2009,
This year has been a great stimulation for me. I've finished my studies and got to experience the awesomeness that is Morning Musume. The most searches through all of this year had included the words:
- morning
- musume
- reina
- tanaka
- utaban
- hello
- morning
- subbed
- PV
What's you're most used words that you've typed in your search engine this year?
I think it was about February or April that i happened to start liking Morning Musume. And ever since i watched my first video of MM goodness, 'Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari subbed PV', i've been goin' into a MM expedition finding out their very very COLORFUL history. This includes from their early days with Nakazawa as their leader to auditions of new members and graduations of older members. i've also learned many inside jokes only us fans can understand like 'Why is Iida called Johnson?' and 'Which member loves bananas, and who absolutely hates it?'.
These kind of things was just the small part of my very large addiction of the MM experience. My first addiction was the singles that they produced all these years. I was totally living under a huge rock. It was the kind of j-pop that tickles me just right that then becomes a everyday fix of MM. I remembered for one day, i decided to watch the PVs of MM from start to finish. I got the MM wiki page to help me to go down the list of their singles. It was totally the stimulation for the senses. As i go through each one, I checked what year certain singles are, and i try to remember what i was doing at the time when i hadnt been listening to the song. For example, Shabondama was released in 2003, during that time i was in my final year of high school and all of my classmates are worried about the HSC. And during that year, the 6th generation members had freshly joined all fans await their future in momusu.
15nin Morning Musume
The next step to the momusu experience was trying to get to know the members. Reading the wiki for each of the members hadnt really given the closure that i need to like their characters. So the next best thing i did is to watch their publication in TV. And boy i was in for a treat! MM were in a whole bunch of commercials, variety shows and performed a whole bunch of specials that got the show raise that ratings like crazy. They were indeed a j-pop phenomenon! what got me understand MM first was the music fighter episode of the quick rundown of their history where you visually see the members change through the years. but it was the Mechaike specials that got me feed in each of their characters as a MM member. then in youtube i searched videos of each member and see why each of them are special. In the midst of my video hunting, while saving videos into '.flv' files, i've stumbled the crazy existence of Utaban.
You cannot have been a fan of Morning Musume without seeing at least one episode of Utaban featuring Morning Musume. this show had opened the door of japanese variety talk shows. This show had the strongest influence in MM's image as Taka-san constantly pamper the cute members and 'wildly' aggravate his lesser favorites. Just as much as MM's own show, Hello! Morning, you can see the individuality from each of the members blossom as years go by. For example, Kei Yasuda had started as a person who gets the least attention, but since Iida became leader, Taka-san's constant probing of her existence had became a long staple in the Utaban-MM experience. It is a shame now that the current MM hadnt got back to Utaban for a long while now. I really hope they do, coz i can see potential of more mayhem if get to mix Taka-san with Junjun and the current Sayumi.
VIETNAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
This year has been one hell of a ride. Looking back now and i cant believe how much downloaded content i have now in my computer with all those videos, images and audios i've hunted throughout this year. Even at some points when my internet is capped, i still go crazy slowly downloading youtube vids. And also, Hello! Online has been a godsend to my MM fandom. This site has been my Hello! Project news feed for on the minute of news that UFA has posted in their websites, and other feeds like that. Things like new PVs and shocking announcements of graduations. And the great people in H!O devoted their precious time translating relevant news of events happening. Reading forum members opinions of topics was a blast to read. This forum is just as great compared to the NoobToob website. It's too bad im a bit of a lurker around the site but i hope to be more involve in discussions more rather than just make long ass comments in the main page of certain news topics and image hunting.
Join the Hello! Online forums~!
Now reflecting back this year, i had spent alot of time and effort catching up to the MM fandom, and it will continue to next year as well. I'm curently self-teaching myself some japanese and I'll try to learn alot next year. Learning japanese will help alot especially when it ocmes to special MM vids that havent been subbed yet.
I hope 2010 is gonna one sweet ride for Morning Musume, and I'll happily ride with them too~!
