Goodbye, Nacchan.

I wish the purpose of my quick revival of this blog was a positive one. However, it is not. I woke up this morning and on my way to university was bombarded with news of scandals concerning Team K member Yonezawa Rumi. Around lunchtime Nacchan’s name was mentioned, but nobody, and I mean nobody, could have predicted the events that followed this evening. As of tonight, Yonezawa Rumi and Hirajima Natsumi are retiring from AKB48. I don’t want to focus this post on the retelling of news etc but instead, I want to tell my Nacchan story. 

Nacchan has long been one of my favourite AKB members, ever since my initial interest in the group in late 2007. I considered her part of “The Big Three”, that is my top 3 members, from each team. Kojima Haruna (my kami-oshi) from Team A, Akimoto Sayaka from Team K, and Nacchan, from Team B. That’s the way it always is for as long as I’ve been a fan. You know, the reason that Nacchan first caught my attention is a rather silly one. When I was desperate to learn more about the group, I trawled their Wikipedia page (as you do), and when I came across her I saw that we shared the same birthday. I looked at her name, and I never ever forgot it from that point on. Hirajima Natsumi. As I became more invested in the group, I learned she wasn’t up there generally in the senbatsu tier. But she was a crucial part of the heart of AKB: the theatre. 

I’m grateful for having my kami-oshi Nyan in senbatsu. Compared to dozens of other girls, I have Nyan left-right-and-centre. That doesn’t mean I love her any less of course, it just meant that I had more pictures, footage and performances of her at my fingertips. But this isn’t a post about Nyan. This is a post about Nacchan. Finding out more about Nacchan was… a challenge. It’s difficult to describe. I got excited whenever I heard her name mentioned in something, even just in passing, and when I saw her in Theatre Girls PVs my heart always did a little flip. I found that she was the AKB member whose blog I followed the closest, purely because I was desperate to learn more about her and fawn over the cute photos she took. This all added up until Nacchan was solidified in my head as being a member I seriously cared about. The more I thought about it, the more I considered her one of my oshimen. I am still proud to call her my oshimen. 

I’ve always felt a special link with Nacchan. Not just because of the birthday thing (although I am a sucker for things like that), but because she was connected to one of my very first AKB purchases. That was the Team K Visual Book. When it arrived it came with three photos: two of Komori Mika, and 1 of Hirajima Natsumi. There was that name again! I thought it was funny I got 2 Team B members, but that photo was and is very special to me. It reminded me to start looking for information on her again, and I properly fell for Nacchan. I immersed myself in her stage and concert performances and seeing her appear on screen was a real treasure for me. Nacchan made me happy. Then, last summer when Flying Get was released, my copy arrived. I opened the case and there was another Nacchan photo! I literally jumped around the kitchen and once again realised that my heart had created a bond with this girl that wasn’t going to be broken. 

To me, Nacchan has many wonderful qualities. I find her to be one of the most hard-working members of AKB. As an original member, Nacchan always had the “big sister” vibe taking part in Team B activities. That, for me, was always a joy to see. Her work ethic and performance tally in the theatre are more than admirable; as I said earlier it’s obvious that Nacchan was key in preserving AKB’s theatre roots. As the member with the most theatre performances, I sometimes felt that her presence in AKB was overlooked. But in this post, I’m concerned with the positives. Her efforts in Watarirouka Hashiritai were always given with 100% and 100 smiles. It’s hard to deny that watching Nacchan in action on stage or in a PV was heart-warming to some extent. She’s a girl who seemed visibly happy to be an idol, and that transcends to the fans. I have a lot of respect for Nacchan. On top of all that’s been said, I also think she’s just beautiful. Her smile, her hair, her lovely eyes… I could go on. I’ll definitely miss her photoshoots and PV appearances.

Saying goodbye to Nacchan today has been especially difficult, as has writing this post. I’ll be honest, as an original member, I did not think that this is how Nacchan would end her AKB tenure. The thing that’s hit me the most is how sudden the whole affair has been. I won’t make any comment on the grounds on which she’s retiring – I’m a firm believer in what’s intended to be personal should stay personal, and that was undoubtedly intended to stay personal – but what I will end this post with is: thank you, Nacchan. Thank you for showing me that there’s so much more to AKB than singles and senbatsu, that there’s merit in every girl’s work and that dedication and determination go a long way. I will miss you very, very, very much.

