Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game Ninki poll + corrections

The Ninki poll for next week's releases is up.

The Ninki poll is a poll that Oricon does every week, basically asking people which new singles and albums the Japanese public is interested in. It's not a prediction of how songs will do; it's just a way to somewhat gauge how much interest Japanese people have in the new releases.

Before I go on, I'd like to bring to light a correction I made in my last Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game post. I completely forgot about Kobukuro releasing on 11/17, and they almost definitely will rank higher than Morning Musume, so my new prediction has KAT-TUN #1, SKE48 #2, Kobukuro #3, MM #4, and AAA #5.

The Ninki poll disagrees with me. KAT-TUN is 1, Kobukuro is 2, SKE48 is 3, AAA is 4, and MM is 5.

We'll have to wait until next week to see who is more accurate.

Also, back to my last post for a minute. I wished that Morning Musume would get on Music Japan and/or Melodix, and the former has been announced. The Music Japan episode they will appear on is the November 28th show.

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Berryz Koubou's 2nd Alo Hello looks delicious

If the photobook previews are any indicator of what is to come, Berryz Koubou's second Alo-Hello may just be better than their first.

First we have a group shot of Berryz in their bikini tops hanging around some random tree in the Hawaiian countryside. Awesome.

Next is a solo shot of Risako. The look on her face shows me that she know she looks hot. And I completely agree. Also, her age is given in parenthesis to remind the wota who might have forgotten.

And then we have Chinami. She's really grown into a beautiful young lady. And again we have a look of confidence. I like her better with long hair, but she is one of the few that can pull of short and long almost equally well.

Second to last is Miyabi. It's been way too long since we've seen Miya in full swimwear. Her lack of photobooks definitely isn't due to her popularity. Hopefully whatever outside forces that were preventing her from posing in photobooks is now gone and that we see many more shots like the one above.

Saving the best for last, we finally get to see Captain in a full bikini. Words cannot describe the awesomeness that is before me so, lahseqifoidihfgradfierifdcafysawsfrtuasdterhfwuer

...that is all.

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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.

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CD Heaven part two

Two months ago I took pictures of the majority of my Hello! Project collection. Here is the rest of them. Whenever I feel like it get time, I'll photo my DVDs and finally my photocards (there are tons).

First up is a somewhat rare item. It's a collection of CDs sold to Morning Musume fanclub members many years ago. It contains 10 mini-CDs with a solo from each pictured member.

A closer look at Kago's CD.

Next up is another somewhat rare CD collection, Morning Musume Early Single Box. Before this released, Morning Musume's first couple of singles were only available on mini-CDs (if you've ever seen or held a Gamecube game, you know what a mini-CD looks like). This is a collection where all of Morning Musume's singles until that point were sold in one collectors box set, as full-sized CDs. It is rare because it is out of print by UFA and isn't sold at any online store. Your only bet is to score one used from a wota or get lucky and find a new one (for probably a ton of money).

A look at the front. The pink thing on the far right is a small photobook of Morning Musume.

Here I have a bunch of random CDs thrown together. Kago's first non-H!P release, an Ongaku Gatas CD, and two of Morning Musume's first CDs. Also a bonus B'z CD thrown in for good measure.

 Random shuffles plus my only v-u-den CD.

 All of the W CDs and albums that I own. Miss Love Tantei (bottom right) is one of my favorite H!P CDs of all time.

 Minimoni.

 More shuffles.

 Goto Maki and Matsuura Aya. Gomaki's How to Use Sexy album (bottom right) was one of the first H!P albums I ever bought, so it holds a special place in my heart.

 Nochiura Natsumi and a Koharu album.

And to finish things off is not even an official H!P item, but I found it on my shelf and took a picture of it anyway. It's a deck of C-ute Forever Love playing cards that I had made.

Part three will be my DVDs and part four will be my photocards. Look for those posts sometime in the (hopefully) not-so-distant future.

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Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game poised for success

We're now less than two weeks away from the release of Morning Musume's 44th single and just a month away from Kamei, Junjun, and Linlin's last concert as members of the group. UFA obviously knows that and have started the promotional blitz that I hoped they would.

In a blog post today, Sayumi mentioned that Morning Musume recently finished filming a talk segment on the TV Tokyo music show, On Ryu and a performance on another music television show, Happy Music. (thanks to amped @ H!O for the blog translation)

There is also a 30 second commercial airing on Japanese television right now, promoting the single in HD.



And probably the best news of all are the results of this whole process. While the single does not go on sale officially until the 17th, there is still good news to be reported.

First, Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game has reached #7 on the Recochoku charts.

Recochoku is a PV ranking site that measures sales for cellphone downloads. This is the reason why we got a low quality preview of the PV a short time ago.

And for the best news of all, the single is ranked #1 for pre-orders in two different online stores, Tower Records

and HMV Japan.

(thanks to Nouciel and S-N-I-P-E-R @ H!O for the info and screenshots)

Both are pretty popular stores (both online and brick-and-mortar), so this is good news indeed.

Though it should be noted that this is just for two websites for one day. It's great news, but it does not mean they will suddenly sell a ton of copies.

But they are definitely on the right track. I'm hoping for one or two more TV appearances to be announced (it would be great if they got on Music Japan or Melodix) to help things along.

Competition for November 17th is somewhat tough, but Morning Musume could surprise some people and come out with a weekly #3.

Super popular boy band KAT-TUN will definitely take the #1 spot. They consistently are able to sell 200,000+.

From the AKB48 fame, SKE48 will likely take the #2 spot if their last single was any indication of their success (it sold over 62,000 in its first week).

The last group that Morning Musume has to worry about is AAA. Both of their last two singles sold 45,000 in their first week.

Morning Musume can definitely beat AAA and take that #3 spot, but it's not going to be easy. Actually #2 could be up for grabs as well. SKE48 is a bit of a question mark. Their singles have sold anywhere from 27,000 to 62,000 in their short history. If they "only" sell in the 50,000 range for this single, Morning Musume has a real shot of beating them, but again it won't be easy. They will need that extra push like they had for Nanchatte Renai to do it.

I predict that Morning Musume does sell about 48,000-50,000 for the first week and take the #3 spot and that SKE48 continues to raise their sales to the 70,000 range, taking the #2 spot.

Whatever does happen, I still love the song and the PV and Eri, Junjun, and Linlin will be dearly missed. 

Quick edit: I completely forgot about Kobukuro. They usually sell in the 60,000 range, so they will probably take the #3 spot and so my prediction drops Morning Musume to the 4th spot.

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Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game PV preview

A TV commercial of Morning Musume's 44th single. Loving this song more and more as the days pass. The dance looks pretty cool and the PV looks very interesting. Really excited for this single. Haven't felt this way since like Nanchatte Renai. A must buy.

CD Japan: http://www.cdjapan.co.jp/detailview.html?KEY=EPCE-5728

HMV Japan: http://www.hmv.co.jp/en/product/detail/3877883

Yesasia: http://www.yesasia.com/us/ona-to-otoko-no-lullaby-game-normal-edition-japan-version/1023015756-0-0-0-en/info.html

Amazon Japan: http://tinyurl.com/28t55nt

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