March/April Song Opinions (Part 2 - Gamusha LIFE)

Everything I put on my blog is purely my opinion. No offense is ever intended, and I do not ever claim my opinion to be any more "right" than anyone else's, so please return the favor and pay me the same respect. Thank you.

As strange as it may seem, the next song I want to review is a jump all the way up to my favorite of the 10:

Itooshikute Gomen ne (Country Girls)

Koi Dorobou (Country Girls)

The Middle Managemen ~Something here~ (C-ute)

Gamusha LIFE (C-ute)

Tsugi no Kado wo Magare (C-ute)
Wonderful World (Juice=Juice)

Ca va? Ca va? (Juice=Juice)

Seishun Kozou ga Naiteiru (Morning Musume '15)

Yuugure wa Ameagari (Morning Musume '15)

Ima Koko Kara (Morning Musume '15)

Since the outfits are significantly different for each member, I'll review the outfits at the end along with any comments on the members. For now, lets look at the settings of the video. Most of the video takes place in front of an abstract painted wall with the group name as well as the girls names written on it. It provides a very pretty background to an otherwise very dull setting. That's not to say it doesn't work, abstract art tends to clash with more complicated settings, so the simple white walls, road-like floor, and vent-filled ceilings provide a good surrounding to prevent people from being drawn away from that center-shot.

Now, that's all fine for the dance shot, but what about the close up shots? So, normally I get really bored with close up shots that are all the same. What I mean by that is, either they're all just graphic effects that vary between members just by colors or something, or they're all in the same place. So normally, the fact that all the close up shots are in the same small area would bother me. But in this case, because the background is so abstract it almost doesn't feel like they're even in the same room. It also is bonus points that each girl is placed next to her name on the wall for their shots. I think the different camera angles they use also help a bit for this. I don't know, I am personally very pleased with the fact that, even though the dance shot and close up shots are in the same place, they don't have that repetitious feel to them.

The other setting that's not seen as much is this parking garage-looking place. I'm almost positive is technically the same location as the abstract room shots, but I consider it a different setting because it looks different and they use different effects for it. Anyway, I always like when they throw in a couple scenes where the girls aren't singing, and I think this setting works really well for that to contrast the colorful setting of when the girls are singing and dancing. I think if they added too many of these scenes it would take away a bit from the video, but they didn't, so it's okay.

One last comment on the video, I really like the decision to use white backgrounds for a couple of the clips. First being the beginning where it showed the white background transitioning into the colorful one, and the other being at the slow/rap part. I feel like this really emphasized the importance of these key scenes.

Moving onto the lyrics. It's a key factor that this is their 10 year anniversary song. When comparing this song Futsuu Idol 10nen Yatterannai Desho?! you can really see the difference in feelings towards the group. Berryz's song seemed honestly really whiny and if you didn't see the indefinite hiatus coming from that song, really... You're blind. Gamusha LIFE however has a really optimistic, almost competitive feeling towards it. It still has a very reminiscent aspect to the lyrics, but the lines indicate this strong will to move forward and not lose. I feel like this song really teaches a lesson that you don't have to forget the good or the bad that's happened in the past in order to continue to the future. Or maybe I'm just reading into it too much~.

Now for the song itself. I want to start by saying: I love love LOVE the rap-ish part. Honestly, when I watched Gamusha LIFE on Hello!Station, as pretty as the lyrics were, the song itself didn't really phase me much. At least, I still liked Tsugi no Kado wo Magare more at that point. However, when the full PV was released and I heard the rap-ish part, this song jumped up to my number one for this round. It's really interesting because you go from a really sad-sounding slow verse to this gradually speeding up rap line and I think it especially helps the impact of that part of the song. In regards to the rest of the song, I really like the fact that the sound really matches the bittersweet feeling of this ten year milestone. It has this slow-ish sound to it, especially at the beginning, which kind of draws in my attention, and then it almost fades into this more upbeat optimistic sound, which then leads into the really upbeat exciting choruses. I wasn't really expecting anything like things from a song called "Gamusha LIFE" (A pun combining "Gamushara" which means reckless, and "raifu" which would be the Japanese pronunciation of the English word life. So basically it surprised me a bit that a song titled "Reckless Life" turned out to be such a bittersweet sounding song).

