Aoi♥Usagi is a good blog; I enjoy reading it from time-to-time. Well, recently, Aoi♥Usagi wrote a highly entertaining post detailing what changes she would make to the current units fronting Hello! Project (as well as ones in the background [Melon Kinenbi] and/or no longer with us [GAM]). And, well… What kind of person am I to resist jumping on the bandwagon and write some of my own thoughts? Instead of grudgewanky, this’ll probably end up wishful and have some lame passes at being funny, just for the hell of it. (I expect this post to say more about me than anything else in this blog put together could in six months.)

…keep in mind that when I use “you” a couple times in my writing, it’s referring solely to UFA/the big guys in charge of H!P. Not, like, you as in the reader reading this. Yeah.

Starting with the flagship unit, Morning Musume:

• Make significant changes to HM@.
→ 1. No more of this MouTube crap. The girls will perform in skits as humorous characters like they did on H!M, or otherwise attempt to do the interesting things previously shown on MouTube.
→ 2. Kill the baby.
→ 3. New uniforms once every, say, two or three months. And use some nice fabric material, nothing ugly like their original ones. Also, no more stupid animal themes.
→ 4. Have a “themed” episode every once in a while. Like, say, “this is the kakkoii episode”, or “this is the kawaii episode”, or “this is the Mutou Mika episode”. This will just mix things up, and the content of the episode will be entirely related to that thing. For example, with a kawaii episode, there will be an entire segment dedicated to rating how well each Musume makes a cute pouty face. Likewise, with a kowai episode, have the girls do the haunted house thing again (or something). Sales are sure to skyrocket.
• Promote the developing of certain members’ personalities and train them on how to be better idols. Make Takahashi Ai less boring, Niigaki Risa more kakkoii or something so I stop confusing her with Kamei Eri, Mitsui Aika the mischievous younger sister of the Musume, Junjun become something interesting, Linlin get a persona beyond “hey, I’m talented and ambitious!”. Get Koharu off the smack.
• Stop giving away the leads in single A-sides to the same person or persons. Mix it up once in a while, no matter if that girl is someone you’re not keen on promoting for some bullshit excuse, or if she has weak vocals. Christ, Ishikawa Rika got more chances than Sayumi does and they’re both equally beautiful!
• More concentration on harmony lines than “oh, Reina can just have this line and that one and that one…”. Failing that, more even line distribution. You’re not a group if you don’t let everyone sing, unless you’re a rock band.
• Kusumi Koharu graduates from Morning Musume to do her anime career full-time.
• More disco-flavored singles, with the occasional rock or otherwise one. Try putting out something fun and interesting like the Golden Age more often, too.
• Tsunku needs to take a break. Let some other people compose the songs, or write the lyrics, at least once in a while, eh, Tsunku? Someone can only be creative for so long and I’m sure you’ll get over it in due time.
• More consistent quality PVs. I’m not talking high-budget monstrosities, since UFA basically has no money anymore, but something with a bit of substance besides “CLOSE-UP! DANCE SHOT! CLOSE-UP! ANOTHER DANCE SHOT!”. And keep the CG to a minimum, that shit looks cheesy no matter what you do.
• Depending on whether or not the PV is almost done, revise “Resonant Blue” and add a rap section. That would make me like it a lot more.
• Get the hosts of Utaban to like the current lineup again. They were all into Momusu until, like, sixth-gen rolled around, which is also where I probably would have lost interest if I were them. This also means manufacturing more interesting personalities/finding better vocal talent a la first to third generation.
• Needs more PVs set in outerspace.
• Use natural voices more? Pretty please?
• Cover The Bee Gees’s “Stayin’ Alive”. Just once. For me.
• Ninth generation auditions need to happen in May of 2009. There needs to be at least four girls recruited. They need to all be charismatic or, failing that, vocally or physically-talented, i.e. dancing. One of them needs to be older than sixteen and sexy. One of them needs to be 12-13 years old. The other two I could care less. They also need to be promoted fairly and equally.
• Photobooks for everyone who doesn’t have one yet. Forget putting out your annual releases for Ai, Eri, Reina, and Risa, their fans can deal for a little while.
• Recruit new arrangers and stop using up all the creative juices of your old flames. Bring back DANCE☆MAN for Morning Musume. Tell him to be cool again and do disco songs, and nothing cheap and lame like “Yattarouze!” or Berryz’s cover of “Dschinghis Khan”.
• Stop butchering “LOVE Machine” on Kouhaku every year. If you have to sing it, don’t do it looking like fucktards like you have been.

