2 posts tagged “introduction”

In this post I thought I would continue with the introduction material and talk about the origin of my H!P fandom and how it has evolved over time. Where I live I guess there is a fairly large Japanese speaking population since they broadcast some Japanese programming on one of the local television stations. When I was younger they used to schedule a number of music variety shows, like HEY!HEY!HEY! and that type of thing, and I would sometimes watch them because there might be attractive women on as guests. I had absolutely no interest in Japanese music or entertainers beyond that purely superficial level and it was more of a "sound optional" television watching experience. As time passed my household eventually got cable TV and with it the "International Channel" which expanded my exposure to those programs. Then one day I tuned into one of these shows (I don't recall which one) and when the guests came out it was bunch of little girls wearing blue and yellow dresses with knee pads. I don't remember, but knowing me it is likely I said something along the lines of "What the Hell" at that very moment. I didn't see a performance by those girls, in fact I didn't even watch the entire talk segment with them, it is likely there was something else I wanted to see at the same time. In any case, I filed that little piece of information away and continued with my life.

I didn't think much of that incident until I was walking home one evening in late June of '05. I don't know what triggered it but suddenly I started wondering what had happened to those girls; whether they had fulfilled their dreams and found success or if they had fallen back into the obscurity that I assumed they had come from. It seemed to me that since they were a group of little girls it was very unlikely that they would last longer than one record. I believed their main selling point would be novelty value, and once people became accustomed to that they would have no reason to go back for more. Curious about the fate of those girls I turned to the source of all knowledge, the Internet, for answers. I didn't even know the name of the group so I had to use my 1337 Google skillz to identify them. I don't remember what search terms I used (though I'm sure the NSA still knows), but it was probably something like "blue yellow dress girl jpop". Well, I had some success and learned that the name of the group was Berryz Koubou (or Koubo or Kobo or some collection of lines I had no hope of deciphering) and that they were part of a larger music collective called "Hello! Project". I also learned that another Hello! Project group called "Morning Musume" had their own television program where Berryz Koubou would sometimes appear as guests, and that you could steal episodes of this show from various places on the internet. So I joined Hello!Online where the first two torrents I ever downloaded were this one of "Nanchuu Koi wo Yatteru YOU KNOW?", which was the first PV I ever saw and is to this day one of my least favorite Berryz songs. The other thing I got was the most recent episode of Hello! Morning in the hope that Berryz would be present. Berryz Koubou wasn't there but I was treated to a very funny episode of Hello! Morning where Morning Musume had to speak what could loosely be described as "English".

It was the first time I saw that Morning Musume was entertaining in its own right and not just a path to get to some phantom group I had seen once before. Also it was the dawn of my fandom of "cheese in refrigeeta" Kamei Eri and "Meron! Meron!" Michishige Sayumi. I now understood that great pleasure could be had in following Hello! Project and I continued on gradually seeing more and learning about the various aspects of idols and H!P that you don't really see in U.S. music, like photobooks and shuffle units. Well, I suppose groups like New Kids on the Block probably had photobooks, but I really wouldn't know for sure. Anyway, there was one of these Japanese peculiarities that had a fairly significant impact on me.

The 2006 Hello! Project sports festival came around and I was full of eager anticipation since it would be my first time seeing one. At that time I'd only ever seen small clips of the previous festivals, but I knew it would be a chance to see (almost) all of Hello! Project together at one time. I thought the whole thing was lots of fun, however, the single most significant moment for me happened in the first few minutes of the event as the contestants were walking out onto the field. I was watching them line up and all I could think was, "Whoa! Nakajima Saki is sooo pretty!".

I'm not sure what it is I like about her, I do like her smile a lot, I have huge teeth like her and feel a sort of kinship over that... she also has a very round head... but I suppose these things don't really need a reason. In any case, at this point I knew nearly nothing about C-ute, the only member I could recognize was Murakami Megumi, who I knew from Sexy Otona Jan, but the rest required tables of photos and names. However from this point on I knew that would have to change and out of my desire to see more of Nakajima Saki I started watching all the C-ute I could. In contrast to my view of Nakajima, my initial feelings towards Okai Chisato were a lot cooler. I liked that she seemed to value play quite a bit, she would spend time goofing around with Hagiwara Mai while the other girls her age would spend more time with the older three. To me this meant that Chisato wanted to extract all the fun that life had to offer, and cared about that more than appearances and being "grown-up". That's the type of prioritizing I like, though if you were to ask me what I  thought of her, I might have described her as being too homely. Things continued like this until I first saw the Hello! Days Volume 5 DVD that featured C-ute. When they were doing the nickname segment and the suggestion of "Okai-shounen" (岡井少年) came up and Chisato replied with something like, "Um. But I'm not a boy..." I was so overwhelmed by her cuteness that I had all my doubts about her dispelled. Watching the backstage segments, seeing the staring contests and her janken face off with MaiMai I thought that maybe there was greatness in Okai that I hadn't truly appreciated before. Afterward came the stage segments where she was talking and everyone else was looking at her like she was crazier than an antarctic nudist. Okai frequently seemed like she was in her own little world talking with Mai and Murakami Megumi there, and by the time she was acting out the dispensing of soft serve ice-cream and sassing Megumi for doubting her I knew I had new favorite in the world of idols. Later on, I learned that Chisato can sing too! Shoot, from that point there has been no one besides Okai for me, she has all that I am looking for in an idol.

