Koharu's Graduation Concert

Not long after touching down in Japan Krotch and I made our way to Harajuku to meet up with Alita so I could choose / buy my ticket for Koharu’s graduation concert. Because of the incredibly crappy exchange rate (recession sucks) I only had ¥135,000 in my pocket instead of the ¥150,000 I was expecting to have and after looking over all the tickets available for some time I’d decided on 5th row, middle / right side seat for ¥120,000. That was until Alita and Krotch pointed out a 3rd row middle / left side seat for the same price. After having this brought to my attention I snapped it up pretty fast, even with the shop owner repeatedly checking that I want to spend that much on a ticket and soon found out that I had seat number 20 which was over to the left of the stage. Semi satisfied with my purchase the only things I had left to worry about was ① I’d misplace my ticket before the concert and ② I’d get some incredibly tall, or incredibly wide Japanese guys stood in front of me which would make it hard to see even though I was only 3 rows back from the stage… After continuously fretting over not being able to see properly I was pleasantly (understatement) surprised once I got to my seat!

Nine Smile Sign

Krotch and I meet up with Bex Bissell and TerryXX at the concert venue before we all walked into the hall together to find our seats. None of us were sat together so I preceded to make my way down to the front of the venue before being unceremoniously and forcefully yanked backwards by my backpack!!! <_< Mr Japanese Usher Guy was not happy that I was making my way down to the realms of the epic seats so I had to show him my ticket to prove I wasn’t trying to get something I wasn’t entitled too. After seeing my 3rd row ticket he told me to continue. Yeah…in your face wanker! Making my way further down to the front I got a bit confused with what I was looking for and stood in a daze for a brief moment. When I eventually snapped out of it I realised the reason for my confusion was because 3rd row was in fact 1st row because of the camera set-up. Here’s how it worked; 1st row seats had been removed so that they could install a track for a dolly and camera, plus have space for 4 other cameras on tri-pods. 2nd row seats had been covered so nobody could get in the camera / camera operators way or trip over the cables. Doing this meant there was a barrier of seats between the wota and the stage and thus 3rd row was now bumped to 1st row (or front row if you want to look at it like that). This meant I had front row…

FRONT ROW BABY!!!1

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Where There’s a Will…

Momusu11362

It seems that all my hard work and overtime has paid off as I will be attending the Nine Smile tour final, which just so happens to be Koharu’s graduation concert *sob sob* At the moment I have no concert ticket because my ¥75,000 budget won’t stretch to what I want and I haven’t even booked my flight. The latter will be done tomorrow. So with that in mind it’s a bloody good job that I’m one of those strange people who enjoys working under the pressure of leaving everything to the last minute because…I will be flying out next Wednesday. Some of you may be thinking ‘¥75,000 for a ticket?! WTF? The original price is only ¥6,000′ but in the grand scheme of things ¥75,000 is not a lot. Tickets for the first 5 rows are changing hands for well over ¥100,000 a pop and a front row seat recently sold for ¥800,000!!! Ticket prices are insanely high due to the fact that the venue – Tokyo Welfare Pension Hall – doesn’t have a large seating capacity, plus Koharu is probably the 3rd most popular member of the group and as such many fans want to say goodbye to her. Even though Koharu comes in around the middle of my Morning Musume member rankings when I heard the news I immediately decided that I had to attend this show as it’s the first graduation since I became a fully fledged fan of the group. If I don’t go I know I’d regret it for a long time. Sadly there are other fans that need / deserve to be there more than me, but as they can’t go I will embody their appreciation and sadness for the graduating member, and will endeavour to express their support through ‘KO-HA-RU’ chants as much as I can. I know that this is going to be a very emotional experience for me and as such I’ve managed to persuade TerryXX to get a seat next to me (if we can), so when I’m crying like a fool I can actually spout incoherent crap in English and have somebody understand me lol. I don’t think he knows what he’s getting himself in too!!!

I already making myself all emotional just by writing this post, so as this event hasn’t even happened yet I’m going to try and make this a bit less glum. I’ve been working and planning this trip so much I actually forgot what songs were on the Nine Smile set list so after trawling through the thread on Hello! Online I found them and now I’m going to give my thoughts and expectations on each song.

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01. 3,2,1 BREAKIN’ OUT – I enjoyed this at the anime expo in L.A so I’m glad I’ll see it performed again here. I’m kinda thinking it won’t be used much after this concert although I could be wrong. It could become the new Mikan!

