C-ute Alo-Hello 2012 making of

This is the included DVD with the Alo-Hello photobook.

As you would expect, it's mainly gravure shots, as most of the fun is located on the Alo-Hello 2 DVD.

The first scene is the same as in the Alo-Hello 2 DVD - in the beach house.

After giving a short interview for the camera, they begin doing random activities for pictures that would appear in the photobook.

And then things move poolside,

where one of the more famous shots in the photobook is taken.

After playing around a bit,

it's back to casual clothes.

Then, shopping,

and eating

is enough to make C-ute happy.

Being pretty in white dresses rounded off the day

before it was back to swimwear the next day.

And finally, there's footage from the ranch as C-ute interacts with horses.

Since some people from other countries were having problems with packupload, I'm moving on to yet another filehoster. This one is similar to multiupload in that it uploads to many different hosters, so you can pick whichever download option you like best. There's no password (because I can't add one).

http://www.embedupload.com/?d=2UK2ITYWSI

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C-ute - Alo-Hello 2

Thanks to the following donators, we had yet another successful donation project: neonero, zunu, John, and some help from myself.

Whenever a new Alo-Hello is announced, the first thing that I wonder about is if it'll be one of those boring extended PB making of types, or if it'll actually be something fun to watch. I'm glad to say that C-ute's Alo-Hello 2 is the latter.

The video starts off with the girls on the beach randomly stretching before they eventually introduce this DVD (apparently it's different from the normal DVD because they mentioned "Blu-ray" when they yelled the title).

And after that, they gather in a random house and attempt to make pancakes.

Perhaps the thing that I like the most about this Alo-Hello is its balance. There's a good mix of "normal" activities like the cooking pictured above and modeling (there's also quite a bit of fanservice. Let me say it now: the beach scenes are hot).

Next there's some looking pretty and camera staring going on, e-Hello style. I didn't mind that at all since it was in a relatively small dosage (20 minutes), compared to an hour long e-Hello DVD.

And then the fun and games begins. The first thing they do is a who can look the cutest while jumping into a pool battle.

After jumping into the pool cutely, the member is rated by their fellow C-ute members and after everyone has jumped, the person with the highest score wins.

After more camera staring (in bikinis this time),

a mystery box is revealed.

The contents of that mystery box goes to the winner of the games. There are two races. One in the water,

and the other on foot.

And then the fun continues (with a blindfold) on a large ranch.

 C-ute + Caprisun + Kool-Aid is not something I ever expected to see, lol.

And to end things, there are solo interviews

and the Kimi wa Jitensha Sunset Ver.

I'm slightly sad that they didn't continue the bikini ver. pv trend that the last few Alo-Hellos set, but oh well.

They are .7z files this time, but they can be extracted just as you normally would, with 7-zip or winrar. Also, the .7z files are password protected. For the password, see the end of this post (or check the Facebook page):  http://airiindeshou.blogspot.com/2012/07/mediafire-account-will-be-deleted-soon.html

720p version:
http://www.packupload.com/TQ713I7ST70
or
http://pastebin.com/tzq5Abts (filecloud.io links)

480p version: http://www.packupload.com/4PBFCBHGXFI

And as usual, the video contains chapters.

PS, yes, a TPF subbed version is being worked on at this moment so you may want to save time and wait for that release.

The winner of this Blu-ray will be announced in the coming days.

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[ADDP] C-ute Alo-Hello 2 donations still needed!

It releases in 2 weeks and we still need 4000yen in order to afford the Blu-ray or 2100yen more for the normal DVD.

Donate now (send donations to airiindeshou@gmail.com) if you can! I can add about 2500yen, so we can now afford the normal DVD, but if you want to see this in Blu-ray quality we need a bit more!

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Morning Musume 2011 FC Tour in Hawaii announced

Fanclub newsletter confirms it.

I am very happy that we get to see Morning Musume is Hawaii so soon again (and one more time for Aichan), but also very sad that we don't get to see C-ute (as their Hawaii trip was canceled due to the tsunami).

An Alo-Hello will almost definitely follow. Plus, a photobook or two.

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Get your virtual date on with Berryz Koubou

As expected, Berryz Koubou's second Alo-Hello hit Japanese stores today (or rather yesterday). Their first trip to Hawaii contained some of my favorite moments in Hello! Project history, so naturally I had high hopes for their second trip. Could they create another masterpiece?

The DVD actually starts off really, really well.

Captain staring out into the Hawaiian sunset

The DVD begins as Captain rides a hotel elevator up to the 20th floor. She quickly finds her room and begins to settle in before her phone rings.

Captain's fake ringtone happens to be Maji Bomber, cool

Who could it be?

Miyabi of course!

