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