02. How Do You Like Japan? ~Nippon wa Donna Kanji Dekka?~ – My all time favourite MM/H!P song!!! This song is Risa’s baby and she always performs it with her OTT reaction queen enthusiasm – even when she’s ill. Very much looking forward to this d(^_^)b

03. Kimagure Princess – Boob Pumping and Butt Rubbing. What more could you ask for?

04. Nanchatte Renai – I’ve seen this song performed 3 times already so the only thing I’ll be looking out for here is Risa rubbing her hands down her boobs lol. What? >_> <_<

05. Genki+ – YES! YES! YES! Best song on Sexy 8 Beat (Shanimuni Paradise is a very close second) and I can’t wait to see it performed by the group without Yossi and Miki. In my opinion it’ll be much MUCH better then the original :P

06. Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisenai Darou? Chinese version (All members) – I can’t wait to hear everyone singing in Chinese just for the lol factor. Hopefully it won’t sound as bad as I imagine it will <_<

07. Sukiyaki (Niigaki Risa and Kusumi Koharu) – My most anticipated song of the concert. I love Sukiyaki and having Risa sing it as a duet with Koharu means the performance should be a laugh. I’m actually just as excited about this song as I am about attending the concert itself ^^;

08. Haru Beautiful Everyday (Kamei Eri and Mitsui Aika) – I quite like the song but it’s not amazing. Hopefully having Eri on stage will stop me from wanting to stab myself when Aika is singing her lines…

09. Kioku no Meiro (Takahashi Ai and Tanaka Reina) - Awesome song which should look and sound great being performed by these two. Hopefully it isn’t lacking without the rest of High-King.

10. Aruiteru (Michishige Sayumi → Morning Musume joins in halfway) – Sayumi’s singing skills aren’t amazing but I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt as her version of Lemon Iro to Milk Tea was my favourite out of the three Rokkies from the Resonant LIVE tour. One performance to look out for.

11. Aki Urara – Not a fan of the song but as something has to blow during this concert it’ll probably be this. Hopefully I’ll be pleasantly surprised *LMAO – when I started writing about this song Aki Urara started playing on my iTunes. Spooky!

12. Shouganai Yume Oibito – I wanna see this live just for the ‘pumping’ parts. Pity they won’t be wearing the same cream outfits as they wore for the PV but meh, can’t have everything.

13. Sakura Mankai (Takahashi Ai, Niigaki Risa, Kamei Eri, Mitsui Aika and Linlin) - I prefer the other Sakura Gumi song over this one but I’m still interested in seeing it. Just a pity they put Aika in there but then she suits this more than Otome Gumi.

14. Yuujou ~Kokoro no Busu ni Naranee!~ (Michishige Sayumi, Tanaka Reina, Kusumi Koharu and Junjun) – To be perfectly honest I’ve not heard this song before o_O I just watched a small part of it on You Tube (so can save my cherry popping for Japan) and from that little listen I prefer Ai no Sono ~Touch My Heart!~ over this. I can see it making for a lively performance though and I’m glad that Jun Jun’s been put in this group as she suits this style of song more than Sakura Mankai.

15. Dekkai Uchuu ni Ai ga Aru – Whenever I hear this song I think of the 24 hour TV show which is kinda like Britain’s Children in Need <_< Although I do like the song it always make me feel sad lol. This is probably where I’ll start crying about the graduation…

(Start of Coupling/with medley)

16. Bonkyu! Bonkyu! BOMB Girl – Awesome song to start a medley with! I wanna see Sayumi running backwards whilst singing the “ichi-ni-san-shi…” part so I hope they use the first half of the song here and the second half at the end!

17. Please! Jiyuu no Tobira – I’m really not a fan of this song and as such I’m glad that it will only be partially performed. I can’t say anything more really.

18. Handmade CITY – Holy Hentai Batman! Why the hell is this a medley song??? Hopefully the way it’s set up will make up for this fact, but god I love this song and it’s seems like an injustice to not play it in it’s entirety >_<

19. Odore! Morning Curry – Once again another awesome song put in to a medley. I have my fingers crossed that these two songs are incorporated together in some incredibly clever way *prays*

(Coupling/with medley ended with Bonkyu! Bonkyu! BOMB Girl again)

20. Joshi Kashimashi Monogatari (Full version, Junjun → Linlin → Mitsui Aika → Kusumi Koharu → Michishige Sayumi → Kamei Eri → Tanaka Reina → Niigaki Risa → Takahashi Ai) – Another YES YES YES! song! I’ve wanted a version of this with Jun and Lin for some time now and I’ve always hoped to see it performed live. It’s one of the few songs which makes me wish I could understand Japanese T_T

21. Naichau Kamo – Grrr! I dislike this song with a passion although I must admit that I say “COME ON COME ON COME ON COME ON” in a Kamo way in work lol. Maybe seeing it live will make it grow on me.

