So Morning Musume is about personality, right? I mean, on the whole, you can either make or break this group depending on how many diverse personas are involved in it. Seeing as this group has such a heinously long track record, however, a lot of the personalities have “already been done”. We’ve seen the narcissistic girl, the tomboy, the outgoing girl, the motherly nuturing type, the sexy girl, the hyperactive girl, the girl-next-door, the rebel girl, etc. To have new idols in Morning Musume who reflect basically their predecessors would make a pretty redundant Morning Musume, no?

Sure as shit, though… I think I would prefer that kind of Momusu to the Momusu we have now.

Morning Musume

I perceive this Morning Musume to be a ’safe’ one. Everyone is awfully stale these days, aren’t they? I don’t want to blame Ai for that one, because they’ve been stale since, like… Kaori was the leader. And I’m not blaming Kaori for that, either. Leaders only project so much onto the rest of the group, and Ai is doing her damnedest, despite having virtually no personality to her name and not being an especially “leader”-type girl, at her core. The group has plenty of energy, honestly, so this is not a problem. Vocally, they aren’t too shabby — they’re better than Berryz Koubou, and that’s good, and their weakest singers (whoever those are; I will let you make that decision for yourself) aren’t even extraordinarily weak. Sayumi has improved a hell of a lot. She might not cut the mustard the way Maki did, but she’s got a truckload of personality to back herself up and make it so she is on the same level as the other girls, just not quite in the same way. In fact, I’m tempted to say she’s the least ‘blah’ out of everyone, for me. Maybe I’m biased because Sayu basically incorporates everything I love in an idol (she’s not short as all-get out, she’s got naturally black hair, she’s a fantastic balance of maturity and immaturity, etc).

So why is Morning Musume so ’safe’ nowadays? Is it the lack of genuine punch to their songs? I’ve gotta admit, there was something very palpable about the feeling in early Momusu numbers, such as “Daite HOLD ON ME!” or “The Peace!” (to name two completely different songs in both style and vocals). In “Mikan”, that’s virtually gone. It doesn’t take a troupe of girls yelling ‘OH YEEEEEAAHHHH!!! YOU GOT A CHANCE!!’ to inspire me. No, it takes something more… But I’m not sure what. Something break-out like. I’m not talking about acne here. I could really see the current lineup doing a single akin to “Renai Revolution 21″ (in fact, I’ve started to compose a little ditty in my head); in fact, that would endear me to them by a lot. It’s not that the song has to be perfect and awesome, but the personalities backing it up count more than most people think. It’s different for each of us — some care more for the idol persona side of things, others focus more on the music and their opinion of a group from Hello! Project tends to sway with how they feel concerning a recent release. But somehow, I’m feeling as though an RR21-type song would break the current Musume out of their shells. Would it make them quite like their predecessors? Yes. Is that a good thing? Generally depends. Since that was the most successful Morning Musume, as a group (generationally, it’s a toss-up between the fourth-gen girls and the Rokkies [oh my god, I never thought I'd use one of those terms] for me), a Momusu more in that certain image would probably benefit better. That was a ’successful’ Morning Musume. That was a ‘fruitful’, ‘lively’, ‘empowering’ Morning Musume. That’s the Morning Musume I want — if I can’t have the old “LOVE Machine” lineup — the one with the hilarious, interesting, crazy, diverse members.

If Tsunku’s gonna keep beatin’ it ’til it’s dry, we might as well make it the best it’ll be.

Also, for the future: My ideal Hello! Project lineup? 11WATER. No, not completely — get rid of Shibata Ayumi and Murata Megumi and get Masae in there to fill in for them, you can take or leave Miki, and put in Jun Jun and Maasa and Makoto and I can basically die happy. Oh, and Kecchan (Satoda…), so she and Ayaka can rock the duo thing or something. Do more songs in the style of “BE ALL RIGHT!”, have someone in a hotpants version of the single costume at all times, and set your PVs in space, and I am good to go. Hopefully this gives you, the reader, some kind of idea of what I look for in H!P idols.

