combinations from the different events. You'll have Melon Kinenbi members with Berryz and C-ute members, for example.

Both are subtitled for your viewing pleasure, so there is no excuse to skip out on these. Cutie Land 2 was held during Christmas 2008, so Erika and Kanna are both present. As you probably can guess, it has a Christmas theme. Half of it is a play, and the rest is spent doing other MCs and a mini-live.

Cutie Land 3 is more or less the same thing; MCs, games, and a mini-live. Both are absolute must watches for all C-ute fans.

 Buono! concert footage, funny backstage moments, and epic costume changing. What's not to like?

 Two DVDs of Berryz Halloween awesomeness. Vol. 1 is mostly a concert and Vol. 2 is mostly games and MCs.

Both are subbed by Hyakupa so you can understand them. The MC is pretty funny (and quite revealing) and watching the Koharu graduation segment (subbed) is a good way to see what type of things the members say during graduation concerts to say goodbye.

One of my favorite C-ute DVD magazines. Maichan becomes a photography director for a day and gets to order C-ute around to take some epic shots:



Watch as Morning Musume learn how to deal with emergencies like fires and earthquakes (and see who fails at being safe).

More Up to Boy magazine fun with Airi, Maimi, Risako, Momoko, and Mano Erina. They spend the day at a Japanese High School taking pictures doing typical Japanese club activities like track and kendo. It is pretty cool to see them all in a school setting being a bit normal for a change.

There are four of these:
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?app=xbt&CODE=details&torrent=26707
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?app=xbt&CODE=details&torrent=27926
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?app=xbt&CODE=details&torrent=30125
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?app=xbt&CODE=details&torrent=31492

From 2009 to 2010, both Berryz and C-ute held multiple solo fanclub events. Each member stands on the stage by themselves, sings a handful of solos (most of which are pretty interesting since they often choose songs from other groups and in some cases from non-H!P artists), and does a few MCs by themselves. The MCs probably won't be too interesting without knowledge of Japanese, but these videos are worth the watch for the solos alone.

This is Koharu's last set of fanclub events with Morning Musume before she graduated. They went on a bus tour to Izu, Japan and did typical fanclub things (mini-live, MCs, games) for vol. 1. In Vol. 2, they do random local activities in Izu.

These DVD Magazines are a good way to get to know the many Eggs and offers a rare opportunity for foreign fans to see something that solely revolves around them. There is concert stuff and backstage footage on the DVDs.

Koharu and bonus 9smile concert footage.

This is basically the predecessor to the Berryz/C-ute H!P Annex events above. Each Berryz and C-ute member is in a small room full with a couple dozen wota where they sing a few solos and give the wota a brief look into their normal life by bringing pictures, video, and/or stories or things that recently happened to them.

The main difference between this and the Annex events is... this one is fansubbed! You'll be able to understand every word the girls are saying and singing and you'll be able to laugh, cry, and all around enjoy it just as the wota did.

 Berryz alone in a theme park for a day? How fun!


 Very similar to Vol. 2, except this took place around Christmas 2009, so it's just 5nin C-ute this time. You get to watch C-ute in adorable reindeer costumes and sing a unique version of Jingle Bells, as well as other songs and MCs.

If you've never seen a solo angle of a concert, then you're in for a treat. There are seven DVDs - one for each Berryz member - where the camera does its best to stay on that one member. Often times you will see some nice "hidden" moments that are hard to see with the standard DVD version. It might be a bit much for casual fans to watch the same concert seven times in a row, but it's at least worth it to stare at your favorite member for an hour and a half and see what she does throughout the concert.

These DVDs are for the first H!P mook (magazine + book). Every H!P member is featured doing some sort of activity. They range from karaoke to rock climbing.

Each H!P member is randomly paired up with another member. They both pick a card from a special deck which contains Japanese words or phrases. The members are given the task of coming up with an interesting conversation based on the two phrases that they drew, often to hilarious and interesting results.

Even more Up to Boy magazine stuff, but this time you get to see S/mileage in bikinis.

 Like the Berryz and C-ute Annex FC solo events, S/mileage members were granted a similar experience.

A Morning Musume FC event. Contains a mini-live and some skits. The skits are pretty darn funny even without subtitles.


You get to watch the H!P members try and come up with an infomercial to sell some completely random products that staff members shoved onto a table.

Most people skip concert MCs because they can't understand them and as a result they miss some pretty funny stuff. Again, no excuses to skip this one since it's fansubbed to English.

The Berryz Fan no Tsudoi fanclub events are where Berryz gets to bring out their Berryz Rangers personalities. This is the newest event. There is also a mini-live on this DVD.
This was the first time I've ever heard of a visual book coming with a DVD. But anyway for the whole DVD, Buono! plays a round of bowling. Pretty interesting to watch if you like the sport.

"Magazines" being plural because there are three versions:
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?app=xbt&CODE=details&torrent=29752
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?app=xbt&CODE=details&torrent=29755
http://www.hello-online.org/index.php?app=xbt&CODE=details&torrent=29757

Each Buono! member got a separate DVD magazine this time around where they reflect on their Rock'n Buono! 3 concert.

One of Manoeri's thousands of dramas. This time around, Mano plays - yep you guessed it, a spy. I actually haven't watched yet, but it has given us images like this:


so it's instantly awesome.

Another Manoeri drama, this time subtitled. I haven't watched this one yet also, but after watching the first episode a long time ago, it reminded me of Battle Royale, which can only be a great thing.

A play featuring Maimi. Watch as she transforms into a badass.

An hour of concert backstage footage, yay.

 Berryz's turn to do the concert backstage footage thing.

This contains one of my favorite MCs of all time - Junjun confesses her love for Captain. Plus it was encoded from the Blu-ray DVDs!

  • Morning Musume - Morning Days 5 Vol. 1 + 2
Eri, Junjun, and Linlin's last Morning Musume fanclub event.

 This isn't the whole DVD magazine, but it's all of the good parts. The C-ute members reenact some famous fairy tales like the 3 Little Pigs.

  • C-ute - Welcome to Cutie Gakuen Vol. 1 + 2
Definitely my favorite FC event of the year, C-ute travels to a strawberry farm. Volume 1 is mostly a mini-live, but the interesting part is that for some of it, songs are picked randomly, live. In essence, the girls have no idea what they are singing, which makes for an interesting concert. Volume 2 is mostly about strawberries.

 Genki Pikappika concert backstage footage.

A very nice subtitled video for Eri and JunLin fans. This was filmed right around the time JunLin joined so they still have a very thick Chinese accent, which is pretty cute. This DVD serves as a melancholic irony considering their recent graduation.

One last memory for the Morning Musume 6th generation members before Eri left.

All of the other Morning Musume members share their thoughts of their time with Junjun and Linlin. Another great subbed video to look back at JunLin's time with Morning Musume.

And that's all. This post's length almost rivals the Eri/Jun/Lin graduation recap post, lol. If you missed watching any videos on this list, you owe it to yourself (as a H!P fan) to watch immediately.

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