22. Resonant Blue – I like the song but I don’t like the fact that Risa and Eri got shafted in it (although not as shafted as Sayu, Aika, Jun and Lin). Highlights should be Ai-chan’s random leg shaking thing and Eri’s spazzy dancing XD

ENCORE

23. SONGS – The opening to this at the Platinum 9 Disco concert was amazing so I’m wondering what they’re going to do here. I’ll probably be slightly disappointed but I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

24. Love Machine – Old faithful like Berryz Kobo’s Special Generation. I’m glad this is in here as it’s another song I’d like to see performed live and I also think it’ll be a pretty good song to end the concert with. I wonder if Koharu will get her wish to do the opening “DEIAA” part instead of Risa. As it’ll be her last concert as a Hello! Project member I hope she gets to do this *fingers crossed*

Roman ~MY DEAR BOY~ was on the set list I got from Hello! Online as song number 22 but was not on the recording I downloaded of the Chiba concert. I didn’t listen to the whole fan recording so if it’s performed or not I don’t know. I suppose I’ll find out once I’m in Japan.

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All that’s left for me to say now is that I hope nothing goes drastically wrong so that I can’t attend this concert at all. The only thing I can see going wrong is that because of my fussiness I miss out on buying a ticket through Yahoo Auctions. If that happens I’m gonna have to go through a re-seller and that could be majorly costly, but I do have a back up plan in place for this, I think… All that stands between now and then is 60 hours of work, a 4.5 hour coach journey to London Heathrow and a 13 hour indirect flight via Munich. Hello boredom! It’ll be worth it in the end though ^^

GANBARORI!

Koharu to Graduate

From H!P FC site and translated by b.Slade and Kuno Hello! Online

Tsunku Statement

モーニング娘。の7期メンバー「久住小春」に関して
モーニング娘。7期目メンバーの久住小春が「モーニング娘。コンサートツアー2009秋~ナインスマイル~」の最終公演(12月6日)を持ちましてモーニング娘。そしてHello! Projectを卒業することを決定いたしました。
モーニング娘。としての活動期間4年4ヶ月の間に、歌手やタレントとしてのイロハを学んで来ました。
そんな久住も来年には18歳になります。
団体活動としてやるべき事はかなりのペースで学んで来ました。
その間には「月島きらり」としての活動も平行して行ってきました。
そのようなこれまでの活動すべてを見た上での判断ですが、
私は、プロデューサーとして久住をソロ活動させたく思い、卒業させることを決めました。
とは言ってもいきなり歌手デビューとか何々デビューとかそういうことでなく、まだまだあら削りな部分もありますので、現状の久住で出来る仕事をがんばりつ つ、個人的にさまざまなレッスンや習い事をし、本人の希望するモデルとしての新たな出発を目指し、新しいステップに進ませようと思います。
ということで、これまで応援くださった皆様はこれまでどおり、
「久住小春」及び「モーニング娘。」を応援くださいますよう、
なにとぞよろしくお願いいたします!

2009年9月19日
モーニング娘。プロデューサー
つんく♂

At the final performance of of the “Morning Musume Concert Tour 2009 Autumn ~ Nine Smile ~” (Dec 6), 7th generation Morning Musume member Kusumi Koharu will be graduating from Morning Musume, and from Hello!Project. During the 4 years and 4 months she was in Morning Musume, she has learnt the basics as a singer and a talent. And next year, she will turn 18. She’s come to learn the base of what it takes to work in a group. And at the same time, she’s been working as “Tsukishima Kirari”. Based on seeing all of her work so far, as a producer, I felt I wanted to let her have a solo career, so decided to have her graduate. Having said that, she won’t be making a singing debut or any other kind of debut right away, and some of the plans are still a bit rough, but Kusumi will continue to work hard for now, while privately taking various lessons. Her own hope is to be a model, so I think she’ll be aiming towards a new direction, and taking new steps. So everybody who has supported her so far, please continue to give your support to Kusumi Koharu, and to Morning Musume. Thank you very much!

2009-9-19
Morning Musume Producer
Tsunku♂

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Koharu Statement

いつも応援ありがとうございます。
モーニング娘。として、約4年間やってきましたが 12月6日の東京厚生年金会館のモーニング娘。のコンサートをもって、モーニング娘。、ハロー!プロジェクトを卒業することになりました。
今後はやりたいことの一つであるモデルに挑戦していきたいと思っています。
今まで、モーニング娘。として活動してきましたが今後は久住小春として色々な夢、やりたいことに向かって進んでいきたいと思います。
これからも応援よろしくお願いいたします。

Thank you for your continued support. I’ve been with Morning Musume for around 4 years now, and at the December 6 Morning Musume concert at Tokyo Kouseinen Kinkaikan, I will be graduating from Morning Musume, and from Hello!Project. One of the things I want to do from now is to try modelling. I have been active in Morning Musume so far, but now as Kusumi Koharu, I want to move forward, facing my different dreams and goals. Please continue to give me your support.

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This has become a sad sad day for me. I’m so sad I can’t even think properly. Why her? Why now? DAMMIT!