But this post — series, as it actually didn’t start out as but I realized a post covering all the girls would take like a century to finish — is about Morning Musume and how to improve its members individually. I planned to be pretty straightforward with this entire thing, so that’s (I hope?) what I’m going to stick to. I’ll even provide *PRRTY~PICHURRZ* of each of the girls which will probably take up more space than the actual text.

Ready, set… SCRUNCH IT!

We start with lovely miss leader, Takahashi Ai. I don’t exactly hate this girl with an undying passion anymore. I don’t think I ever did — really, it was just irritation towards her hardcore fans and the fact that she was doing an admittedly shoddy job as a leader that embittered me to her. Oh, and that she has a personality that’s as thin and nonexistent as she herself is, but…

…I kid, I kid.

Anyway, if there is any persona lurking within Ai, it’s something almost ladylike. Proper. Graceful. Lovely. See, now I know where she got that nickname from! This quite sets her apart from her predecessor, Yossie, who…basically made her career in H!P by acting like a boy. Unfortunately, there’s one thing that Ai did when she became leader that set her persona back five years… And what was it?

Oh yeah. Chopped her hair off.

I’ve only been into Morning Musume since early last year, so I never “knew” longhaired Ai. But I see her gorgeous locks captured in her old photobooks and it kind of pisses me off, in some weird way. I love long hair. I have long hair. I have always had long hair. I’m not demanding that Ai never do anything to her hair ever (keeping it shorter than how long Kaori’s got…is good), but it was just one of those things that emphasized that ‘lovely’ personality. It works for some girls (Chinami, Mako, Yossie, Chisato), but on Ai it just seemed like a really unnecessary move. But if she can find some way to rock it…I will change my mind. I haven’t seen her do that just yet. It’s not like they’ll never use hair extensions, though…right?

Anyway, Ai has another facet to her that I think is interesting… After all, we can’t stereotype people entirely one way, can we? Granted, idoling does its damnedest to generalize the hell out of their ‘talents’, which is also (interestingly) what I feel a natural human reaction to seeing complete strangers. We generalize them — I’ve found that it helps to better understand them initially. You see a man in a business suit and tie, he’s got nice polished shoes and one of those newfangled cellphones the size of a Cheerio. Some people will think, “Oh, he’s probably highstrung and overworked.” You see a girl with her boobs hanging out and her skirt six sizes too small, and you’ll think, “Ho alert! There is a ho in close proximity!”. Things like that.

The other side of Ai is what I’ve tentatively labeled her ‘dark side’, though it’s not really dark, per se. Just not the same raburii Ai. She’s got an ability to bring this out in photographs. Niigaki Risa can’t really do “sexy”, for instance, not because she isn’t sexy, but because she ends up looking like a dead fish in those certain types of pictures (from what I’ve seen so far). But Ai knows exactly how to use that “come hither” look that works precisely in her favor, whether she’s wearing a bikini or something else. It usually doesn’t matter.

The Ai that I would hate, if I had any hate leftover from Sugaya Risako, is the Ai who would contort her excellent singing voice to sound “cute”, who would act hyperactive and childish even though that isn’t really who she is. I don’t like a “cute” Ai simply because there’s already just so much cuteness in Momusu that it’s becoming overwhelming for me. We are definitely covered on the cuteness quotient. Start trying to focus on the more mature aspects.

As for her singing prowess… Ai’s voice was at its best-sounding in the duet she did with Tsunku entitled “Love~since 1999~” (that was a cover of the same song he sang with Hamasaki Ayumi). Just…absolutely wonderful. That’s honestly, all I have to say on the matter. If you can get ahold of an mp3 or buy the album that has it on there (it’s one of Tsunku’s), I can half-guarantee you’ll love it as well.

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