15 comments on “Morning Musume 20th Anniversary Official Book Interviews: Abe Natsumi

  1. Great interview. Nacchi’s bubbly personality and sweet smile was one of the major reasons why I got hooked in Momusu ~15 years ago.

    Thank you for the translation.

  2. Happy how much this interview revolved around music. The feeling is mutual with her that you can always rely on the music. Nacchi’s great. Very conscientious person she did all that work without complaining. Watching those moments how stubborn she is from the videos gave me a chuckle multiple times.

    Favorite bits were her being close with Gottsuan and bunch of Tsunku advice. I liked reading the reborn Nacchi part and her ending it she’s just the airhead. Yellow journalism at its finest…! Damn lechers.

    • I agree. It just does not jive with the stories I have heard over the years. Abe’s relationship with GoMaki in particular.

      • GoMaki’s happy smile quickly fades away @ 0:39 when the 1st Gen walks back into the camera frame.

        • Not doubting there was tensions between the two at some stage but this is a bit of a stretch don’t you think?

          It’s from one take in one music video, and was at a point of the dance that was transitional enough for GoMaki to turn off her idol mode to focus on positioning, next moves, etc.

    • I think they just simply didn’t get along and that’s fine, they don’t need to rehash it in this book. During Koi no Dance Site promo, all the members except Goto said Nacchi had cooked for them before (2nd gen said she made them dessert as a welcome gift) and right before she graduated 4-5th gen said she’d cooked for them before.

      When Nacchi was graduating and they brought back Nakazawa and Goto on H!M to tell stories, everyone had a bunch of stories to tell but Goto’s only story was how Nacchi “once” stayed at her house 4 years prior and her mom had to wake Nacchi up because Goto didn’t know how to wake her up without being disrespectful to her senpai. I think they made attempts to get along because they were both the faces of the group, so they didn’t outright hate each other.

      • Nah, I think they’ve just grown up, and realized how much of those feelings were a product of their situation, and not a genuine dislike of each other as people.

        Feelings during your childhood and adolescence are heightened, and then often you grow up and realize that your worries and feuds in those days were mostly petty and silly. Doesn’t lessen how you felt at the time, but it puts them into perspective.

  3. “Their intentions with adding her as a member were apparently to stir things up within the group, and at least in my case they were very successful in accomplishing just that.”

    Kind of wish there was that now. Most of the girls now want some sort rivalry but they’re just not sure how. Ikuta said she wants a gorgeously cute girl to join 15th gen as the group’s absolute center/ace and Maa agreed she wants someone with impact.

    • I don’t think the “everyone is rivals” mode is that effective, though. Berryz was the “everyone was rivals” group in the early days, while C-ute was the buddy-buddy one.

      Momoclo didn’t have much time for member-member rivalry, because starting from the very bottom meant that all efforts went towards getting strangers’ butts in the seats, trying to grow the audience.

      • It was a double-edged sword for early Momusu though: the girls started off trying to become a soloist, got formed into a group, and those three years or so saw 12 new girls being added pretty quickly. They had to learn how to work together, but they each still wanted to stand out on their own—that’s the kind of rivalry you need for constant, consistent improvement.

        It’d be really good if they found an absolute ace that can unseat Oda’s vocals, or a genuinely talented bunch of girls that put some pressure on the current ones.

      • It’s not like °C-ute became an instant hit, though, they finally raised her sales when they found their dancing/sexy group shtick, not necessarily because they were buddies. Berryz were all rivals in the early days, though?

        Momusu was pretty popular while there were still rivalries going on so I don’t see your point.

        • The point is that there’s no evidence that having rivalries in the group is the secret to success, because there are several cases of very successful groups that didn’t have that, and several cases of groups with strong rivalries that didn’t make it big.

  4. I got into MM through Utaban. In many of the episodes where Naachi featured prominently, I always got the feeling that she was a bit sadistic–always too quick to laugh (really laugh–not laughing because of something someone did, but at them for doing it) at other’s misfortunes. Does anyone else think this too, or is it just me?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *