Nachupo (Part 2/2)

Yay! I chit chatted with lilmenchi of Aidorabu some about YGA, another group that attended TIF. Some of these groups are really hard to find information on, but it's interesting to try! She's a big fan of Passpo, who I have also come to love. But onward to the subject at hand;

I scored the above image of images from Nachupo's blog! I have most of them saved as separate pics on my computer (except for the close-ups of the girls), but I was happy to simply use the pre-put-together collage for this entry. I wish I had more info to share about this group, but I've maxed out my search options.

Following Furifuri Idoling!!! and Pinkish, Natural Point was the third group to perform in this video. They sang 劇的少女☆ビフォアアフター which I have tried getting the romaji and/or translation of, but haven't had complete success. I believe the song title has 'dramatic girl' in it but I don't know it's full meaning (gekiteki shoujo ☆ bifoaafuta ?) ~ Video sharing time! And I'll start off with this song!

Nachupo (Part 1/2)

I was rather surprised with how much I found on Pinkish. It's still not a ton, but finding them on other blogs and them having a Japanese wikipedia page helped a lot. The next group I have not had as much luck with. It was actually kind of funny, cause yesterday when I was on the local idol wikipage, I saw Natural Point under the Kantou region along with Pinkish! Meaning that both groups are representatives for the area; Pinkish for Saitama and NP the Kanagawa Prefecture.

My main problem with Nachupo (the group's nickname) is their history. They have a jpwikipage but it isn't any help since it's pretty much bare, though it did tell me that they've been around since 2005. The place that has the most accurate info is their official blog/site, but it's all the recent stuff- no background on the group.

I know that at one point there were three members (Uki, Kiho, Mana), instead of the current two (Uki, Kiho). It took me forever to discover just the first name of the third girl and even then, I don't know when or why Mana left the group. But she was around for both of NP's singles; Lovely (1st, w/three tracks) and Shinin’ (2nd, w/two tracks)

Pinkish: TIF + Videos

Pinkish @ the Tokyo Idol Festival 2010! As I mentioned before, the three girls who attended (L to R in pic above: Kanae, Mao, Haruna) only got about 27 seconds of spotlight in the video they appear in, which is of various lesser-known groups. They sang the A-side of the group's first single, released in 2008- Yume Miru Ichigo.

When I first first saw them, I fell in love with Haruna on the spot. She's pretty and sounds fabulous! I also couldn't help but love her hair, she pulled off messy-but-cute perfectly! Both her and Kanae sound great, and it's a shame that you don't get to hear Mao too, though perhaps she didn't end up with a solo. idk.

That's about it for the TIF performance, but I have more to share!! I'd heard of HMV before, but it was actually when I remembered that lilmenchi had mentioned it on Aidorabu that I thought to use it to search Pinkish.

Their album is listed AND you can preview 45 seconds of all the songs!! Being able to listen to the previews helped me very much when it came to matching a song title to a performance in a video! So now it's time for video sharing!!

Pinkish: Members

For some reason, I feel like breaking all this Pinkish info into smaller entries, instead of slapping it into one or two. So there isn't much to this one besides minor info + ramblings on the current lineup~

Nakazato Haruna. She is the leader of Pinkish and my favorite member! She's really really pretty, but I'm not shallow; I like her for more than her looks. I think she is a great singer, though I've only heard her solo a handful of times. And I also think that she makes a good leader! She is probably the easiest for me to pick out of the lineups over the years, because her face is easy to recognize. I adore her smile! Not to mention, she's talented.

Haruna is also the longest running Pinkish member. She was not part of the first generation -though her older sister Kaori was- but joined in June 2003. She was a member until April 2009, when she graduated with the rest of the 2nd gen. Then roughly six months later, in October, she rejoined as the 3rd generation's leader. This is a good video to watch for a sample of her singing.

Pinkish: Info (Part 2/2)

The above pics are from Pinkish's Official Website. I don't know if it's just me, but for some reason the text does not shown up as kanji. Instead it shows up as gibberish symbols (screenshot example). So I can't read anything on their site, thus why I had to find info elsewhere. But I was happy to find some profile-style pics of the girls. You can also find links to each member's personal blog, and those are always fun to explore.

Google translate does work, but the results don't always make a lot of sense- you have to take what you get and work with it, lol. From my understanding of such broken up info, Pinkish was created as "a form of economic development" fueling the "desire to cheer the city" in Ootone. In late 2002, auditions for the 'diva unit' were held and from them the first generation was created.

"The name (Pinkish) is from the image of a fresh strawberry pink" ~ I knew it had something to do with strawberries! Afterall, their first single is titled Yume Miru Ichigo which translates to 'Strawberry Seen in a Dream' and the CD cover is of strawberries. It's also said that the lyrics were "written by all members of pinkish"!

Pinkish is considered Nursery rhyme J-POP, because what they sing is directed at children and often based on nursery rhymes. Their songs are simplistic with sweet 'n upbeat melodies that would catch a child's interest. They're also what are called local idols - in that they were formed to represent a certain area, in this case the Saitama Prefecture. Pinkish is only one of four groups that represent the Kantou region.

Pinkish: Info (Part 1/2)

At first it started out with difficultly finding information about Pinkish (or Pinkisshu). An hour or so of researching later, and there is a LOT more to the group than I originally thought. They are the second to sing in the 5th video of TIF, following after Idoling!!! They only get around 27 seconds of spotlight, but it's something!

The quest for info! I like to dig up background on these groups, because it's interesting and fun. Though it's also sometimes quiet a chore if the group isn't well known. Over the last few days I've spent some time listening to Pinkish and trying to find out more about them. I first tried looking for videos on YT, and turned up with around 5 to 6!

The next step would be using search sites (I'm such a Google gal), but the problem is that with a name like Pinkish -lacking kanji or even romaji- I got a lot of results about things pinkish colored, makeup, etc. Totally unrelated to the Japanese idol unit. So then I used my thinking cap, and googled for 'google.jp' ~ since whenever you see that little 'jp' in a URL you know it's a Japanese site.

And TADA, I clicked on the link it turned up and from there I again searched Pinkish. The websites results were a little confusing for me, so I switched to images and was quite successful! Especially on one blog in particular; www.ecity.ne.jp ~ I'm not exactly sure who writes it, though I think it covers going-ons in the Saitama Prefecture.

The blog is linked to the YT account Saijiman; which is pretty much the only place I could find Pinkish's videos. Here are all of the entries under the label Pinkisshu. There are a lot of good pictures of the girls at different events, mainly from 2009. At the TIF only three girls performed, thus I first thought it a trio unit. But after finding their ja.wikipedia page, I learned differently.

Idoling (Part 2/2)

The reason I am focusing more on NA・GA・RA is because that was the first song performed by Idoling members at TIF. What took me a bit to figure out though, is WHO sang it. Two of the original members of GizaGiza Idoling graduated- Koizumi Rumi (Jan 2009) and Michelle Miki (Mar 2009) -cutting their numbers down by half. So at first I thought maybe the company simply added girls to fill in their place, meaning that Fonchi and Miyake would have still performed.

I felt really lame when I figured it out, because it was glaringly obvious. If you look at the image up there (a screenshot of the video playing on my computer, cause, oh yes, I have it downloaded), in the lower right hand corner above the song's title on the blue/yellow strip it says 'フリフリアイドリング!!!' So it ended up being Furi (フリフリ) performing Giza (ギザギザ) 's song at TIF.

Idoling!!! (Part 1/2)

Here is Idoling!!!'s cast member page at their official website. They've really taken a page from Morning Musume's book, in that they started off with nine girls making up the first generation and from there they've had members come and go. They added their 4th gen in 2010 and currently have 20 girls overall.

When you first look at a list of all the singers who've been in Momusu, along with their generation and what year they left the group- it can really make you feel lost. When I started looking into Idoling because of TIF, I had had no idea that they were running their group in a similar way. I saw all the girls' pictures and their numbers and the different gens and was like 'oh. . .'

But -as when it comes to the 'getting to know who's who' part regardless of who the group is- if you take it a bit at a time it's not all that daunting. I feel that before I jump right into their first performance in TIF, I should share a little bit of their early works. And of their first three singles, one is very befitting at the moment.

Rambles + Various Groups

I don't want to only write about idol groups that performed at the Tokyo Idol Festival; it was merely my main inspiration. Hello! Project is so big and such an attention grabber, that it captures many listeners that are new to the world of Asian music. I was dazzled when I first discovered it, because there is nothing like it here in the US.

But what many fans (including myself at one point) don't realize because they're too busy drowning themselves in the music & going-ons of Momusu, Berryz & C-ute (etc) is that there are SO MANY other idol groups out there.