I think I got everything. Onto the Ongaku Gatas unit:

Okay, I couldn’t find a picture without Mano, sue me

• Tell Konno Asami she needs to concentrate on her studies and kick her the hell out of the unit. The fans will understand that you did this because her adorable chubby face is gone and won’t question your motives.
• You can do nothing about Satoda Mai having no fans. Don’t bother, I can’t even think of a solution. Advertising her ass may help, though.
• Stop being a stupid group about a sport. Change your name to something catchier and less grandmotherly than “Ongaku Gatas”.
• Yossie needs to be front-and-center in every official group picture. Now that Mano is out, I figure this will no longer be an issue.
• Promote Sawada Yuri more. This girl has a lot of moxie and some hella cute dimples but no attention in advertising to emphasize these things.
• Give Sengoku Minami some lessons in, well… Everything. Try to make her look as gorgeous as she does here more often.
• Add Fukaya Ai to the group in Mano’s place, as I previously suggested. Have Fukaya Ai terrorize Ishikawa Rika on national television with a live chicken. This is comedy.
• Have quirkier releases. No more of this safe, boring “Narihajimeta Koi no BELL” or “Yattarouze!” crap. It’s time Yossie and Rika bring some of that Golden Age to this group.
• Get a new person to design the covers of everything, from singles to albums to DVDs. 1st GOODSAL’s is horrific.
• Noto Arisa forms a duo with Suzuki Airi from ℃-ute. The irony in this duo is that Arisa looks like she could be Airi’s younger cousin, and she’s hella older than her.
• Please, please, I am begging you… Give Korenaga Miki and Mutou Mika lessons in everything. Smiling would be the first thing I’d suggest, and posing, but also try to give them more flattering hairstyles, makeup jobs, and clothing. Have Korenaga project the image of her being a “sleepy idol”, since she looks like she’s half-awake basically all the time. Mucchi…Mucchi needs to get her tsunderekko on. Have her get pissed off a lot on national television. Give her a chin-length haircut and curl it, but nothing poodle-esque like Yossie’s was in “Yattarouze!”. The irony in this is that I don’t think many tsundere idols have curly girl hair.

Next, we have ℃-ute:

• As mentioned previously, have Suzuki Airi form a duo with Noto Arisa from Ongaku Grannies.
• Preferable frontgirls are Yajima Maimi (of course), Suzuki Airi (of course), Umeda Erika, and Arihara Kanna. Not Maimi, Airi, and Nakajima Saki. Jesus Christ. Nakasaki and Hagiwara Mai both need to get some hella vocal lessons. Okai Chisato needs to have more of a part in single A-sides, as she is vocal perfection with a side-order of Mikitty.
• Less cutesy releases like “Sakura Chirari”, less serious releases like “Tokaikko Junjou”. Remember the old days? Back when we had Megukami? Yeah, I’m sure you do, you probably cry about it as you go to bed every night. Well, those indie releases were very sassy-cute. You haven’t quite hit that mark again with any of the major ones.
• Keep having Hirata Shouichirou arrange stuff. If possible, bring in Tanaka Nao and have them collaborate on one of ℃-ute’s singles.
• No more pedoriffic covers like 3rd ~LOVE Escalation!~’s. God. I feel dirty just thinking about those.
• Consistent PV quality.
• Even line distribution. Work on harmonization skills, but don’t utilize it quite as much as I want you to with Momusu.

And it’s time for everyone’s favorite unit, Berryz Koubou:

Lol it’s my least-favorite song!