So, now I'm going to talk about the members that stood out to me and the outfits. Technically everyone stood out in some way to me, but if you take out the clothes/hair reasons, we're just left with 3. Now, I was going to start with those three, but then I realized they're the three oldest, so I'm just going to go in age order, because I'll still be starting with those three... ._.

Starting off with Yajima Maimi, and I guess I'll talk about the outfits and then how they stood out to me (if for some reason other than the outfits). Maimi gets what I would say is the 2nd simplest looking outfit of the girls. However, I feel like the simpler the outfit in this video, the better it looks. Maimi, here, has my absolute favorite outfit in the context of the video. the white top prevents her from clashing with the background at any point, however her blue skirt gives the outfit a little bit of color and makes the outfit not just some boring white dress or something. It's really simple, but it shows off her hair and legs, and in my opinion, those are two of her best physical traits. Maimi stood out to me in this video because it felt like this was her video. Maimi's never been my favorite, and even know she's only 3rd, but I really feel like her voice, her looks, her expressions, just everything about her wove into the song like it was made for her.

As for Nakajima Saki, I can't even say I'm surprised anymore, but she has my 2nd left favorite outfit here. I don't know why they insist on giving her horrid outfits... I personally have never been a fan of outfits where the skirt rim is on top of the shirt, but all the more so if the skirt is too high. I don't like the design on the shirt, I don't like the type of skirt, and really I feel like the only saving grace of the outfit is her hair. Though, even that's not the best style she's had, but it's still not as bad as Crazy Kanzen na Otona, so I can't complain too much @_@;. I do have to give credit to one thing, however, and that's the one shot where she's pointing at her name (the screenshot was one of the first ones on this post), somehow that pose just makes the outfit look significantly better (still not quite good, but much better). Now, at first Nakky kind of blended in and I didn't really notice her that much in the song, however once this scene happened (the one corresponding to the screenshot I used) I felt really... smug, I think. I don't know what it is, but this scene really made me get a princess-like feeling from her. Maybe that doesn't count as standing out, but I think it does, so meehhh.

Now, for Suzuki Airi, her outfit... it very scene-dependant whether I like it or not. I really don't like how it looks against the colorful background. It's earthy-feeling-colors seem to clash with the more popping colors of the background, and makes me a bit irritated (as a color-lover), but a lot of the scenes the shape of the dress makes up for it's colors. Plus, I mean, look at that hair. How can you not love that adorable hair <3. Airi has my 2nd favorite hairstyle here (after Maimi). Now Airi stood out to me because of her stupid face. And I don't mean I don't like her face, I mean I freaking love it and all her stupid "I'm gonna kill you with cuteness" expressions that just UGH. She makes up for her lazy dancing with her eye catching expressions. Oh, speaking of lazy dancing, although I saw a lot of it, I feel like this is some of the most energetic dancing I've seen come out of Airi in a while, so good on her.

I have to say, Okai Chisato has my 2nd favorite outfit in the context of the pv, and favorite outside of it. It's simplicity is extremely suiting of the video, and I just always liked those things that look like shirts but are long enough to pass as dresses, and I really like long sleeves, and I really like blue... so... uhm... -uses price-is-right hand motion towards Chisa's outfit-. However... I have this love hate relationship with her hair... Even now I can't tell if I love it or hate it (well, I don't think I hate it, but I don't know if I like it). I think it depends on the angle I'm looking at it. The straight on angle like in the picture I used I really don't like it, but basically every non-straight angle she used in her rap bit, for example, I love it. So I guess I almost love it...? I don't know. ARGH. MOVING ON.

Lastly is Hagiwara Mai. I'm going to start with one word: NO. I know I don't like Mai, and I'm biased against her in a lot of cases, but one thing I have really liked from her recently is her looks. But everything about her looks in this video piss me off. Her hair is one of the worst styles I've seen on her ever, and her outfit is my least favorite out of, I think, all of the singles this round, and it doesn't look any better on the set. Heck, I even hate how her name looked in the wall (I know purple and yellow are supposed to be complimentary colors, but it's one of the color combinations I hate the absolute most). It really saddens me though since I feel like I've really grown to like Mai's looks, but she looked significantly better with straight hair. Why they keep giving her this awful curly hair is beyond me...

Honestly that's all I really got for this video, so I hope you enjoyed reading. Stay tuned for some other video/song rant spectacular thing. Whenever I get around to part 3 8D. See you later guys.

