Part Five: “I Wanted to be Raised on Tsunku♂’s School Song”
Writers Yuzuki Asako and Asai Ryo
profile the lyrics of Hello! Project songs!

Song #1: Morning Musume – “Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari”
(Tsunku/Tsunku/Suzuki Daichi Hideyuki)

Asai: Please let me say this before we begin. The both of us are absolutely reeling right now. Sayashi is gone, and now with Zukki just having announced her graduation… we’re in a complete state of shock.

Yuzuki: Even Ishida Ira was tweeting about it.

Asai: Just when I thought I’d gotten over my Sayashi Shock, learning that Zukki will soon be gone, too… it just tore open those wounds.

Yuzuki: It’s so painful, it’s almost affecting our love of H!P as a whole. That’s why we want to take this opportunity today to talk about “Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari” to get us fired-up again. This song was released in the summer of 2004, at a time when Morning Musume was about to take their next step as a group. Anyway, there was this issue back then — and I guess it’s still an issue today — with some people being unable to put names and faces of the group together. This song was an attempt to fix that. I’ve always liked introductory songs, but what I really like about the lyrics of this song is the worldview they present. They don’t just talk about themselves in the song; they also make real life comparisons, like mentions of OL’s and stuff.

Read more…

Part Four: “Ghosts ~The Ooedo Onsen Illusion~”
Writers Yuzuki Asako and Asai Ryo
profile the lyrics of Hello! Project songs!

Song #1: Morning Musume ’15 – “Watashi no Nanni mo Wakacchanai”
(Tsunku/Tsunku/Ookubo Kaoru)

Asai: This time around, we got the staff to recreate with us the foot bath picture of the four in Morning Musume ’15’s 9th generation when they went to Ooedo Onsen Monogatari last November.

Yuzuki: Honestly, I liked that whole episode of those four so much I could write a novel about it. Men like to talk about how scary female friendships are, but really: what girls do is we slowly try to figure out each others’ personalities while keeping an appropriate distance between each other, and we do that in order to be able to keep lasting relationships. Yes, seeing the nonchalant friendship between Kago-chan and Tsuji-chan or the neverending chatter in Berryz Koubou also made me think “now this is what I want to write about!” But the whole “Eri can’t” incident really reminded me of the roughness that girls going through puberty can display.

Asai: Maybe we should explain to the readers what that whole thing was about. So the four girls in 9th generation were talking about going somewhere together before Sayashi’s graduation, and they were just about to decide on Disneyland. Ikuta broke an earlier promise to meet her friend just so she could go. But then Sayashi said how “going to Disneyland just for a quick visit would already make it feel like we’d been there,” suggesting they only spend the morning at Disneyland before going to karaoke in the afternoon.

Yuzuki: Fuku-chan and Sayashi talked about this in CDJournal’s January edition. So then Ikuta replied: “Yeah, I can’t do that. When I go to Disneyland, I want to spend the whole day there.“

Asai: Fuku-chan then tried to coordinate things. She thought of places where both Eripon and Sayashi would be happy going to, but when she suggested Ooedo Onsen, Ikuta immediately invoked her veto rights: “Eri can’t.” Eventually, though, she cancelled plans with another friend and finally agreed — on the night before the day they were supposed to go.

Read more…