This post has sort of turned into an Okai Chisato love fest, but I think that is okay... after all, my whole life has sort of changed into an Okai Chisato love fest. Looking back, I have been around for less than three years, and in that short time I've seen sex scandals, teen pregnancy, expulsions, and the end of great things like summer shuffles, sports festivals and Hello! Morning. Heck, I've even seen Nacchi nearly commit vehicular manslaughter, and in spite of all of that I'm still here. I think that is proof that I just don't learn too good... though my school transcripts alone should be proof of that... *cough*. Still, there is lots of wonderful entertainment within H!P and as long as there is joy to be had I want a share of it, even if it comes with a taste of drama now and then.

Greetings and welcome to my blog. I think I'll start with some basic introduction type material. I am 26 years old, male, my drugs of choice are alcohol and sleep deprivation. Currently I am going by "Otingocni", but I have no real attachment to this name. I picked it as a throwaway identity to be used once and tossed aside, as it is simply "Incognito" backwards I think that should be pretty clear. When I first used this name I entered it into a search engine it was less common than I thought it would be (but by no means unique) and I've used it a couple times since then. I eventually decided that even though I haven't really got any reason to I might as well make this the name I shall be known by. However if you see an Otingocni anywhere non-JPop related it probably isn't me. I never used to post much on the internet, but in recent months I've started venturing out into this online community more, and well... what I posted was invariably stupid.

So, this is where this blog comes in, in my mind it will achieve two things: 1) It will be a first foray into community, where I will have one constant known identity that is to represent me. 2) It will be spot for me to vent my arrogance. Part of the reason I started posting so much was that I starting thinking that I had something worthwhile to say, something that someone else might benefit from hearing or some kind original insight. What a horrible conceit that is. So this blog will give me a chance to shout into the void those things that my own unparalleled vanity feels I must say, whilst not cluttering other people's blogs and forums with the absurd drivel that results. It would also reduce the chance of me offending someone (as long as this blog goes unknown), and it would at the very least mean I wouldn't offend them on their home turf. Anyway I have a whole folder of replies and comments I've written that I was either too weak, or perhaps intelligent, to post and this would give me a chance to consider actually using them. Though, I don't really think that would be a step forward for me, I'm not sure, but whatever.

Regarding the path this blog is to take... I've discovered one thing: I can't write for crap. My writing ability is shamefully weak. I write something, then proofread it and discover that it doesn't make any sense. It is not just that my ideas aren't properly expressed, but more that it seems like it was produced by machine translation or something like that and not a native English speaker. So I proofread and edit, proofread and edit, proofread and edit until I get it to a point at which I think it says something comprehensible, but when I look back on it later I frequently find that it says something different than what I thought it did when I posted it. Honestly, I would like to develop an easy, conversational style as it would fit in well with my digressive way of thinking, but as I can't even handle basic grammar I think that is foolishly ambitious. Right now my aim is basic readability, though I find I fall well short of the mark...

I might as well take this opportunity to discuss how I got here, and some of my blogging influences. I suppose a lot of influence has to be attributed to the incomparable Mr. Ray Mescallado of American Wota fame. Back in the halcyon days prior to Koharu's first photobook the English language fan community was... more than a little divided as to how to view that upcoming release. Many posts could be read loudly decrying this new horridly pedo turn in H!P products. I was reading a thread along those lines on mm-bbs one day, when Ray posted something to the effect of "Man I hope this PB is pedolicious goodness", that is HORRIBLE paraphrasing but I think you get the point (I haven't been able to find the comment in question). This, not surprisingly, elicited a lot of "WTF?" and "I can't believe you just said that" type responses, to which Ray replied "I say much worse stuff on my blog". Now, I usually can't stand it when people shamelessly self-promote their own blogs, but in this case I decided to check it out. I was pretty well blown away, in particular the Freudian U-15 Analysis, and the review of "Fighting Pose wa Date Janai" changed my view of blogging. From there, reading the 'Feed of Pop' and the Sunday Blog Roundups I started following more and more J-Pop blogs.

One of the people I became aware of through this was Craig (who, surprisingly, currently has a blog I can link). I look up to Craig and his frequently unabashedly honest style. A lot of the time I look at his single image or video clip posts and say to myself, "I understand exactly what he is trying to say here" or "I can see what he sees as interesting or noteworthy in this piece", honestly I don't know whether I really get it or if I am simply deluding myself, the rest of the time I just throw up my hands and say "I don't know what in the 9 Hells Craig is on about now". Still, I think that is a powerful style as it forces the observer to try and see the post through the blogger's eyes and discern the meaning in that way, "Why this particular picture, and not some other one?", this shared vision leads to a greater sympathy between the poster and the reader. Well, that's my (likely unoriginal) theory anyway. Personally I see his review of Risako's first photobook as the high water mark of all entertainment writing. I have yet to see anything that can approach the pure _truth_ of that one article.

Overall my favorite blog would have to be MorningBerryz's. I love his ebullient style and am jealous of his positive outlook. His writing is so infectiously upbeat he can get me interested in NASCAR, something I'm generally not the least bit interested in. His reviews got me to watch Haromoni@ again even after the first two episodes left me so disgusted I thought I would never watch that program again. Even when he criticizes the current format of the show, he does so by pointing out the things about Hello! Morning that he loved and focuses on the wonderful things that show had to offer. My desire to be more like MorningBerryz is why I decided to join Vox and host my blog here, or it could just be that I envy his Kamei Italian parsley. (Sorry I failed at voting for you in the IntlWota awards.)

I don't know where this blog is headed in the future. Part of me wants to be on International Wota, with Ray or wu-san slapping a "Recommended Reading" tag on there, praising my insight, but the rest of me doesn't desire that kind of notoriety. For now... I've set my mind on nothing, and hope that I can achieve it, and that when I do it will bring me happiness without compare.