March/April Song Opinions (Part 1 - Intro + Wonderful World)

Everything I put on my blog is purely my opinion. No offense is ever intended, and I do not ever claim my opinion to be any more "right" than anyone else's, so please return the favor and pay me the same respect. Thank you.

I may be wrong, but it feels like we've had a LOT singles released in a two month period compared to normal. However, one thing I'm not wrong about (because opinions are a thing!) is the fact that this round of singles is one of, if not, my favorite rounds yet. So my goal is to review each of the songs. Not just the songs themselves, though, the songs, the PVs, the lyrics, the outfits, the girls, basically for each song I'm gonna just go on an adventure to review... period 8D.

I may or may not include Taiki Bansei/Otome no Gyakushuu depending on my mood after all the rest, but I don't consider the single as part of this "round" since it was released so much earlier, so I don't feel compelled to include it. But excluding Angelume, our song list is:

Itooshikute Gomen ne (Country Girls)

Koi Dorobou (Country Girls)

The Middle Managemen ~Something here~ (C-ute)

Gamusha LIFE (C-ute)

Tsugi no Kado wo Magare (C-ute)
Wonderful World (Juice=Juice)

Ca va? Ca va? (Juice=Juice)

Seishun Kozou ga Naiteiru (Morning Musume '15)

Yuugure wa Ameagari (Morning Musume '15)

Ima Koko Kara (Morning Musume '15)

And for this review I'm going to start with my least favorite of the 10:

Itooshikute Gomen ne (Country Girls)

Koi Dorobou (Country Girls)

The Middle Managemen ~Something here~ (C-ute)

Gamusha LIFE (C-ute)

Tsugi no Kado wo Magare (C-ute)
Wonderful World (Juice=Juice)

Ca va? Ca va? (Juice=Juice)

Seishun Kozou ga Naiteiru (Morning Musume '15)

Yuugure wa Ameagari (Morning Musume '15)

Ima Koko Kara (Morning Musume '15)

Let's start off by taking a look at the outfits. I love blue. Dark blue is my favorite color, and there is no shade of blue that I hate (Even blues that are bordering on green or purple I still like). So of course the color isn't a problem to me. However, in my opinion, there are only two good things about these outfits: The color and the shoes. I think the shoes are adorable. The rest of the outfits? Well, they're not "ugly" by any means, they're just... weird I guess? I just don't think they look good at all. And I honestly believe that the killer factor for me is those weird scarf/lining/whatever they are things that have R and G and I think C written all over them. Why? Juice=Juice has a C, And Wonderful World has an R and Takagi has a G, but I really doubt that has anything to do with it, so I don't understand the point. I feel like it would have looked better if it was just a solid color - maybe yellow or light light green to match the feel of the song. Maybe even just solid white. But as it is now, I was a little more than disappointed... 

Okay, I'm pretty sure everything else I talk about will be related to either the PV, the song, or the lyrics, so here's the PV for you. Starting off, I'm going to talk about the setting of the video. I really like the simplicity of the location, as well as how bright it is. I think it suits both the song and the lyrics for reasons I'll get into later. However, I think at some points it's a little too bright. Personally, when I watch a music video, I want to see the girls, not constant lens flare. The brightness of the video is sufficient enough that the lens flare parts are unnecessary, and honestly very annoying to me. In a lot of shots I feel like it takes away from what could be really gorgeous settings. Especially with the girls close-up shots. I REALLY like the scenes the close up shots are set in, so every lens flare is just taking away from that for me. 

Now, since I've already complained about the outfits, I do want to credit them one thing: they were perfectly with the brightness of the video (aside from the scarves). I think the reason for this is because of the color, blue is the center of the cool colors (blue, purple, and green) and is usually the best contrast with warm colors (this is mostly my opinion). Meanwhile, the shade of blue is light enough that it doesn't stand out too much from the surroundings. Because of the color and the shade, I think it provides an amazing contrast to the bright white (and honestly, it almost has a pinkish tint to it to me) background and really makes the girls both stand out and blend it. Basically, they stand out enough to be the center of attention, but not too much to where they seem out of place. It's really an amazing balance.

