S/mileage auditions round 3 screenshots, download link, & streaming

In total, 12 girls made it to round three:

Thanks to Sohee for the picture.

It's a pretty good group of girls, I think. Out of the nine that I called out as my favorites, four made it - Miyazki, Akari, Karin, and Tamura. I don't mind Yamaga either, but she screams Morning Musume a lot more than she does S/mileage.

I wasn't really surprised by any of the results, except for:

Dayeon - the Korean audition winner! It would be really interesting if she ended up being one of the new S/mileage members. I would say that she fits Morning Musume better, but somehow I doubt they add anymore foreign talent to Morning Musume. That makes Dayeon's options quite limited. If she doesn't make it into S/mileage, then what? She's already been doing who knows what after winning her original audition and it's uncertain if she is even an Egg or not (signs point to yes, but she isn't in the official pictures).



This round of the auditions went a bit quicker than last time (2 hours instead of 3). It started off with the girls entering a big open room, but we couldn't see their faces because the camera was pointed at their legs. Once they were all in the room, the camera was so far zoomed out that you still could not make out one girl from the next, lengthening the suspense.

Next the first girl in line was handed a mic and she introduced herself.

Repeat this eleven more times and you have your 3rd round finalists. In total, 3 Eggs (Miyamoto Karin, Takeuchi Akari, and Katsuta Rina), H!P Korea audition winner Jang Dayeon, and 8 other girls made it.

After the introductions, the girls were asked random questions to test their knowledge and personality. Here, I think Katsuta Rina shined. Or at least she seemed to have the most to say.

Once that was over, they split up the girls into groups of four to test their dancing skills. Miyamoto Karin absolutely rocked in group one.

After the 4nin groups finished, the 12 finalists were called up together to dance to Uchouten Love all at once.

Finally, each girl was called up individually, had to sing Uchouten Love and then each had a little chat with Tsunku.

Just in case anyone was confused by a bunch of 8s appearing on the screen after girls sang, it was added by the random staff member controlling the stream. In Japanese, 8 is "hachi". The Japanese onomatopoeia for clapping is "pachi". Hachi kinda sounds like pachi, so 888888888 is slang for clapping.

Anyway back to the auditions, I was pretty impressed by what I saw. Once again the Eggs dominated, but the gap in talent was much, much smaller than last time (where it wasn't even close). Miyamoto Karin is still the most talented person there.

I originally wanted her in Morning Musume, but I'm starting to warm up to the idea of having her in S/mileage. Her addition alone would bring S/mileage's overall talent level way up. She's the textbook definition of an ace. She's a great dancer. She's the best singer out of the current Eggs. And she's just 12 years old.

I consider Takeuchi Akari to be the second most talented (current) Egg.

Despite being a year older than Karin, she isn't quite as polished, but she has good potential. Improving her singing will take her a long way. (And don't misunderstand me; I'm not saying she is a bad singer. She still was better than almost all of the other finalists.)

The person who impressed me the 3rd most was Tamura-chan.

Although I consider the above two Eggs to be more talented than her, I can't hold that against Tamura because they've had professional training; she probably hasn't. Her voice is what I really love about her. It just screams S/mileage. The great thing about it is that she could join S/mileage today and would blend right in. She has the S/mileage sound.

The fourth and final girl that I want to highlight is Fujii-chan.

Her voice didn't impress me as much, but I like the way she dances. She's a bouncy one. There's also just something about her that stands out and I'm not sure what. She's one of the few that I immediately recognized from the second round. In a world where there are more idols than anyone can keep track of, standing out is never a bad thing.

Overall I enjoyed this round more than the second. Because of the small number of third round finalists, we got to know each girl better and saw their talents on full display. To be honest, I was impressed with each girl and I hate that we have to say goodbye to over half of them.

I really liked Yamaga and Dayeon, but I don't think either fits S/mileage at all. Yamaga would be great for Morning Musume. I'm hoping she'll make it in 10th gen. I have no idea where Dayeon fits in the grand scheme of things. She'd probably be better suited for a brand new group (Between W, GAM, and the various one-shot duet performances in concerts, duo are always awesome).

Karin, Akari, and Rina once again showed off their Egg training and each shined in their own way, but there's almost no chance for 3 Eggs to make it into S/mileage (though it would be cool, since the four current S/mileage members are all former Eggs).

If I were in charge right now, I'd choose Karin as the can't miss ace, Tamura as the steady talent, and Akari as the girl with a lot of upside. I'd also seriously think about adding Fujii if she shows more promise in bootcamp (assuming they hold a bootcamp, that is).

Here's the download link: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=8JGCT206

It's 380 MB, has a 640x472 resolution, and is 1 hour 40 minutes long. This time around there is only one glitch present and it's not my fault. Niconico apparently kicks out free members after a certain amount of time (it happened to me last time as well) in an effort to get you to pay to become a premium member. Because of that, at about 47:30 I had to reload the page twice and lost about 15 seconds of Miyazaki's singing. Everything else should be fine.

Streaming: