The End of the End and the Beginning of the Beginning

An anonymous stupid ass wota once said that Morning Musume went down the hole in popularity because the lineup became stagnant sometime around 2007. That is a hilarious LIE. If anything, the group’s decline—not just in sales but also in pop-culture relevance—began much earlier than that. As early as 2003 you would see manga or TV show punchlines along the lines of “I can’t remember who’s in Morning Musume anymore because all the members changed.” In other words, the general public’s problem was not the lineup always being the same, but the lineup changing too much. It was a dynamic, unusual way to run a idol group—but it also confused the hell out of people. (It also led to condescending, English-speaking J-entertainment writers making unfortunate comparisons to Menudo.)

IN REALITY, if I were to list the causes of Momusu’s current trajectory in the Japanese pop culture landscape, it would go something like this:

1) the natural showbiz cycle
2) everyone’s original favorites left
3) Tsunku ran out of great song hooks and the producers ran out of good arrangements
4) Poor marketing management
5) AKB48

HAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!11 about that last one, btw.

The hardest goodbye

It is almost too daunting to answer the question, “What does The Great Ai Takahashi Graduation of 2011 mean to Morning Musume?” You have to go back to basic principles and answer things like, “What is Morning Musume about? Who are they? WHAT are they?”

The 10 Most Common Japanese Surnames ~Idol Remix~

Here is an interesting blog post about the 10 most common Japanese surnames. Which totally falls in the “fun but useless facts” category. However, by adding idols with those surnames as a mnemonic device, you can memorize these facts and impress your friends! (Or creep the hell out of them because who are these girls and why are they so young.)

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1. SATO

Sumire

Kanji: 佐藤
Engrish: Help Wisteria
Comment: The #1 surname in ALL OF JAPAN belongs to everyone’s favorite Morning Musume reject. And so THE LEGEND OF SUUCHAN CONTINUES TO GROW.

Building a Better Momusu (With AKB Members)

Here's the story ... of 9 lovely ladies ... who had grown up from 9 very lovely girls ...

Mitsui joined. Yoshizawa graduated. The pandas showed up. Fujimoto slunk out the back door.

And just like that, we were left with the longest-running, most stable lineup in Morning Musume history (years after most normal people had given up on the group because it was too confusing trying to keep up with all the changes). But now, with Koharu Kusumi packing her bags and getting ready to go, we look back and ponder the mysteries of the era from “Onna ni Sachi Are” to “Kimagure Princess.” Why didn’t they audition for any new generations? (Part of the INBOU theorist in me believes that after all H!P programming on TV got canned, there was no longer an outlet through which auditions could be held and publicized.) Why didn’t anyone graduate?* (Probably because all the current members realized that there was no hope for them elsewhere in the entertainment industry.) Was this truly the best chemistry that MM ever had, or had fans just come to believe that because they’d gotten used to the same lineup for so long?

*Supplementary research tells me that this is because management was trying to keep the lineup stable so that Japan could re-learn who the girls are. Yeah, how’s that working for you guys?

And what if you tried to recreate the Nine Smile Morning Musume with members of AKB48?