Now let's talk about the lyrics for a minute. First of all, I do want to say the lyrics are pretty accurate to their Japanese counterparts. There are, as always, a couple bumps that sound weird in English, but it's enough to get the jist. Now, I REALLY like the lyrics. I think they're really sweet and make for a really touching song. The summary is basically "Because I met you I have a new appreciation for the world" I'd say. And honestly, as dumb as that sounds in that context, I really do like how they handled the idea in the context of the lyrics, especially the choruses. If I had one complaint it would be the "lalala" parts. They feel kinda like they're just there to fill space to me... I realized in the past couple days: whether or not I like that part of songs really depends on how it's used and how it sounds, this is not the kind of instance I like it in.

Now, you might be wondering "Wait, didn't you say this was your least favorite song? It sounds to me like the only thing you don't like is the scarves..." or something. No? Okay well I'm gonna continue anyway. The next thing I want to talk about is the song itself. Not the video or lyrics, but how the song SOUNDS. And to me, this is the part that turns me off to the song (which is bad, since that's what it comes down to when I listen to music most of the time). When I first heard the song in the Hello!Station preview, I instantly didn't like it. At first I couldn't really justify why, something just bothered me about it. I've come to the conclusion that I don't like it because it sounds just like you would think it would based on it's name. Now, that might not sound like a bad thing, in fact that seems like it should be a good thing. But to me, that means there's NOTHING surprising about it. I feel like there's a difference between "sounding like you would think based on the name" and "suiting the name". "Suiting the name" is when you hear the song and you think it fits well with the name. The difference? "Sounding like you would think" means it has a sound to it that you (at the very least could have) predicted. I'm sure very few people go out of their way to predict how a song will sound based on the name, but to me if it's possible, the song is not very interesting. In short summary: It's cliche. That's not to say I've heard a million songs like this, more so to say it's very... "normal" I guess. I can't really put it in any better words than that, and I really hope I didn't lose you in all that... mess.

I'm going to talk about three members who stood out to me in some way in this video and explain why. The first is Miyazaki Yuka. I feel like she got a little push in this song, and I'm really happy. Not just because she's my favorite member, but also because I feel like her voice is the best suited for this song. It's gentle, unlike Tomoko's or Sayuki's more powerful voices. I honestly would have liked to hear this song with Yuka, Karin, and Akari leads for this very reason. I think it would have sounded really pretty (though I probably wouldn't have liked it much more, so I guess my opinion doesn't really matter that much here.

The second person I'd like to talk about is Kanazawa Tomoko. For pretty much the exact opposite reason as Yuka. She stood out to me because I feel like she did NOT suit this song AT ALL. Her voice sounded very out of place most of the time, and the only time it fit was when she forced it (she has a natural "Thing" to her voice that I really like, but it doesn't work well with this song...). But not just vocally, I feel like visually too she's out of place. I don't really know exactly what it is, but I just feel like the other girls go well together... and then there's Tomoko...

The last one I want to talk about is Takagi Sayuki. First, I want to mention that when the group was initially announced Sayuki was my 2nd favorite. I loved her voice and, most of all, her dancing. But in this video I feel like her dancing was lacking a LOT compared to usual. It really saddens me to say so, since I loved Sayuki's dancing, so seeing her a bit lack luster in the dance was incredibly disappointing to me, and I really hope it's because she found this song so boring to dance to and not because we have another Risako or Airi effect.

So, that entire piece on Sayuki was written before I got the chance to watch the dance shot version (which I honestly don't usually watch anyway, but I watched for the sake of checking on my comments). I'm happy to report that it seems that all of the clips in the PV that were Sayuki dance bits seems to be all of her worst parts. Overall her dancing has a couple parts that seem bored, but for the most part she's her normal energetic self 8D.

So this was my review of Wonderful World. I do want to clarify one thing. For any of you who think "Wow, if she goes on this much with her least favorite song, she's gonna say so much about the rest!" Or something, don't get your hopes up. Although it is my least favorite song of the round, I do have to admit it's the one that, as of right now, I had the most to say about (which is the main reason I started with it). Also, I tend to expand more on my least favorite stuff than stuff I like more because, honestly, it's really not that hard to amuse me. So, if I DON'T like something for whatever reason, there usually has to be some good reason why, and therefore I have something to expand on. A lot of the time, though, I might like something "just because I like it..." so it's really hard to explain exactly why. In fact, a LOT of the time the most accurate reason is just "because I don't NOT like it." 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading. If you actually read... Anyway, that's all I have for now. Good bye, have a nice day, see you later, etcetc. :3