4 posts tagged “the possible”

Possi0089

I got inspired to rate five qualities of THE Possible members: singing, dancing, looks, talk and character (thanks to tama-chan for those). I believe it's going to be difficult because THE Possible is a relatively new unit and I've seen and heard a very limited amount of them. However, it's always fun to make early judgements and then a year later look back on them and think how wrong or right you were. The grading is from 1-5: 1 = worst, 5 = best.

I'm not very good at judging dancing, so the dancing bit will here include all stage presence, I think... And I often gave 3 when I didn't really know what else to give.

(I'll try to add pics later, vox isn't accepting them now and I don't have time to figure it out right now)

Kanami0043

Mororin
Singing: 1
Dancing: 3
Looks: 4
Talk: 2
Character: 4

Her singing is very very weak and quite bad, but I don't really hold it against her because it's cute. You can hear her sing a song solo on Youtube (just search ポッシボー for any THE Possible videos) where it becomes clear that she's not the best singer. But at the same time that was the moment when I really noticed her for the first time and started liking her more... She looks kinda big next to the other Possi members, but she is very pretty. She seems to be quite a clumsy talker, which is why it's surprising that Tsunku keeps giving her MC tasks. But yet this clumsiness is adorable, so maybe that's why.

Mororin seems to be quiet and sometimes lost in her own thoughts. I suppose that's why she seems to sometimes forget what she was supposed to say, or mixes up words. Anyway, I like this kind of character as it's different from the rest of Possi.

Yurika0055

Akkyan
Singing: 3
Dancing: 3
Looks: 3
Talk: 4
Character: 3

Her singing is quite ok for an idol, but nothing special, so I gave 3 to leave some room for improvement. Nothing special to say about her dancing. I used to find her the least pretty Possi member, but somehow after fixing her front teeth, I suddenly find her much prettier. She's not really a stand-out beauty, but she can be very cute when she has certain expressions on her face. As for talk, she is quite genki and seems to like making poses while she's MCing (which is cute). Her character is still a bit of a mystery for me, which is the reason why I couldn't give her a higher grade. But she seems like a funny girl who is natural in front of a camera.

Robin0010

Robin
Singing: 3
Dancing: 3
Looks: 3
Talk: 4
Character: 5

Her singing is alright, nothing special to say here. I kind of regret grading dancing because I just seem to give everyone 3 by default. As for her looks, I do think she is very cute and stands out, but I just find her skinniness a wee bit scary. I'll leave her some room for improvement... Her talk is very energetic. She always seems to be having the best day of her life, always radiating joy. I think she's the kind of person that makes you unable to stop smiling just by being around. She is very entertaining and funny on camera. From what I've seen she just has this amazing, cute and hyper personality, so to me she has the strongest character in THE Possible.

Aina0015

Hashimon
Singing: 4
Dancing: 3
Looks: 4
Talk: 4
Character: 2

I actually gave her 4 for singing because I really like her singing voice, not sure if the talent is as good as I think, but yeah. Grading her looks was kind of tricky. She can have the cutest expressions and look adorable, but at the same time, I think without make-up she looks very average (unlike the other members, who look about the same). But I guess we'll see the cute side of her more, so I ended up giving 4. She seems like a very professional talker: calm and composed, but still idol-like. To me she seems like a good promo talker. However, her character seems kind of vague to me except for the fact that she wears glasses more often than the rest. That's why I couldn't give her a higher grade.

Yuki0054

Yuki
Singing: 2
Dancing: 3
Looks: 5
Talk: 3
Character: 3

I haven't really heard any convincing live singing from her, so that's why I gave her 2. She's not that bad I guess, but her voice seems to still be weak and all. Looks, I gave 5 because to me she's insanely cute. Lovely features. She seems like an ok PR talker... Her character to me doesn't stand out a lot, but she's just so damn cute. Every time a camera's around she does something silly and cute, an expression or whatever. Her personality could stand out more, though, so that's why I left room for improvement.

