Juice=Juice is Hello! Project’s last hope

Hmm … where have I heard this one before?

The saviors of humankind???

Newly-minted girl group Juice=Juice has made a dashing first impression, becoming the darlings of J-idol fandom almost as quickly as Stephen Curry has become the darling of NBA basketball. With his pure shooting stroke and legit playmaking skills, Curry has captured the imagination of the hoops nation, not to mention his eyes are prettier than Yuka Miyazaki’s. But I digress. Juice=Juice has all of two singles to their name, both under an indie label (which means no B-side tracks), yet the sheer impact of these songs and the videos accompanying them are inspiring all sorts of buzz among fans. “Better than S/mileage,” some are saying. “The greatest talent Tsunku has ever assembled.” “Hello! Project is finally doing something right.”

After two songs? As in, they don’t even have enough repertoire to fill in between two MC segments at a concert?

While people often say “Don’t be so quick to judge!” in response to something negative, I think the same words of warning apply to positive reactions too.

Did °C-ute record a song from the future?

°C-ute’s 2nd best-of album, ②℃-ute神聖なるベストアルバム (“2°C-ute Shinsei Naru Best Album”), takes a trip down memory lane with re-recordings of old songs from the 8/7/6-member era re-tooled to fit the current lineup of 5. The results, however, are mixed, coming out anywhere from “pretty decent” to “why would they re-do the arrangement it was already perfect THE WAY IT WAS.” (I’m looking at you, “Tokaikko Junjou.”) But among these re-voiced and re-arranged songs, one stands out from the rest … which is weird because it was a pretty ordinary, repetitive song when it first came out.

Who knew that “Ookina Ai de Motenashite” was meant to be a song from the future?

The re-arranged version of “Ookina Ai” is a stroke of genius—a super bubbly, prototypically cute idol song layered over with bleeps and bloops from the chiptune/electropop scene. It may be little more than a stylistic affectation—like how applying a swing rhythm to a song suddenly makes it “jazz”—but consider this. It would not have been possible when the song was first recorded. Well, technologically YES it was possible, but stylistically no one would have thought of doing it.