• Better consistent PV quality. You guys have had the least amount of mishaps with PVs looking terrible, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Especially considering that “Tsukiatteru no ni Kataomoi” travesty.
• MORE FAIR, EVEN LINE ARRANGEMENT PLEASE
• Stop promoting that whore. You know who I’m talking about.
• Actually, since I know you’re never going to do that, just get Sugaya Risako a metric fuckton of vocal lessons. That girl basically screams into her microphone at live performances, and her lines in singles are always uninspired and bored-sounding.
• Stop shoving Sudou Maasa and Shimizu Saki to the furthest row back. Maasa because you have been the most unfair to her out of all the Berryz and it’s pissing me off, and Shimisaki because she’s the goddamn leader and I think she deserves some respect. No matter how unpleasant wota find her to look at.
• Did I say fair line distribution? Because I mean it.
• Photobooks for everyone who doesn’t have a photobook yet.
• More album songs featuring the less-used girls as leads, i.e. “Omoitattara Kichi desse!” is the highlight of my time as a Maa fan, “Sprinter” probably made a lot of Shimisaki fans very happy, etc.
• If at all possible, hurry up and graduate Sugaya so she can have her solo career. Don’t worry, you won’t lose any fans of the music; just some dudes who have lolicon.
• Let her go! Please let my Tsugunaga Momoko go.
• Bismallah! No we will not let her go!
• Let her go!
• Bismallah! No we will not let her go!
• …no, seriously, please let Momoko use her natural voice sometime. Wait, not even just totally natural, use the one she has for Buono! Yeah!
• More solo performances from Miyabi at concerts. Her “Natsu Remember you” was heartbreaking.
• Dancing and vocal lessons for all!

A few miscellaneous H!P suggestions:

• Either give Melon Kinenbi quality releases again or give them the boot already. I almost feel bad for their fans. Also, I hate Shibata Ayumi. Good to know…?
• Quit it with the retarded outfits. Most of those pictures I posted for the primary units made me WTF. Momusu recycled a boot for those costumes they’re wearing and the other leg was just giftwrapped, Ongaku Grannies look like their cosplaying Batman & Robin, ℃-ute’s attire is like a neon abomination from Girly Hell, and the Berryz getups still don’t suit the song at all. I’m not asking you pull an AKB48 and have everyone wear schoolgirl uniforms all the time, just…more civilian-esque clothing, please?
• Stop pushing just one girl out of four, or three-and-a-half out of seven. It’s not right. It’s not fair in this kind of business where I don’t expect one lead singer and everyone else in the “band” plays instruments and such, because there is no H!P group where the girls are actually playing the instruments and composing/writing the music they play. This has been my biggest bitch with you since I got into Morning Musume back in early 2007.
• MORE DISCO PLZ.
• The international wota public has spoken, and they want four more years of GAM! (Just please go lax on the “Atsui Tamashii”-type policies, those ones suck.)
• I’m with Aoi♥Usagi on the special Valentine’s Day unit one of these years. My picks would be Mitsui Aika, Takahashi Ai, Fukaya Ai, and Suzuki Airi (but she won’t hog lines?). That is, if Fukaya Ai ever makes it into an actual unit. (Hell, she isn’t even part of the Eggs…) If anyone finds any other girls with the “愛” symbol in their names, let me know.
• Convince Fukaya Ai to join the H!P Eggs. Then promote her to Ongaku Grannies so she can be in my dream Valentine’s Day unit.
• Stop pretending Yasuda Kei, Nakazawa Yuko, Abe Natsumi, Inaba Atsuko, Maeda Yuki, and Yaguchi Mari are suitable soloists. They aren’t until you give each of their careers attention, and that has as much a chance of happening as anything else I’ve written here today. Just do something with them, they feel like excess baggage in a way.
• Bring Ogawa Makoto back from New Zealand. With her newfound (and likely New Zealand-accented) English skills, have her team up with Kimura Ayaka. They will revitalize the English Lessons show by tag-teaming people.
• Do something with Maeda Yuuka-chan. She’s an amazing vocalist for only being fourteen this year and looking like she’s six.
• Do more with the Eggs in general. They are the future of H!P, you know.
• Have Miyoshi Erika debut as a soloist. Do your best with her career.
• Put Okappai in some unit.
• Create a new group with some Eggs in it a la ℃-ute. Call them Scrambled or something.
• Stop dabbling with anime. Jesus.
• Get new arrangers, better consistent PVs, get some new composers and lyrical writers, fair line arrangement for groups, stop promoting only the same girls, etc, etc.

Alas, it would seem that they are following some of my advice. Below is the first flattering photo I’ve ever seen of Mucchi:

Now just curl her hair and we’ll be cool.