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Morning Musume

Japanese: a Failed Experiment – Part Deux

I attempted to write this post previously but it took on a tone I didn’t like, so I’m going to try to redo it.  Last time I talked about why I consider learning Japanese a personal failure.  Now I want to talk about why I don’t think it is. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I failed at Japanese.  But it did serve a very important purpose, and I may yet pursue it for other reasons or considerations. I remember when I first truly became interested in learning Japanese.  I don’t… Read More »Japanese: a Failed Experiment – Part Deux

Morning Musume, and the “Sealing” of Babymetal

So, today, I have been working on adding further reviews to Texihabara. There’s a bit of a technical issue I have to iron out where not all of the reviews are accessible, but I suppose that’s something that I can iron out with a bit of support and elbow grease. Anyway, the two songs I did so far were Koi no Dance Site, and Happy Summer Wedding. Now I’m not going to lie and tell you that I think they were great and wonderful songs, because I don’t. But I… Read More »Morning Musume, and the “Sealing” of Babymetal

Furusato

In my continuing quest to make a comprehensive website of JPop reviews that no one wants to visit, I spent a little time last night reviewing a few more Morning Musume songs. I reviewed Memory Seishun no Hikari, Manatsu no Kousen, and Furusato. So the honest truth is, I have mixed feelings about Morning Musume’s early work. It feels like they were trying to find their way, and only sort of succeeding. The lyrics were definitely aimed towards young women, but they mostly seemed to be a story arc about… Read More »Furusato

My Continuing Jpop Journey

So tonight, being a depressed mess, I decided to add a couple of more reviews to my site. This time I reviewed two of Morning Musume’s early songs, “summer night town” and “daite hold on me”. I’ll be honest, they didn’t do much to help my depression. Oh, don’t get me wrong. The videos are colorful and cheerful, the girls were pretty competent at singing (though they had some pretty cringy moments, tbh), and I’m sure it would have made a decent, bubble-gummy escape. But the lyrics… “Summer night town”… Read More »My Continuing Jpop Journey

Morning Musume

I have been feeling a little ill today. I think maybe all of the stress and depression from the last few days have been getting to me. Or I’m just sick. I dunno. So I watched a few old episodes of Morning Musume variety shows. I’ve told the story before of how I started with my journey of learning Japanese – I saw their “English lesson”, saw all of the neat characters scrolling across the screen, and told myself I’d learn what they meant. Several years later, I largely have… Read More »Morning Musume

Jealousy

I think in this world we have a kind of mental illness – or at least a misunderstanding about how it works to be a human. We find ourselves wanting to be something, and rather than trying to understand why it is we want to be that thing in the first pace, we just immediately try to become it, thinking that’ll make us happy. Honestly, I suspect most of the time it won’t, especially when it’s something that’s not fully (or even a little bit, in some cases) achievable. This… Read More »Jealousy

Mikan

Today, if this post goes how I think it will, we’re going to start with mandarin oranges and little Japanese children, and end up with deep philosophy. Last night, I couldn’t sleep well, and the song “Mikan” by Morning Musume popped into my head. So I looked it up. Mikan turns out to mean, basically, “satsume”, or a type of mandarin orange. And if Wikipedia is to believed, which is usually isn’t, the song is a reference to Japanese childhood memories, of eating mikan next to a kotatsu. Not gonna… Read More »Mikan

Idols

My first real introduction to Japan and Japanese was through idol culture.  Morning Musume, to be precise.  So it’s no surprise that I’m unusually knowledgeable about the subject.  I can name quite a few idols from Morning Musume, AKB48, Sakura Gakuin, and a few others besides.  And those that I can’t name, I might be able to recognize. I know about the scandals of both Sashihara Rino and Minegishi Minami, and how they resolved.  I know why those scandals occurred in the first place, and I understand some of the cultural… Read More »Idols

Gauging Progress

The very first thing I watched in Japanese – and the thing that made me feel like I wanted to learn it, was this video: It is a rather cute video of a bunch of Morning Musume girls (this was 13 years ago!) taking a faux English lesson. When I first watched this video, I was highly dependent on the subtitles.  By “highly dependent”, I mean that everything they were saying was, to me, utter gibberish.  You might as well have tossed me in front of a charismatic speaking in… Read More »Gauging Progress

5 Reasons J-Pop sucks

I’ve posted previously about what I like about J-Pop, but I don’t like everything about it!  As with everything, it has its good sides and bad sides.  Here, in my opinion, are the bad sides. The Music Can Be Uninteresting I’ve posted previously about how I think that J-Pop is far more interesting than western pop – but that doesn’t really mean it’s interesting.  At the end of the day, it’s still pop, with all of the insipidity and appealing to the lowest common denominator that that entails.  I love… Read More »5 Reasons J-Pop sucks