Kaede0050

Well, I gave Kaede a high singing grade because her singing voice is just so damn cute. Her talent is probably the same level as the rest, which is 'ok'. I wanted to give Kaede a higher grade in dancing, as well, because she just looks so happy when she performs that it's lovely. She's always smiling widely and looks like she's genuinely having the time of her life. I think her dancing is somewhat different than the other girls, too - kind of princessy, which is cute. As for looks, I think she often suffers from bad hair styling, but I find her very cute otherwise. She was one of the first Eggs that caught my attention. As for her character, she's kind of goofy and clumsy and funny, and just genuinely loveable. In the Possi PV making ofs she does some very dorky stuff, like tries to hide from the camera or 'surprise' the camera... And it's just all very dorky, but in an adorable way. I love dorks!

So that's that. I'm happy to say I like everyone in THE Possible and look forward to learning more about them.

Hpegg040

Let's mention the short piece of news first: since Kaede left Tomoiki to join THE Possible, she has now been replaced by Ayumi Yutoku. Ayumi has just (in November) appeared in a play "Edo kara Chakushin!? ~Time slip to kengai!~" which also starred Berryz Kobo and Melon Kinenbi minus Shibata. That's how she had a temporary Geki Egg blog with three other Eggs. Other than that she hasn't really done anything... Despite that she seems to be liked among the Egg wota, so all the best for her. I'm definitely curious to learn more about Ayumi. She's one of the H!P Eggs that didn't instantly grab my attention, but I've grown to like more with time. Not counting concert backdancing I've only seen Ayumi in a Flets bit from over two years ago, so yeah, it would be nice to see her again... Hopefully Tomoiki will shoot some more tree planting videos soon, har har.

On to THE Possible... Since my last post I've got a chance to look at THE Possible's "Young DAYS!!" single V and also got their 2nd single "Hatsukoi no Kakera" in mail, so I'll now write about those two. Check my previous post for more information on THE Possible.

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Young DAYS!! Single V

Contents:
Young DAYS!! (Music Clip)
Koisuru Niwatori (Photo & Music Show)
Young DAYS!! (Making Of)

In general, everything screams "cheap" about this single V. The PV has been shot on two locations: on top of a roof and in a studio room with a white background. Not too impressive. The Koisuru Niwatori video is only a collection of photos of the girls with a yellow background. But if you can get past the cheapness, the girls and the music are still cute. Also, we must remember this group is under Tsunku's new company TNX, not UFA, which means they'll have less pennies to throw on PVs. (For example, a lot more thought was put into C-ute's first PVs, if you want to start comparing.)

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The PV has its moments, though. Just like it's to be expected from Tsunku's units, the choreography to this song is simple and silly, so the moves are easy to remember and fun to do. My favourite is the part where the girls "brush something off their shoulders" (see screencap). It also looks like the chorus includes dancing letkajenkka, which I find amusing as a Finn. FINNISH PRIDE! Hop, step, jump... Of course there's also lots of cuteness. I think it can be sensed how excited these girls are to shoot their first PV and also look more comfortable together than most new H!P units (or Momusu with its new members) because these Eggs have been going to training together for two years already, they know each other at least to some extent. Ah, I got off topic... But because of the chemistry the girls already have they're able to have fun and be cute together, which can be seen in the video.

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Koisuru Niwatori is good for two purposes: taking screencaps and, more importantly, hearing the girls' individual voices (since "Young DAYS!!" has no solo lines). Actually the video shows each girl when they are singing, so it's a "get-to-know-my-voice" kind of video. Well, as cheap as a video like this is to make, I actually like the idea, and I also like having another song in a single V. (H!P DVDs almost never have that!) As for the voices, there are some very nice voices here: clear, cute and pleasant, and they also sound good together. The song isn't exactly hard to sing so not much about to say about their vocal capabilities, but in general I do think they have potential and a nice tone of voice. Only Kanami's voice sounds bad to me in this song, sounds like she had a sore throat or something as her voice keeps "breaking". Either way, a video like this is very helpful for fans of a new group, I think.

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But of course the best part of the single V is almost always the making of. That's where the goofy personalities of the girls can be seen, the giggles in the backstage. Two girls stood out to me here especially: Robin and Yurika (Yurika in the screencap). Just as I expected Robin is silly, goofy, and fearlessly so. She could become a very entertaining idol so I really look forward to seeing more of her. As for Yurika, she seems to like to act and talk to the camera and it comes naturally from her. I think she might also have something special to offer. Of course all the girls are cute and have fun with the camera in this making of, but both Robin and Yurika had just something special in it. Robin was just genuinely silly and Yurika seemed "professional". Of course these are all just first impressions, all of these opinions might get destroyed by the time their next single V comes out - but yeah, this is what kind of image I have of them so far.