From here we get a cheap looking intro screen that leads to Captain looking at a map of what I can only assume is Hawaii.

You're not in Japan anymore, Captain

Shortly after, Captain gives the cutest look ever into the camera. I think my heart melted.

Don't worry Captain, keep looking like that and I'll help you

This begins a short introduction of all of the Berryz members. Momoko appears next handing out some sort of pink card to random strangers.

Why aren't the people who hand out random crap in my neighborhood as cute as Momoko?

Afterwards Chinami is shown sitting on a stool smiling, Maasa is looking cool with a surfboard, Miyabi is out posing with a creepy looking stuffed animal, and Yurina and Risako are seen together on a park bench.

Seriously, that creepy bear thing is not cute. Thankfully Miyabi is.

The music dies out and the screen fades to black. Chinami is shown coloring some sort of flyer before Yurina and Risako show up.

Girls WANTED BEACH PARTY HAPPY BEACH

Oh well, I guess us boys aren't invited.

Luckily there happens to be a Japanese girl sitting across the table.

Yes, they're talking about you, Captain

One thing that I must say about this DVD is the cinematography and editing is seriously superior to what I'm used to seeing from a normal UFA DVD. It totally feels like I'm watching a movie about Berryz's adventures (you hear that UFA? sounds like an epic idea for 2011).

Anyway, back to the DVD. Chinami asks if Captain is free, but Captain is busy being lost.

Chinami pulls out her ultimate weapon - her smile.

Seriously, what sane human being could resist that face? I know I can't.

Meanwhile, Maasa is bored out of her mind in some yogurt shop, waiting for her order to be made by a familiar face.

Momoko appears to be pleased with her creation

Granted, I don't eat much of the stuff, but is this really what is considered yogurt now-a-days?

Fruit and.. sprinkles? Not sure if want

Momoko plops down next to Maasa to make sure she enjoys every bite of her hard work.

Maybe it isn't that bad after all. Maasa seems to be enjoying it.

However, it seems like working as a yogurt employee was only a disguise for Momoko's real plan.

The return of the beach party. Oh hey this DVD actually has a plot.

Maasa agrees to go, which was exactly what Momoko wanted. Momoko shoves the remaining beach party invites into Maasa's hands and entrusts her to finish the job.

Is that... Miyabi eating and conversing with random Hawaiins? Lucky people.

Like a good girl, Maasa carries on her new job of advertising the mysterious beach party. She runs into Miyabi in some sort of shop. After greeting her with an "aloha!", Maasa decides to do nothing else but stare at Miyabi.

Maasa REALLY wants you to come to her party

The story moves back to Captain's side of things. She is seen using her cellphone once more.

"IS THAT YOUR CAT?!"

It's Miyabi again. She wants to go with Captain to the party, but Captain declines. This is where the DVD takes a turn for the worst. I was legitimately enjoying the DVD. It wasn't your typical Alo-Hello, but it was something interesting nonetheless.

Instead of continuing on with the story as they did for the first six minutes, each member is filmed staring into the camera for ten minutes each. I'm not kidding.

Seriously, it's like the director of this DVD decided to use the greatest idea ever and then found the best (or should I say worst) way possible to make this DVD suck.

I wanted to like this. I really did. Berryz Koubou was my first love, after all. But this DVD isn't one of my favorites. Honestly, if the DVD had just started off with the members just posing for the camera like they did for the remainder of the DVD, then I probably wouldn't have had such a big problem with it. It's the fact that they teased us with such an epic opening and then decide to pull the rug from underneath us before we even got anywhere.

With that said, it's not the worst video ever. I can certainly think of a million things worse I could be doing than staring at Berryz Koubou for an hour.

And not all hope is lost. After each member is done doing virtually nothing for the camera, they show us a really nice re-interpretation of one of the songs of Berryz's twenty-second single, Tomodachi wa Tomodachi Nanda!



Honestly the whole DVD was worth it just for the awesome opening and this PV. Plus there's the whole thing with Berryz in bikinis together. Win.

After that there is a short offshot/making of (and by short, I mean a couple of seconds). The girls are still in their bikinis, so it's even more win.

After being told by Miyabi to pose for the camera, this is apparently the first thing that popped into Chinami's head, nice.

Overall, this DVD was quite a letdown compared to their first Alo-Hello. If you don't compare it to that, it's okay. There were some pretty nice moments. I skimmed through most of the staring into camera thing, but if you have a favorite Berryz member, you'll almost definitely enjoy watching her onscreen by herself for a couple of minutes. Also, the PV at the end was a very nice touch.

However, UFA's biggest mistake wasn't what is in the DVD; but rather, it's what is not.

Can you spot what's missing?

Oh, the irony.

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