Twinkle Twinkle, sweet SG

Aren't they adorable?! I've been meaning to blog about SG again, gathering pictures and any info I could find the last few days, so here we go! When I saw the above image I wanted to start off with the formation of さくら学院　バトン部『Twinklestars』. Or as I am simply going to call them; Twinklestars (or if you prefer, Tinkurusutazu). I read about it in the news section of Sakura Gakuin's website.

The seven girls are all members of the main group- thus I suppose I see this as sort of a subunit. The girls are (from left to right in the photo); Moa, Hinata, Marina, Ayami, Raura, Nene and Yui. As the picture easily tells us, they will be doing more than the usual; they'll also be twirling batons!

I'm not positive yet if they are meant to be a performing group, but their site also mentions a 'pre-debut single' which makes me think that they will be. Their single is listed as Dear Mr.Socrates, which will include only the song and instrumental. It's going for ￥800 and will be online only. There is also a news page on their very own website, which has similar info listed + more!

Previews + Farmin' + Album

キラ・ピュア・POWER！ (left) ~ 恋愛ルール (right)

I discovered these previews in the S☆G thread at Hello-Online. They were posted by Stellosphere, who is the Gallery and News updater at the STYLE blog (the Tokyo Girls' Style source), and a Global Mod at STYLE forums. On first impression, I didn't care for KP POWER very much, but it's one of those grow-on-you songs. It's cutesy, upbeat and actually pretty fun. Nice melodies.

I like that Reira got to solo in the beginning of Renai Rule! So far Avex has been pretty fair in line division. She was somewhat pitchy in the live performance, but I think she'll pull it off really well with more practice! I'm a bit iffy with this song- I like the verses & pre-chorus, but the chorus doesn't appeal to me much. I think I like KP POWER more, lol. But I'd like to wait for a better performance to go by.

S☆G's studio sound

Where do I start!? I suppose with this!

The above is not a video! LOL. I don't understand why people disable embedding of YT videos. Maybe I'm missing some obvious reason, but whatev. I just end up screenshotting and making do. Here is the link to the above performance, the japanese in the vid's drop down section mentions some info on the group and roughly tells us;

出席者：ＳＵＰＥＲ☆ＧｉＲＬＳ
2010年10月2日；ＳＨＩＯＤＯＭＥ−ＡＸ（東京・汐留）

Attendees: SUPER ☆ GiRLS
Sun October 02 2010; SHIODOME-AX (Shiodome, Tokyo)

My main reason for sharing this is that STUDIO VERSIONS of all three songs can be heard!! Most people know that from time to time -be it on TV shows, in concerts, or elsewhere- idol groups either lipsynch or sing with themselves. It always kind of disappoints me when I see it, but I know it's usually not the girls' decision. At their Shiodome-AX performance, S☆G members sang with themselves.

As in, the official recorded track played instead of just an instrumental and the girls also sang live. Thus we get to hear sort of a double vocal thing going on, it's especially noticeable during the solos. And when you hear the chorus or other group-parts, you can tell that it's a recording. But!! In this case I'm kind of excited, because before listening to this video, I had yet to hear what the girls would sound like in studio.

PIH / Aidorabu

What's got me so excited at the moment~ I've become a reader of Pure Idol Heart. I'll admit that I'm not a huge AKB48 fan, I've never really gotten into them (I get confused too easily), but I even enjoy reading the entry titles and little blurb-previews that are about them.

Though it's the stuff about the newer / smaller / less-known groups that really catches my interest. It's an easy way to keep on top of some of the news, especially since you wouldn't find a lot of it mentioned elsewhere. AND!! I just read Gaki's short note about Aidorabu being added to the link section on PIH.

So I checked it out and I love it!

S☆G: Kizuna Days + Be With You

I had SUPERGIRLS songs in my head all day today, lol. I really like them as a group, and I'm going to keep on following them. Yesterday I actually found a blog about them; Desserts. There isn't tons of info, but a good amount and I was happy to see someone had taken an interest in them.

S☆G (EI) Part 2

Yasaka Saori is the leader of SUPER☆GiRLS! I like her name, but down the road came up with Saruchan! She sings pretty well and has a nice voice that doesn't wow me, but is still appealing. As leader she has the most solos in the TIF performance (three overall), which isn't really a surprise. I'd like to hear better from her, but I'll have just have to wait and see! Saori sounds adorable when talking though, like her "minna-san gambawa" right before introductions. She's cute and seems to have a good personality, I'd like to see how she does as leader.