Hirajima Natsumi, I wish you only the best for the future, and I’ll be behind every decision you make.

I’ll end this post with a few of my favourite Nacchan performances:

• Tobenai Agehachou, of course! 
• Pajama Drive from Yokohama Arena
• Kanpeki Gu~no Ne from AX 2011
• Wasshoi B! (of course)~ with her Ori B babies

 

 

 

Fan Letter: Reflections On Being An Idol Fan

The reason for the old-ass Berryz photo (con Maiha!) is because this post is a reminiscing post. Yes.

Picture this: it’s 2006. I was thirteen, awkward and trying to emulate Robert Smith. In school my eyes were decorated with kohl, I straightened my oddly long hair to death and it was a daily requirement to adorn oneself in several chains. In short, I looked a bit scary. On the day that this particular tale takes place, it was very Scottish summer-type weather. Rain and hail and wind and god knows what else prevented my P.E. lesson from going ahead. Generally this meant that everyone in the class sat in a hall doing… nothing. In for the long haul, I took my iPod Nano that I had recently been given for my birthday from my pocket. “Ooh, can I see it?” I heard a voice behind me. Turning around, I saw two girls who were rather high up on the uber-important and prestigious high school popularity ladder. I obliged, and left them to it. They shared the earphones and played with the games on it. I overheard a whisper, “I bet it’s all goth music on this...” and watched as her finger selected “Shuffle”. Their faces said it all, really. I glanced at their expressions (horrified), then at the iPod, then at their faces again. The words “BERRYZ” and “HAPPINESS” and “DAI 2 SECHOUKI”. I laughed nervously, grabbed the device and shoved it back in my pocket. “Japanese,” I giggled. “Cute and… cute, eh?” I nodded enthusiastically, but was met with a blank and confused demeanor. From then on, I felt that my idol-love was destined to be forever a secret.

Review – Shoujo Jidai/Girls’ Generation’s first Japanese album!

Hello! I’ve been pretty unwell recently but I really wanted to do this review. So much has happened in my fandoms over the past couple of weeks but I can’t bring myself to write any coherent commentary on the subjects – maybe I’m doomed for reviewing for the rest of eternity? Oh well, I don’t mind! Tonight I’m going to review a very anticipated album, Girls’ Generation’s first full-length Japanese endeavour. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while – mostly for the new songs, as the Japanese versions of their Korean material got old pretty quickly (because I’d played them to death in Korean!). Needless to say I was anything but unimpressed ♥

A-Kind-Of-Review: KAT-TUN’s 2010 Summer concert No More Pain

Hello dears! This post is about idols of a different variety – male idols! Yessir, straight from Johnny & Associates, the pretty boy factory. The group in question is KAT-TUN, whom I have been a fangirl extrodinaire over since their debut in 2006. I really love them. The only downside to male idol fandom is the fans, I guess. There’s a select few who are out to ruin it for others, the jealous types and so on. It seems much more prominent than in female idol fandom. But I don’t care what people say, the boys are equally if not more cracktastic than the girls. JE guys have a bit more freedom, which makes a huge difference. Being more popular in terms of sales meant that they could have guests like Rihanna and Alicia Keys on their shows, but nothing makes me smile more than them being complete dorks in the making-of PVs and stuff.

Anyway, KAT-TUN fans have had a turbulent 2010. Jin left three months after he vowed in a magazine he would “never do such a thing”, their sales took a diving and the fan communities split and fell apart. I stayed out of the whole charade, I knew they would emerge a stronger group. And I was right! I’m not hot on Jin but I hope he does well. His leaving left a bitter taste in the fans’ mouth. I felt like he’d let Kame down, also. They were the two main vocalists, the two guys that held their début Real Face together and were famed for their relationship. When he left, Kame must have felt an immense pressure on his shoulders trying to compensate for the angered Jin fangirls. HOWEVER, MOVING AWAY FROM THE JIN SAGA, they successfully managed to put on their greatest concert yet in my humble opinion. I attempted to cap some shit and failed miserably, so there’s like 4 here. But some videos too!