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Current Mystery of THE Possible: Kaede. As you can see from the cap, she can get crazy in front of the camera. Yeah... But still, I get this image from her that she's a bit on the quiet side, maybe even a bit of an outsider in the group. There's a clip in the making of where Aina attacks Kaede from behind and Kaede's reaction to it is extremely slow and quiet. She seems to be the one in the group who is not as loud and hyper as the others - the quiet force. The one who couldn't hurt a fly. It's not bad really, in fact it can be refreshing, but if this was Morning Musume, fans would start calling her boring. Well, luckily it's not.

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In sum, Young DAYS!! is a decent first single V for a group that doesn't have a big idol factory behind them, and the credit for the entertainment goes mostly to the personalities and different kinds of cuteness portrayed in the group. Even if the videos look cheap I don't really feel too disappointed because the girls make me smile and make me want to be their fan and supporter. That's why I'm into H!P I guess, I'm a sucker for cuteness... But THE Possible's songs aren't too bad really, either.

Which leads us to "Hatsukoi no Kakera"!

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Hatsukoi no Kakera

Contents:
01 Hatsukoi no Kakera
02 Anata ni Muchuu
03 Hatsukoi no Kakera (Instrumental)
04 Anata ni Muchuu (Instrumental)

(I only learned yesterday that kanji for yume + naka = muchuu, so sorry to everyone who might have the song as "Anata ni yume naka" thanks to my wrong romanization...)

"Hatsukoi no Kakera" is an almost enka-ish song, which means it has a somewhat slow tempo and some of the melodies make you think "my mom might like this song, if she listened to Japanese music with teen girl vocals". Well, I don't listen to enka or enka-ish music myself, so my first impression of this song wasn't too great; but already after two listens I liked it a lot. It really grew on me fast, especially the latter part of the song. I can't wait to see who sings what as there are some parts in the vocals I like a lot and some I'm not a big fan of (I have some kind of an idea of who is who, but I'm not willing to make any bets). Either way, it's a cute, somewhat sad song.

The highlight of the single for me is the c/w "Anata ni Muchuu". It's upbeat, lovely, cute, and the girls' voices fit it well. They even harmonize! A friend of mine had the song on repeat for quite a while and I can't blame him. This song has an old-school feel to it, too, but I think it's a cover so that's really not a surprise.

In general the single reminds me of W's cover album, W part for the cute vocals and cover part for the music. Also, I think it's cool the single had instrumentals to both songs with it. For anyone who likes to karaoke instrumentals are a great plus. I think this is a good single for THE Possible -  to be honest, I don't expect them to release the best songs ever because I see them as Tsunku's side project, but taking that into account, this is a good single. No regrets for buying it. Also, I apologize for not being able to write about the music in a more professional way, but I really don't have the words and knowledge for that.

And that's it! Ah these Vox blog entries always take a few hours of my life.

A H!P Egg entry because I'm actually a fan of theirs. I got interested in them last spring and was probably the first foreign fan who bothered to start finding out their names, matching the names with faces etc. And I'm saying this because everything I know about Eggs I learned from Japanese sources (fansites, 2ch), so I basically started from scratch as there was no English source to use (well, to be honest, I didn't even look for one - I wanted to do things my way). I chose such a good time to get into them, too, because suddenly H!P Eggs started getting roles in plays/musicals, got blogs to write and post pics in and so on. These previously anonymous girls started becoming more known to us who were willing to learn. I guess now it's finally time for me to write a first real entry about the two Egg units that currently exist so I can later look back on this and laugh at my weird observations.

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Tomoiki - ki wo uetai
(from left to right: Arisa Noto "Nocchi", Konatsu Furukawa, Yuuka Maeda, Saki Mori "Sakkii", Kaede Oose)

Copied from my Egg site: Tomoiki debuted at Morning Musume's environmental Culture Festival 2005. They belong to "Hand in Hand" tree-planting support squad, which is a part of NPO corporation - Plant A Tree Plant Love. Thanks to the whole tree planting business there are videos of Tomoiki online where they have fun with plants and talk about trees and stuff (exciting, yes). Most of my opinions about these girls are based on those videos. Tomoiki has also released a single called "Minna no ki", but the song is the easiest to find on Pucchi Best 7 album. The Pucchi Best 7 DVD also includes their performance of the song.