OMG does Sayumi of Momusu have a little sister or something?! Maeshim Ami really reminds me of her!! She's the youngest in the group (only 12) and is utterly kawaii! I can't resist making her pink, like Sayu. She sometimes ends her blog as 'Amita' and thus I am going to call her Amitayu! She doesn't get a lot of camera time early on, but does more so towards the end. And she's darling in her interview!!

S☆G (EI) Part 1

The first group to perform on stage at TIF2010 was SUPER☆GiRLS! I spent some time yesterday and tonight doing my homework on them (lol) and I've actually had a good time doing so. Sakura Gakuin has captured my heart, but I'm still happy to get around the idol-group world a bit.

There is quite a bit of negativity when it comes to this group, because their name is a little lame. It was also SNSD's old name. And it also reminds me of Super Junior. On top of that SG wants to top AKB48, which has got said group's fans buzzing. But though I've read some of the negative comments, I'm ignoring them and giving these girls a go!

A lot of the decisions that are made for singing groups are by the higher-ups and management, the singers often have no choice in things (like what their group will be named). I bet the girls in SUPERGIRLS are simply happy at the chance to sing and experience!

Here is their official website, including profiles and other fun stuff. Another thing about me doing this blog, is that I'm spending more time on Japanese websites than I ever have. I'm getting better at navigating them!! Anyways, I took the above pics from SUPERGIRLS' profile page, except I switched the order around.

GOTO AYA! and RUKA! and RINO! They are my current faves! So that's they're at the top. I really like Hikaru too. It took me a bit to tell Saori, Hikaru, and Rika apart in their performance and so I'm wishywashy on how much I like them at the moment. The order I have the girls in isn't definite, just sort of an outline of my current likes, less-likes and undecided.

Sakura Gakuin (EI)

Gah I'm already crazy addicted to Sakura Gakuin. I adore so many of the girls, and I'm only just getting to know them. Because SG's Yume ni Mukatte is the main thing I have to go by, I've watched and listened to it dozens upon dozens of times. I've also watched the introductions the girls gave at TIF, to try and get a hint of their personalities.

Ayami and Suzuka I already love from their part in Karen Girl's. But in SG Ayami really emerges as a leader. She's the first one to speak and is also the first to solo. I think she is going to get a lot of the spotlight, but hopefully not too much. On a side note, she's really pretty, and I love that she's the oldest and yet the shortest out of the four senior girls.

Way back when I first listened to Karen Girl's I had no idea who was who and just sort of settled for liking them all, lol. But now I find myself really loving Suzuka! Her solo performance of Asu e no tobira is amazing. She's really fun and a great singer! I do like Ayami a lot too, but I not as much as Suzuka right off the bat.

Intro

Okay I suppose I'd better start with why I am beginning yet another blog. I got far enough with H!PE to be content with knowing my Hello Project gals better, though I'd still like to explore the groups I don't know so well. I am a complete failure when it comes to AKB48. That blog didn't go very far, but I liked learning at least some basic stuff about them, and one day would like to continue. I like them, but I guess I've never really fallen in love with them.

Recently TGS (Tokyo Girls' Style) and Momoiro Clover have taken the jpop girl-group world by storm! They've gained quite a bit of notice and have released some good songs. But aside from the world of H!P, I don't listen to a lot of other girl-groups (excluding female groups like SNSD, Wonder Girls, f(x) etc, since I consider them more mature). I don't know anything about them!

I do however LOVE Karen Girl's. I recently blogged over on H!PE (my random whatever blog now, lol) about how I had discovered Sakura Gakuin! ! ! ! I am so excited about them! BUT one thing lead to another, and I have now discovered TIF- the Tokyo Idol Festival! They basically feature a ton of non-H!P girl groups, 2010 is it's first year running! I love H!P, but it is sad that they and AKB basically dominate the jpop girl-group world.

Inspiration TIF 2.1. Does the blog title make more sense now? (2.1. = 2010) I know it's kind of lame. But Karen Girl's and Sakura Gakuin have inspired me to really reach outside of H!P. I want to at least listen to lots of other girl groups, I don't have to love them, but if I find a new group or girl to love; great!

With running Blabodu, I don't think I'll have a lot of time for this, but it's sort of a mini side project. Like H!PE was. It's a documentation of my exploration, and purely for my own enjoyment! Anyways~ TIF featured a lot of groups *o* You can see for yourselves here. More than 30 groups!!

I found info on the Tokyo Idol Festival on this blog (these entries too; x x), it's still so new that there isn't much info on it around the web. What I'd like to do here is go through all of the parts of the TIFestival concert! And one group at a time, research and try to find out more about them! Let's see how this goes!!