LOOKIE:

Review – C-ute – 超WONDERFUL!6

Hello ladies and gentlefolk. This has been something of a pain in the arse for me to get round to posting (for lack of a better expression), but I really wanted to write something in my lonely little blog.  My computer has been playing silly beggars the past few weeks, but thankfully when my 18th birthday rolls around the corner next month I will have a shiny new MacBook Pro in my sticky little fingers (I’ll wash them beforehand). However until then, I am using my trusty ol’ laptop on borrowed time for fear of the fucker overheating. Don’t even get me started on running iTunes…

ANYWAY. This is not Review – My Computer Problems but a review of C-ute’s latest offering, Chou Wonderful! 6. I’m not the biggest fan of C-ute, it’s not that I don’t like them or anything but I’ve never followed them as closely as I have Berryz through the years. I was going to review 7 Berryz Times but it fell short. It felt like I’d heard everything before bar Heroine and Joshikai The Night (which even then it sounded like I’d heard the lyrics on MADAYADE). And I dunno, maybe because Chou Wonderful! 6 is AWESOME?

Away-for-a-long-time GETS

Harro!

I’m not even going to try and kid on. I’ve been taking a semi-break from the idol world. There’s been so many amazing releases elsewhere to do with my other interests (Western music, film, gaming and such) and I didn’t follow H!P and AKB48 so closely these past few weeks.

However I received a very, very late order from YesAsia today (AND I’M STILL WAITING FOR MORE)  and I don’t even know how to describe it but all this love just came flooding back to me like “OH MY BABIES~”.

So yeah. I bought the Team K Visual Book aaages ago alongside MBLAQ’s debut album. And it only arrived on my doorstep today, bloody shipping – yeah maybe I am a cheapo and went free. No more rambling so have some pictures – please excuse the quality! They were taken on an iPhone which has a godawful camera:

With the photos it came with~ I find it amusing that I got 2 of Komori Mika & 1 of Hirajima Natsumi who are part of Team B… xD but adorable nonetheless.

EREPYON ;_; the pages inside are so cute! There’s 4 pages for each member. Excuse the CoD box <.<

The other 2 pages are so cute! They have “40 Questions” and there’s all sorts of stuff in there, like their favourite single song, stage song, brands, artists… stuff like that. Erepyon’s was ♥ she likes L’arc~en~Ciel, Avril Lavigne and SHINee. D’aww. I plan to translate everything at some point, whenever that may be haha. But I love doing stuff like that.

Ahh I love it. I was fawning over it for about an hour, squeeing at stuff I already knew but that’s what fangirls do amirite?

♥♥♥

I also received MBLAQ’s newest album BLAQ STYLE, and I was so impressed! I’ve always admired the packaging of KPop CDs (as well as the price, heh) and it’s nice when there are little surprises, like Narsha’s EP was almost baby-vinyl sized, and 2PM’s 1:59PM’s booklet was all attached inside, it was pretty good. Anyway, on with yet more photos!

Mmmkay, so I expected it to have a glossy front cover like the one used on the shopping sites, but as y’all can see it’s a huge big M that  you pull the booklet from. This took me longer than I care to admit to figure out how to open. /shot

I DID IT. The one one the left I’ll get to in a minute, but as you can see there are two parts~ I was a little confused and initially thought the all-black one held the CD, and the textured M one holding an elaborate photobook.

So yay! Pretty photobook with ~flawless~ photos of the boys (OBVIOUSLY). It has their little thank you pages, as well as the lyrics. I’m quite biased towards the BLAQ STYLE shoots as I am a) a sucker for underwater shots and b) a sucker for pretty Korean boys. Although to me, MBLAQ are like UBER-PRETTY. Almost too pretty [NO SUCH THING I HEAR YOU SAY] but I can guarantee if for whatever reason I ended up in their presence I would probably…melt.

Now on to the seriously unexpected surprise! This is what was in the little black paper case:

It’s shiny photos of them! I was like “AWMUHGAWSH”. I honestly didn’t expect so much! The quality of them is eerily great and aosdawldjadie I love it so so much ♥ such a nice addition.

—

Anyway, I hope whoever read this enjoyed my dissection of BLAQ STYLE (the songs on the album are really good! Love how I completely neglected that throughout… for reals though. I enjoy them all to a degree.)  and shared my happiness over Team K’s Visual Book.

Sweet dreams to you all!

xxxx

Hello to 4 new MoMusu members!

Hi guys! Happy New Year!