But I want to talk about the girls individually now. Just my personal opinions.

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Nocchi (Arisa Noto) is currently the only "legal" H!P Egg besides the Gatas Brilhantes member Miki Korenaga, as she just turned 18 years old. Happy Birthday! She's very cheerful, talkative and always smiling. She seems to like performing for the camera, as she can talk to it naturally when being filmed and is also energetic at the same time. Her age and previous idol experience (since she has done other idol jobs before joining Eggs) do really show in her attitude. I didn't find her very cute at first, but just like the other girls she just keeps getting cuter as time goes by. I think she's someone who works hard and takes whatever jobs she has seriously, but sadly I still have a feeling she'll never get further than Tomoiki, even just because of her age. But she is probably the most professional Egg right now.

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I wrote about Konatsu before, but now I've actually seen more of her on video. There are individual clips of each Tomoiki member presenting a plant, and Konatsu was serious presenting hers (even if she flashes a cute smile at the end). I found it weird because around other members Konatsu was giggling and seemed cheerful, not as much as Nocchi, but still enough to surprise me with the serious face. On stage performing "Minna no ki" Konatsu was smiling a lot, too, and seemed excited. I like Konatsu a lot, but that plant presenting clip where she was about as excited as she would be making homework stood out to me. She seems to have potential in performing on stage (her dancing is pretty good, too), but as boring as plants are (sorry to plant lovers), idols need to always look and sound like they care about what they are talking about. But hey, it's just a random observation I've made. In a way it's refreshing to have someone less hyper around, and Konatsu remains to be one of my favourite Eggs.

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Yuuka is one of the cutest things ever. She's so cute she could smash places into pieces, spit in the faces of people, curse like a sailor, and everyone would just say: "Aaaawww, look at little Yuuka, she's so cute". She has an adorable little baby voice, too. So uh, I haven't really got much to write about her because every time I saw her I just thought she was super cute and forgot to pay attention to anything else. Her dancing seems the clumsiest out of Tomoiki, but that's hardly a surprise. She's just a baby! Little Yuuka!! ....Uh, I'm so sorry for the horrible quality of this paragraph. To be honest, whatever talent she has probably doesn't matter if she stays as cute (or gets even cuter). I'll be damned if Yuuka never gets to do anything but Tomoiki jobs and random acting in plays! (She's also had a minor role in a drama, but really nothing too memorable.)

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Sakkii has really grown on me. At first sight she was quite forgettable to me, as she has a very plain hair cut, her facial features didn't really stand out to me and so on. But still she stood out to Japanese Egg fans to the extent that when there were rumours of a new member being added to Berryz Kobo, the fans said it woud be Saki. Now the more I see her the more I like her. She actually seems kind of weird to me, but in a likeable way. Very difficult to explain. She made a mistake in her plant presentation, which isn't really important, but after that her presentation was funny because she so obviously sounded like she had memorized what to say. Still, cute. Her singing voice is also very cute and good for an idol. Right now she is one of my favourite Eggs, but who knows what plans UFA has for her, if any. There is something mysteriously likeable about her, though.

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Kaede is also one of my favourites, since the beginning really. She's not in Tomoiki anymore because she has joined THE Possible, but I'll write about her in Tomoiki at first. I think Kaede was the best talker after Nocchi when it comes to their little plant presentations. She was smiling and had a "genki" spirit, but didn't go overboard with joy either. Also, she's very cute when she's not really paying attention to the camera. In the Tomoiki clips the girls were given food to eat and some plants to smell, and each time Kaede had this concentrated, pondering "what is this?" expression on her face, which was just incredibly cute to me. She's just someone I enjoy looking at and having around. I'm glad she's in THE Possible and I hope the unit will become more popular so I can see more of her. Which leads us to...

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THE Possible
(from left to right: Kanami Morozuka "Mororin", Robin Shoko Okada, Yurika Akiyama "Akkyan", Kaede Oose "Kaepyon", Aina Hashimoto "Hashimon", Yuki Gotou)