Soo… after all the fandango of hearing next to nothing about the auditions, the sadness of saying bye to JunJun, LinLin and Eri, and all the commotion that comes with the festive period, WE SUDDENLY HAVE FOUR NEW GIRLS! Well, one of them is an Egg, and I am so unfamiliar with the Eggs but FOUR NEW GIRLS!

And they are as follows:

Sayashi Riho
Looks adorable and tiny. Small face. I can sense her having similar Mikitty charm; almost sophisticated and very good at holding herself. *waits for expectations to be blown out of the water*

Suzuki Kanon
Wasn’t immediately drawn to her, but I’m sure the Tsunk knows what he’s doing. Reserving full judgement until I hear her sing, but she seems cute anyhow.

Fukumura Mizuki
Ahh, the Egg! She knows the drill. Kind of. I’m going to be honest and say that I have never heard of her. I tried to sit and learn all the Eggs’ names and faces one night and failed miserably and only remembered Miyamoto Karin (SFYWEGUOFHIWELF♥♥). But she looks like she’ll fit in well.

I’ll just cut to the chase, my automatic favourite is Ikuta Erina:

I don’t know why, she just looks so impossibly cute!  I love her face! And look at her next to Yossie! Or maybe I just love girls called Erina!
However knowing me, I’ll see/hear the other girls in action and have another favourite because I’m picky like that.

I guess my only… criticism(?) is that they look so TINY. But in all honesty,  I can’t actually describe how excited I am to hear their debut single with Morning Musume.  I hope it’s  happy and cracky but with MOTHER AI looking over everyone.

I’m going to end this on a note of excitement, so goodnight! And I would like to give pic credits to the lovely folks over at H!O.

They fit in so well already! I love 9nin Musume.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Merry AKBXmas!

I have yet again abandoned my little blog ;_;

But I have a quick New Years Resolution already: POST MORE.

In the New Year there’s going to be a few amazing things happening, one of them being new MM members! So that will be interesting.

Hope everyone has a lovely, relaxing and enjoyable holiday (:

The shame!

I have abandoned my little corner of the internet, but alas, I am back! *pets furiously*

It has just dawned on me also that I need to seriously change my header – perhaps to Perfume again? A little homage to the name of my blog after all.

Anyway, a lot has happened in the Idol World since my mini-hiatus!

AKB48 have been all over the entertainment news with their mind boggling first week sales of beginner -

826,989!!

Who knew?! Well, it is a stellar song. So stellar that I bought my own! Okay, maybe it was to get the ticket to vote for the Request Hour Song, but… that’s as good a reason as any! My copy arrived today:

The booklet is really shiny, it surprised me actually.

Now, the difficult decision. Which song to vote for. I  have a top five, currently:

1. Blue Rose – one of my favourite AKB48 songs, and one that I know has a chance of breaking into at least the top fifty. Although to be extra special win for me, it would HAVE to be the Sayaka, Sae, Yuka and Megumi version. I know that Megumi’s transferred over to SDN48, but you never know ;_;.
2. Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara – this song is EPIC! When it first was released on RIVER, I looped it like crazy. Probably more than I looped RIVER. I don’t really know why I like it so much to be honest, it just reminds me of happy things and is so fun when performed live.

3. Kagami no Naka no Jean d’Arc – AMAZING SAYAKA IS AMAZING. I would LOVE for this song to be included somewhere! So badly! I know it’s a Team B song, but Saaya as lead is just perfect. And it seems the fans are crazy about it, too ;D.

4. Cinderella wa Damasarenai – Can y’all tell I really loved the K2/B1 stage? I think I would just love to see this ’cause I have a strange fixation with watching them swish about their dresses. Creepy Azul is creepy.

5. I wouldn’t normally put this here, but I feel that Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou deserves a place thanks to Beginner’s success. Someone at in an ABK48 thread at H!O pointed out the similarities, and they were there along, staring me in the face. I remember the first time I read the translation for this song and I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact I was listening to an idol group sing it. Deep stuff, as with Beginner. This song deserves a bit more attention now, IMO.

God knows which one I’ll vote for ;_; I’m doing it tomorrow morning. But if ANY of those songs get a place, I’ll be overjoyed!

Before I go have this sexy very attractive picture of Kojima Haruna that I love so dearly:

Night all!

♥

Because I’m feeling slightly productive…

… and sad clearly. I feel guilty for not updating this in so long, so here’s a list of PBs that I really want ;_;